Re: CHAT: Blandness (was: Uusisuom's influences)

In a message dated 4/7/01 9:18:55 PM, hr_oskar@HOTMAIL.COM writes:

<< But what I did find interesting in this f-r/b-unr discussion, an important

observation, is what someone pointed out: we never have only rounded front

sounds, or only unrounded back sounds; they're always a subset of the

unmarked vowel axis (f-unr or b-r). That makes good sense, and is relevant.

I wonder if we can make any generalizing statements about how those marked

sounds generally come about in vowel systems; I see them developing, in

many cases, through some phonological or morphological mechanisms, such as

Germanic umlaut and Altaic vowel harmony. Another common origin is probably

in chain shifts; I suppose French /y/ (from Latin /u/) came about in some

chain shift, where an older /o/ shifted to /u/, pushing the old /u/ onto

the front axis; any thoughts on this? >>

It says in one of my textbooks that a language universal (and, of course,
some aren't always that universal) is that there will always be more rounded
back vowels and unrounded front than unrounded back and rounded front vowels.
 It also says that there will never be an unr.-back or round.-front without
its counterpart (so, no [y] without [i], AND no [M] without [u]).  But I know
at least one person said that there was no [u] in Turkish, so you know what
those universals are worth.  And I don't know how much I've actually
contributed.

-David

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