Re: Help with IPA, Gothic

Tristan McLeay scripsit:

> <ai>, <au>, where there might be an accent on the first or second element
> of the <ai> and <au>. By the later periods, I understand these were always
> prounced as /E/, /O/, though their readings varied (I can't remember which
> was which, but at one stage or another I think one represented diphthongs,
> one long /E:/, /O:/, and one /E/, /O/).
ái, áu represented true diphthongs in an earlier period, but were probably
pronounced /E:/, /O:/ in Wulfila's day.  aí, aú represent /E/ and /O/
and appear either in Greek loanwords (where they represent epsilon and
omicron) or before r, h, or hw (where they derive from older i and u).
The spellings ai, au, with no accents, represent /E:/ and /O:/ and
appear only before another vowel.  These distinctions exists only in
Latin transcription, not in the Gothic script.

Other special cases:  q represents [k_w] or [kw]; "ggw" can be either
[Ng_w] or [g:_w].  h syllable-final is [x]; b and d are fricativized
intervocalically to [v] and [D].  iu is a true diphthong [ju].

--
My confusion is rapidly waxing          John Cowan
For XML Schema's too taxing:            jcowan@reutershealth.com
    I'd use DTDs                        http://www.reutershealth.com
    If they had local trees --          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
I think I best switch to RELAX NG.