Re: Question about vowel harmono
| From: | Patrick Dunn <tb0pwd1@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, May 3, 2001, 3:45 |
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On Wed, 2 May 2001, Patrick Dunn wrote:
> On Wed, 2 May 2001, Frank George Valoczy wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 2 May 2001, Patrick Dunn wrote:
> >
> > > On Wed, 2 May 2001, Frank George Valoczy wrote:
> > >
> > > > generally vowel-harmonic languages consider /i/ and /e/ to be neutral
> > > > sounds, excet Turkish which has a counterart to /i/. Also most of them
> > > > have counterarts for each vowel, if you have [a] [o] [u] you will have [&]
> > > > [2] [y] as well...
> > >
> > > /&/ is like the OE aesc, right?
> > > What's /2/?
> > >
> >
> > ipa o-slash
>
> unrounded o?
*grabs book on phonology* Oh. rounded e.
So . . .
i.y u
e.oe o
ae a
That doesn't seem very balanced to me.
Are there any other languages that use vowel harmony? What about a
close/open distinction instead of a front/back, so
i, u, y would be close
o, a, and e would be open
I'm not sure I understand why there have to be correspondances between one
set of vowels and the other.
If I have the word "isilyth" then the plural affix can be -il, but for
"amon" it would have to be -al. That seems reasonable to me. (Or maybe
-el -- it's more or less an aesthetic decision, seems to me; am I wrong?)
What would be cool is a four way distinction, so words could be classfied
elementally.
--Pat
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