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Re: Number eight! (was: Re: Number nine, number nine.,..)

From:Ed Heil <edh@...>
Date:Wednesday, May 10, 2000, 8:07
On Wed, 10 May 2000, Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> At 00:19 10/05/00 CDT, you wrote: > >I was thinking the other day while on the bus, and wondered what would be > >the minimum practical phonology for a language. (Which is in contrast to my > >plans for Tech, where I wanted as large a phonology as reasonably (?) > >possible.) I came up with six consoannts and three vowels: > > Hey hey... one of my first conlangs does better, with only eight phonemes: > - four consonnants: k, m, s, f > - four vowels: a, i, o, u > Syllable structure V, CV, VC, or CVC, with CC-clusters allowed at the > beginning of a word.
You've both got me beat. proto-Chanan had: p t tS k w l r m n a e u Twelve -- a comparative extravagance! But my sources attested them all; what could I do? Possible syllables were (I)V(n) where I= Tr or C where T= p t k and C = any consonant That makes, let's see, I think 78 possible syllables. (13 possible I including zero; 3 possible V; 2 possible (n) including zero)