Re: Illegal vowel combinations

Herman Miller wrote:

> On Mon, 6 Aug 2001 17:43:54 -0400, Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> wrote:
>
> >J Y S Czhang wrote:
> >>     ROTFLMAO ... *gaspin' for air*
> >> ::tries in vain to recall the names of some languages with even less vowels
> >> than Spanish::
> >
> >Quechua for one.  Classical Arabic has just /a i u/ with length,
> >Inukitut has /i a u/ with, I think, phonemic length, Early Uatakassí had
> >just /i a u/, Classical Uatakassí added phonemic length to those.
Palaeo-Tlaspi had a three-vowel system:  /i u a/.  In Classical Tlaspi, each of
those acquired a phonemically long counterpart.  In Proto-Phaleran, mid vowels
/e/ and /o/ were introduced, which are preserved in modern Phaleran.  These last
however, have no long counterparts. This is why there would be a problem
with _eos_ as I said in my post on Phaleran ergativity:  benefactive *-es lost the
/e/, which lengthened the preceding vowel.  This means that if there were long
mid vowels, you could presumably have /eo:s/ (benefactive) and /eos/ (accusative)
as a minimal pair.  But this is not the case.

> A number of Australian languages have just /a i u/: Dyirbal and Yidiny come
> to mind. Of my own languages, there's Chispa (with /a e i/) and Zirien
> (with /a e i u/, but also having phonemic tone and length).
Abkhaz, a Caucasian language, has two phonemic vowels:  /a/ and /@/.
(There are other nonphonemic variants.)  There is a rumored to be a language
in Papua New Guinea that has no phonemic vowels, lots of consonants, with
only epenthetic, nonphonemic schwas to break apart otherwise impossible consonant
clusters.  I suspect this less to do with any actual knowledge about PNG's languages
and more to do with a belief  that anything  can happen in 'bongo-bongo land', as one
of Margret Thatcher's indiscrete Foreign Ministers once put it.  (Obviously, not *my*
belief.)

===================================
Thomas Wier | AIM: trwier

"Aspidi men Saiôn tis agalletai, hên para thamnôi
  entos amômêton kallipon ouk ethelôn;
autos d' exephugon thanatou telos: aspis ekeinê
  erretô; exautês ktêsomai ou kakiô" - Arkhilokhos

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