Re: Latin <h>

Christophe Grandsire scripsit:

> French is maybe the only language to have such a
> "negative phoneme", i.e. something which is unpronounced but does
> influence pronunciation :) ).
It's all in the representation.  Suppose Welsh had an etymologizing
spelling like French, instead of its phonetic one.  Then it might
write _ci_ /ki/ 'dog', _tris ci_ /trixi/ 'three dogs' instead of
the actual spelling _tri chi_.  (The derivation is [triski] > [trihki] >
[trixi].)  In that case, the final -s would look like a negative
phoneme too.

--
John Cowan                              jcowan@reutershealth.com
http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              http://www.reutershealth.com
Thor Heyerdahl recounts his attempt to prove Rudyard Kipling's theory
that the mongoose first came to India on a raft from Polynesia.
        --blurb for _Rikki-Kon-Tiki-Tavi_