Re: Mbasa Vowels

On Wednesday, October 3, 2001, at 04:36 PM, David Peterson wrote:

>     So, the idea is that some affix that ends in a vowel will come in
> contact
> with a word that begins with a vowel, and what we're interested in is the
> two
> vowels coming together.  So, here's a chart I've made as to what happens
> when
> each of the five vowels comes in contact with each of the other five:
>
[snip]
Neat.  :-)

> 4.) When [e], [o], [i] and [u] come after [e], the same glide insertaion
> rule
> applies, with the glide associated with [a] (that being the backwards [?]
> glottal stop symbol, often erroneously referred as a voiced, pharyngeal
> fricative).  [Note: [?/] is what I'm using for the backwards glottal stop
> symbol]  So, it renders [a?/e], [a?/o], [a?/i] and [a?/u].
>
<rueful look>  I am unfortunately not familiar with how [?/] sounds.  But
it seems logical enough.

>     Looking at those, they seem kind of difficult to make.  So I imagined
> to
> dialects in which one set of speakers insists on keeping the medial [?/],
> while others make them diphthongs, such that [a]+[e] or [i]=[aj], and [a]
> +[o]
> or [u]=[aw].  Similarly, they have [o]+[i] or [e] becomming [oj] (as in
> Latin), and high front+close mid vowels rendering long close mid, so
> [e]+[i]=[e:] and [o]+[u]=[o:].
I would be a member of the second dialect until I learned [?/].  :-)

You only cover the cases where some different vowel comes after [i], [u]
and [e].  If a different vowel comes after [o] or [a], are the vowels
articulated separately or do they diphthongize somehow or...?

YHL