Re: Syllabic consonants (was: Re: Beek)

Ok, I'll try sending this again.  I got it returned to me the first time.

At 01:56 PM 9/16/03 -0400, you wrote:
>  --- JS Bangs  wrote:
> > Isidora Zamora sikyal:
>
> > > The second thing that I think I will do (because it seems more
> > > natural to me -- and I have less trouble pronouncing the result)
>is,
> > > in /emi-uma/, instead of turning the /u/ into a glide, I will turn
> > > the /i/ into one.  So we have the form <emyuma> 'to not die' (or
>'not
> > > to die' for those who will not split their infinitives)
> >
> > Is it the first member of a sequence of high vowels that gets turned
> > into a glide, or is it always /i/. We've established that /iu/ turns
>to
> > [ju]--now does /ui/ turn to [wi] or [uj]. I think making it [wi] is
> > more consistent, but either is possible.
>
>Hmm. Somehow I missed Isadora's message.  Anyways, my thoughts: It's a
>known tendency for languages to prefer syllable-initial consonants to
>syllable-final ones, so it makes sense to me that /iu/ and /ui/ would
>show up as [ju] and [wi] rather than [iw] and [uj].
This natural tendency might possibly explain my extreme difficulty in
pronouncing sequences such as [iw] and [uj] :-)

I think that I shall go with the more consistent approach of having the
first high vowel diphthongize so that you would get [wi].

Isidora