Re: Umlaut (was: More questions)

Hallo!

On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 19:13:07 +0000,
Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

> On Tuesday, November 25, 2003, at 09:06 PM, Amanda Babcock wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 09:26:41AM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> >
> >> There are three types of umlaut recognized in Germanistics:  i-umlaut,
> >> or fronting, which is the type you describe; u-umlaut, or rounding;
> >> a-umlaut, or lowering.
> >
> > Is there a general tendency toward fronting, rounding, and lowering,
> > as opposed to backing, unrounding, and raising, or are these just the
> > three orthogonal operations Germanic languages chose to use?
>
> i-umlaut & a-umlaut certainly occur in Welsh and and the other Brittonic
> langs.
> i-umaut occurs in the Gaelic langs - I'm not sure if a-umlaut does.
>
> The tendency, if there is a shifting, seems to be towards one of the
> apexes of
> the 'vocalic triangle' as, I think, John's email implies.  AFAIK i-umlaut
> is
> the most common variety, a-umlaut second most and u-umlaut least frequent.
ObConlang: My conlang family provisionally designated "Q" has i-umlaut
and u-umlaut; I am considering adding a-umlaut, but I am not sure about
the latter.  However, as I think about it, I think a-umlaut is a good
idea.  Makes matters neatly symmetrical and more complex.

Greetings,

Jörg.

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