Re: Romanization of Reduced Vowels

Raymond Brown wrote:
-----<snip>-----
>At 3:51 am +0100 8/12/98, Kristian Jensen wrote:
>
>>Well, I was thinking along the lines of the epenthetic vowel
>>that occurs between conjuncts in words of the Mon-Khmer type.
>>That is, a major syllable is preceded by numerous minor
>>syllables. Some of these minor syllable coallesce to form
>>consonant clusters. For example:
>>
>>-> /s.r@j/ "female" - /s/ and /r/ would be separated by a
>>voiceless [@].
>>
>>-> /m.daj/ "mother" - /m/ and /d/ would be separated by a voiced
>>[@].
>>
>>-> /p.ram/ "five" - /p/ and /r/ forms a cluster without an
>>epenthetic vowel.
>>
>>-> /m.w@y/ "one" - m and w is separated by a very short [U] if
>>at all.
>>
>>-> /m.j@n/ "to have" - m and j is separated by a very short [I]
>>if at all.
>>
>>As one can see vowel in minor syllables has several phonetic
>>values depending on the environment: voiced and voiceless [@],
>>zero, [U], or [I]. Should this vowel be represented in Roman
>>orthography?
>
>Depends whether you consider the vowel to have a phonemic status,
>i.e. is zero a conditioned reflex of the shwa of these minor
>syllables or are these 'epenthetic vowels' more akin to the type
>of pronunciations one can come across in certain varieties of
>English, e.g. ['fIl@m] 'film', [nk@'rEdIbl] 'incredible'?   I
>guess to some extent this is a matter a personal choice, but from
>the examples given I'd probably not write the vowel.
>
>>If so, should it be presented by one symbol or several symbols
>>to reflect the pronounciation?
>
>Certainly not from the examples given above.  The [U] and [I] in
>the above examples are clearly colored by the following [w] and
>[j]; to use separate symbols for conditionally colored
>epenthetic, anaptyctic and/or svarabhakti vowels is both
>unnecessary and IMHO quite unadvisable.
>
Well then, what about in words such as /s.li:/ where /s/ and /l/ is
seperated by an [I]?

And in words like /k.m.rup/ 'to complete' where /k/ and /m/ is
separated by [U], and /m/ and /r/ is separated by zero? Actually,
the "-m-" in /k.m.rup/ is an infix to /k.rup/ 'all', where /k/ and
/r/ is separated by zero.

Perhaps the [I] in /s.li:/ is conditioned by the [i:] and the [U] in
/k.m.rup/ conditioned by the [m] and/or the [u]? In any case, in
very slow and precise speech, these reduced vowels are fully
articulated (either [@] [I] or [U])and not reduced to zero. So these
vowels are there, but som tend to disappear in normal speech to form
clusters. Does that mean they have phonemic status? And if so, would
that mean I should represent them?

I'm sorry, but I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean when
you ask whether these vowels have phonemic status. I'm so ignorant,
you see... B48-)

Regards,
-Kristian- 8-)