Re: CHAT: An introduction

From:    Ben Poplawski <thebassplayer@...>
On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 03:44:29 -0500, Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...> wrote:
> > That's a different question.  You are of course correct that many
> > -- in fact, I'd guesstimate between 30% and 40% -- languages have only
> > one low vowel.  But the question was how that vowel gets phonologically
> > encoded.  In almost all the systems I've seen or heard about, the one
> > low vowel in such languages behaves as a back vowel (e.g. for purposes of
> > back harmony).  Phonetically, it's usually not very back, but that's
> > another issue altogether.
>
> Erm... so does it need editing at all?
It's not necessary, no.  But maybe you should put in some explanation
that, e.g., all the surrounding languages have a front /a/, or e.g.,
Old Koba had two low vowels /a/ and /A/, and the latter of these two
had only recently collapsed together with /o/, but no chain-shift
occurred pulling /a/ to the back.

> I worked on the phonology of Koba right after I finished with Rafenio's
> phonology, so the idea of a front vowel probably stuck. I was also looking
> at Romance languages and Japanese, which have [a].
That's correct -- phonetically. But the question was how they behaved
*phonologically*, i.e. according to the patterning of various rules which
affect vowels.  If, say, all front vowels get raised before nasals (a rule
I happen to have in my own dialect of English), then if /a/ undergoes this
rule, that would be evidence it is a front vowel.  If it doesn't, then it's
a back vowel.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

Reply