Re: CHAT: An introduction

Paul Bennett wrote:
> Thomas Wier wrote:
> > Welcome. Question about Koba: is /a/ really phonologically a front
> > vowel? If so, that would be rather marked, given there is no low back
> > vowel counterpart. (By no means impossible, however.)
>
> It's not *that* marked, is it? A lot of languages have only one low vowel.
> Many Romance languages spring immediately to mind, among what feels
> instinctively like a fair number more.
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.

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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