Re: Three vowel systems (was: Brr)

Mark J. Reed skrev:
 > On 8/1/07, Joseph Fatula <joefatula@...> wrote:
 >> I'm not sure why that would be the case. The ancestral
 >> language to most of the langs I've been working with over
 >> the past few years has a 9-vowel system, plus length,
 >> making it 18.
 >
 >
 >
 > Wow. And they say that even 10-vowel systems (including
 > length) are unstable. :)
 >
 >

Standard Swedish has 9 vowels, possibly plus length,
although the jury is chronically out on whether vowel
length is phonemic or a function of stress and syllable
structure/morphotactics. Many Swedish dialects add three
more vowels to that system:

: i   y   (u\)    u
:
: e   2   8       o
:
: E       (3\)
:
: (a)             Q/A

Items in parentheses are the extra 'dialectal' vowels.


/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se
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