Re: NATLANG: Phonotactics

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 9:44 PM, Alex Fink <000024@...> wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:27:58 -0500, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
>
>>/w/ in Esperanto is allowed as an onset.  The name of the letter uxo
>>is an example, as is uxato (the unit of power), and it shows up in
>>other proper names.
>
> But it's marginal in that position, as I recall, with few good examples
> (proper names are hardly good examples), and native speakers tend to replace
> it with /v-/ anyhow: thus _vato_ 'watt' is found alongside _uxato_
> (http://www.reta-vortaro.de/revo/art/vat1.html), never mind the collosion
> with _vato_ 'cotton wool'.  No?
Indeed.   I think "vatto" may be as common or more so, avoiding
the collision with the older word "vato", but I'm not sure; geminate
consonants within roots are a bit marginal too, it seems to me
(though common enough across morpheme boundaries).

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/