Re: On Phonological Constraints: The Long Vowel Rule

On Saturday, January 22, 2005, at 09:00 , Bryan Parry wrote:

> This might not be what you are looking for, but here
> goes: if it's causing you toruble, drop it. End of.
Yes, that thought occurred to me also especially as I do not, on the
information given, see why the rule exists in the first place   :)

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>  --- Nicolas Walker <Bitemeagain_walker@...>
> wrote:
[snip]
>> The rule states that a long vowel (marked by an
>> acute accent) cannot occur
>> immediately after a consonant which is proceeded by
>> a long vowel. That is
>> to say, that the combination 'LV + C + LV' is deemed
>> unacceptable. The
>> rough reason for this infernal rule is due to the
>> (regular) stress falling
>> on the first long vowel of a word.
So? Why that should in itself cause a problem? It is perfectly possible to
have:
stressed long vowel + consonant + unstressed long vowel.

Long unstressed vowels were common enough in Classical Latin and are
common enough in modern Hungarian.

>> Two stressed,
>> long vowels are
>> considered unweildy and undesirable.
If they are both in the same word, then not only is it unwieldy, it just
not credible. Stress is part of determining what is and is not a
phonological word in languages which have word stress.

But why should both vowel be stressed anyway? There is nothing in what you
have said so far which explains hat the problem is and why you cannot have
'LV + C + LV'. So I do not understand why the rule exists that is causing
the problem.

>>
>> The second part of the rule therefore proposes that
>> should the combination
>> LV + C + LV occur (as a result of affixation,
>> declension or whatever),
>> that the first vowel be shortened, causing the
>> sequence SV + C + SV. To
>> give an example, u:r (=ear) would become uri:r in
>> the plural genitive.
Why?

Classical Latin:
_uox_ /wo:ks/ "voice" - nom. pl. _uoces_ /'wo:ke:s/
In the plural we have 'LV + C + LV', the first LV being stressed and the
second unstressed.

Hungarian (which also marks long vowels with an acute accent):
ház /ha:z/ "house" ~ házból /'ha:zbo:l/ "from a house"
Again in _házból_ the first long vowel is stressed and the second is not.

[noun]
>> noun...and so on. Can someone suggest something
>> elegant yet more flexible?
I cannot, until I understand why you have the rule "long vowel (marked by
an acute accent) cannot occur immediately after a consonant which is
proceeded by a long vowel" in the first place.
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On Sunday, January 23, 2005, at 01:02 , Roger Mills wrote:

> Nicolas Walker wrote:
>
>> The rule states that a long vowel (marked by an acute accent) cannot
>> occur
>> immediately after a consonant which is proceeded by a long vowel.
>
> So there are no base (underlying) forms of the sort ..V:CV:.. ? (In
> effect,
> only one long vowel per morpheme?)  A perfectly reasonable Morpheme
> Structure rule.
Yes, but Nicolas does not actually say this. In fact he says:
"The rough reason for this infernal rule is due to the (regular) stress
falling on the first long vowel of a word."

Then if there is a 'first' long vowel, it must mean there are other long
vowels, presumably unstressed, in the same word. It may be that this
situation arises only in polymorphemic words, but Nicolas does not say
that. All we can safely say, it seems to me, is that a single lexical
morpheme:
- will have at least one long vowel;
- will not have long vowels in adjacent syllables;
- has the stress on the first long vowel (only morphemes of three or more
syllables could have more than one long vowel).

But even if Roger's guess is correct, and it is only in polymorphemic
words where there is a 'first' long vowel, Nicolas' two statements do not
tie up:
1. ...the (regular) stress falling on the first long vowel of a word.
2.  A long vowel (marked by an acute accent) cannot occur immediately
after a consonant which is proceeded by a long vowel [because] two
stressed, long vowels are considered unweildy and undesirable

Sorry - but (1) says clearly the the *first* is stressed, so how does the
question of two juxtaposed stressed syllables arise?

[snip]
> ....................... Something to think about: what is
> the source of long vowels?
Absolutely.

These may not be the answers Nicolas wanted. Clearly he perceives some
problem in his language, even if it is not clear to me what the problem is.
  But I do hope that some of the observations I have made are _helpful_.

Ray
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ray.brown@freeuk.com
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"If /ni/ can change into /A/, then practically anything
can change into anything"
          Yuen Ren Chao, 'Language and Symbolic Systems"