Re: CHAT: (no subject)

Em resposta a Cristophe:

>Well, in French <un> is a single nasal vowel /9~/, so it
>doesn't correspond to English u in but. What kind of sound are
>you trying to describe?
I think I must reconsider my previous posting. Banin "a" may represent up
to five different sounds in some dialects:

1)Stressed, not followed by n or m: like a in Castillian "madre";
2)Stressed or not, followed by postvocalic n: as ã in Portuguese "mãe";
3)Stressed, followed by non-postvocalic n or by m (which is never posvocalic):
same as 2) in some dialects, as u in English "but" in other dialects;
4)Unstressed, not final, not followed by m or n: like a in Castillian "lacustre";
5)Unstressed, final, or not final but followed by non-postvocalic n or by
m: same as 4) in some dialects, as schva in other dialects.

Postvocalic n always, in all dialects, is a sign for nasalisation of the
previous vowels. In some dialects, it has no other effect; in others, it
has a distinct sound, which could be /n/ before t, d, s, z, x, j; /m/ before
p, b, f, v; and similar to English /ng/ in "thing" before q and g (velar
stops).

Postvocalic s gets sonorized if followed by sonorized consonants, or, when
final, by vowel. Popular dialects may pronounce it, respectively, as /sh/
and /zh/, which is always considered lower-class pronunciation.

As everybody has been discussing first names, I may add that their first
names are always significant words, meaning things like:

faith               (Flora)
truth               (Zuzanis)
simplicity          (Ada)
health              (Sezonga)
courage             (Serena)
faithfulness        (Floris)
straightforwardness (Adena)
beauty              (Robin)

and so on.

I don't speak any non-IE language, Christophe, so your inquire about what
is surprising in IE languages doesn't fit me. But the first great surprise
I had concerning foreign languages was when I learned that German and Italian
didn't use -s endings to mark plural (in opposition to Portuguese, English,
French and Castillian). You may call this my First Linguistic Universal
To Be Broken!

And, Tero, Ugric in Finno-Ugric is Hungarian. If you wish a flames war with
Hungarian people, you may call the branch "the Fine and the Ugly" (yeach).

Luís Henrique




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