Re: TERMS: Umlaut-Ablaut

On Sun, 14 Nov 1999, Raymond Brown wrote:

>At 10:48 pm -0300 13/11/99, FFlores wrote:
>>
>>I have two questions: are there natlangs where umlaut is still
>>productive? (Sindarin comes to mind...) And is it common to
>>have several types of umlaut, like Welsh?
>
>I think it's not unusual - Old Norse had both i-umlaut & u-umlaut.
And a.

>
>>I'm thinking that
>>having i- and a-umlaut may be more likely than having, say,
>>i- and u-umlaut, since those could confuse roots even more
>>(what is */mys/, << /misu/ or << /musi/)?
>
>Well, if you introduced a series of _unrounded_ back vowels you could have
>both.  /mys/ is more likely to be derived from /musi/, and /mMs/ coul well
>be from /misu/.  The lips keep in their original position - i.e. rounded or
>unrounded, but the tongue has moved to the position of the lost final vowel.
>
>>Well, and a third question: which vowels are more likely to
>>cause umlaut? All we've seen until now is the vertices of
>>the vowel triangle.
>
>'vertices' - that's the word I was trying to think of early this morning   :)
>
>Yep - this is no coincidence.  The tongue is far more likely to modify
>preceding vowels if it is moving towards one of the vowels on the vertex of
>the vocalic triangle.
Are there o and e umlaut at all then?  What kind of umlaut is
"Goethe", or is it?  I always thought it was, but would appreciate
clarification.

Padraic.

>Ray.