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Re: Syllabic consonants (was: Re: Beek)

From:Isidora Zamora <isidora@...>
Date:Monday, September 15, 2003, 20:49
At 02:38 PM 9/15/03 -0400, you wrote:
>On Mon, Sep 15, 2003 at 02:09:56PM -0400, Isidora Zamora wrote: > > >So the /r/ is not syllabic here? Is it ever?\ > > > > The /r/ *is* syllabic in <karm>, and the word should be divided as > > kar-m. > >I'm confused. If the /r/ is syllabic, then wouldn't it be ka-r-m? > Three syllables?
No, Mark, you're not confused; *I* am (sigh). I need to *proofread* my posts more carefully to avoid this sort of thing. The */r/* is *not* syllabic and never will be. The */m/*, on the other hand, *is* syllabic but won't be if you follow it up with a vowel. (Apparently I can't tell the difference beteween an /r/ and an /m/ when I see them on a screen, and I very definitely told you the wrong thing in my previous post, leading to your state of confusion. Thank you for asking me to clarify. For some unknown reason, I though that you were asking whether the /m/ were syllabic, and I replied accordingly that it was -- except that I wrote /r/ for /m/. I really don't know what's wrong with me today...)
> > But if the word were to have a suffix beginning in a vowel added to > > it, then the /r/ would cease to be syllabic, moving into the onset of the > > second syllable. Let's see...I need an example, and I don't have one > > because this language is in the *very* early stages of development...so why > > don't I just make up a case ending on the spot? How about -ab? Then we > > get <karmab> 'very many shields', divided into syllables as kar-mab. > >That demonstrates that the <m> stops being syllabic, but it doesn't >change anything about the <r>'s context.
It certainly does demonstrate that, and it certainly doesn't change anything about the /r/'s context. The answer to your original question is that the /r/ in <karm> will never be syllabic. Please accept my apologies for the massive amount of confusion I have sown. Isidora

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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>