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Re: a-umlaut (was Re: Epicene words)

From:Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
Date:Wednesday, March 2, 2005, 11:47
Ray Brown wrote:
> On Tuesday, March 1, 2005, at 06:16 , Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
>> No ;-) I resisted putting in e-umlaut, o-umlaut, etc.; that would >> have reduced my nice vowel system to a stew of /2/s ;-) > > > So I should think ;) > > AFAIK e-umlaut & o-umlaut are not found in natlangs, only i-umlaut (the > most common), a-umlaut and u-umlaut (apparently the least common). It > seems that suffixes with vowels at the apexes of the vocalic triangle have > a tendency to affect the vowel of the stem. >
Kejeb started out with only the three vowels *a *i *u, but then a full set of umlauts expands that to nine vowels i i\ u\ u e o & a Q which are then again reduced to six or five in the dialects through merger. Classical Sohlob has i i\ u & a Q while Kidilib has the same minus /i\/ (_e_ in the romanization being /i\/ in Classical Sohlob and /&/ in Kidilib). Linjeb has i y u e o a The mergers are not always the obvious ones. Thus /e/ of the first umlauted stage goes into /i\/ in Classical Sohlob but into /&/ in Kidilib, while Linjeb /y/ contains both /u\/ and /u/, Linjeb /u/ being from secondary diphthongs arisen through the loss of intervocalic *N and *s > h. Other dialects that I haven't worked a lot on yet acquire also front rounded vowels from /u o Q/ when there is a palatal vowel in the same word. -- /BP 8^)> -- Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant! (Tacitus)