Re: A "minimalist" phonology...

At 2:47 am -0400 20/4/01, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>Danny Wier wrote:
[snip]
>>Here is the phonology for Japanese, with "voiced", etc. characters
>>included.
>>
>>Vowels: a i u e o
>>Consonants: k~g s~z t~d n h~b~p m y r w -n
[snip]

>>For a "small-phonology" language, the consonants could include the
>>voiceless
>>stops and others found in Japanese, to wit:
>>
>>k s t n p m y r w n
>
>Two "n"s? Going to to copy the Japanese syllable structure?
Looks like it.  Presumbably the first {n} is n- and the second is -n.  One
wonders why, however, the sound is written twice in a _minimalist_
phonology.

[snip]
>>
>>A five vowel system can also be reduced to four or three, either a-e-i-o
>>(or
>>a-e-i-u), or a-i-u (or a-i-o or a-e-o).
>
>a-i-u is pretty much the "standard" three vowel inventory.
It certainly is, being found in classical Arabic, in Cree & IIRC Innuit.

But another symmetrical three-vowel pattern is, I understand, found in a
Caucasian language called Adyge, which has only central, unroynded vowels,
namely:
  high    /1/
   mid    /@/
   low    /a/

>For four vowels
>I'd suggest a-i-u-@ (schwa). Nice and symetrical.
Yes, it is, as is also the scheme found in Amahuaca (South American lang):
       font  central  back
high   /i/    /1/     /u/
 low          /a/

Another symmetrical four-vowel system is found in Apachean, Fox, Shawnee &
some other native languages of north & south America, namely:
         Font     Back
  high    /i/      /u/
   low    /e/      /o/

Some scholars, indeed, posit the above four-vowel system as being that of
ProtoGermanic.

Some hold that PIE had only one vowel /@/ and others that it had _no_ vowel
phonemes.  That's about as minimalist as one can get, methinks.

Ray.



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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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