Re: Three vowel systems (was: Brr)

Hallo!

On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 09:13:58 +0200, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:

> AFMOC Kijeb has a three vowel system without quantity
> distinctions which first grows to a nine vowel system thru
> umlaut processes and merger of unstressed vowels, and then
> again shrinks to a five or six vowel system through further
> mergers (/o/ > /Q/; /e/, /u\/ > /i\/; /@/ > /6/; /i\/ > /i/)
> in stressed vowels and vowel height harmony. Some dialects
> also develop long vowels through loss of /j w h G/ and front
> rounded vowels through vowel frontness harmony.
Proto-Albic also has a 3-vowel system without quantity.
In Classical Old Albic, the diphthongs *ai and *au changed into
/e/ and /o/, respectively, when in a closed syllable; also,
*aja and *ava became /e/ and /o/.  And then, umlaut created
more "mixed" vowels, inclusing front rounded ones.  Loss of
post-vocalic *h with compensatory lengthening created long vowels.
In the end, Classical Old Albic has /a e i o u 2 y/ and their long
counterparts.  In some dialects, different developments happened.

On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 12:37:11 -0400, John Vertical wrote:

> I've gotten the impression that 3-vowel conprotolangs are popular for some
> reason.
My reason for it was that the way vowel features behave in Old Albic,
it makes sense to deduce it all from a 3-vowel system.  Also, the
Old European hydronymy hints at the former existence of a 3-vowel
language in much of western Europe; and I fancy Albic to be remotely
related to Indo-European, which also appears to have had a 3-vowel
system before the development of ablaut.

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