Re: Syllabic consonants (was: Re: Beek)

Isidora Zamora wrote:
> I wonder if any natural language alternates them like this?
I'm sure some do.  There are often alternations between presence and
absence of schwa, and schwa + nasal often leads to syllabic.  So, if a
language had, say, a requirement that schwa be added to break up certain
clusters - or alternately had a rule that omitted schwa in certain
clusters - and then later reduced schwa + nasal to syllabic, you'd get
just such a system.  For example, let's take your _tovl_/_tovleis_
alternation.

Possible etymology:

tov@l, tov@leis  <-- earliest form
tov@l, tovleis   <-- after a rule dropping schwa in certain situations
tovl= tovleis    <-- schwa + l -> /l=/

Japanese sometimes alternates nV with the syllabic n, e.g., the sentence
ending _no desu_ (/nodesM_0/) sometimes becomes _n desu_ (n=desM_0) -
/M_0/ represents voiceless back high unrounded vowel.

> As a matter of fact, if the /l/ in <tovleis> turns
> consonental because it can in that context, then I cannot think of any
> reasonable way to for the /m/ in <mta> not to do exactly the same
> thing.  (I think it would be completely unnatural if it didn't behave in
> the same way.  Can you think of any reasoning to the contrary?)
There are two underlying phonemes, /m/ and /m=/.  /m/ becomes [m=] when
required by phonetic rules, but underlying /m=/ *never* becomes
non-syllabic.  Thus, the form realized as ['m=ta] is underlyingly
/'m=ta/, but the form realized as [m='ta] is underlyingly /'mta/.

So, when you add emi-, you get a minimal pair between [emi'm=ta] and
[emim'ta].

> Here is an
> example: the way to negate a verb is to add the negative prefix emi- to
> it.  So you get <emimta> 'to not...whatever mta means.'  This would have to
> be broken up into syllables as e-mim-ta, and stressed either e-MIM-ta or
> e-mim-TA, depending on which of the two verbs it was.
This is, of course, another possibility.  It's also a neat idea, stress
being the only thing distinguishing the two forms.

>
> I suppose that an alternative would be to trash the idea of the sonorant
> consonats alternating between syllabic and consonantal realizations and
> have <tovleis> pronounced as to-VL-eis and <emimta> pronounced as either
> e-mi-M-ta or e-mi-m-TA.  (This would probably also require the addition of
> a syllabicity diacritic to the transcription of the language to avoid
> confusion.)  Which is the better one to go with do you think: phonemically
> distinct syllabic and consonantal sonorant consonants, or syllabic and
> consonantal sonorant consonants as allophonic variations conditioned by
> context?
My preference is as above: phonemically distinct forms that are
neutralized in certain contexts.  I would use an apostrophe to
distinguish underlyingly syllabic nasals from underlyingly non-syllabic
nasals, thus m'ta vs. mta.

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