Re: Illegal vowel combinations

At 12:15 am -0500 7/8/01, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>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.
>
[snip]

>> 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,
...and according to some theorists ProtoIndoEuropean also had no phonemic
vowels.

Yep, examples of three-vowel languages are common enough.  I can add to the
languages already mentioned: Aranda (another Australian language) and
Amuesha (a language of the equitorial Andes) - and I have no doubt that
there are quite a few others no one has mentioned.

Some of the Caucasian languages have, indeed, been analyzed as having one
or two phonemic vowels but, I believe, these analyses are not universally
accepted and there is argument about the how much phonetic contrasts are
due to the consonant system; and this is certainly so of PIE and,
presumably, of the Papua New Guinea language mentioned above.

But, leaving aside the controversial cases, three-vowel languages are
well-attested; less common are four-vowel languages, but they do occur,
e.g. Rukai (an Austronesian language): /i/ /1/ /u/ /a/; Klamath ( a ): /i/
/e/ /a/ /o/.  According to some theorists Proto-Germanic also had a
four-vowel system.

One doesn't have to try very hard - there are languages enough with fewer
vowels than Spanish.

Ray.

BTW - I'm a bit mistified by the subject heading (I missed the beginning of
the thread).  How can any vowel combination be _illegal_?  What or whose
law do I break if I use such a combination?  Will I be arrested &
prosecuted?  It reminds me of those stupid messages "illegal operation"
mesaages I get whenever I have the misfortune to have to use Windows  :)

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