Re: Vocalic patterns & BrSc

Hello,

> There can be little doubt that the 'classical' pattern of
> having front~
> back contrasts at the high & mid levels but not at the low
> level, is the
> most frequent and widespread, i.e.
>                /i/ ---- /u/
>                 |        |
>                 |        |
>                /e/ ---- /o/
>                 \       /
>                  \     /
>                    /a/
>
> It's found not only in Spanish, Modern Greek, Russian and
> Czech,
In the latter two, with the addition of the high central vowel

/i/-----/y/-----/u/
   \           /
   /e/     /o/
      \    /
       /a/

But for Russian at least, that would be the phonological system only -
there are also the reduction variants.

> Dirk's syllabary (which I've always found attractive) means only one
> contrast of tongue height: high ~ low.  In Dirk's original
> scheme there was
> a three dimensional contrast at both hights, thus:
>               /i/ --- /1/ --- /u/
>                |       |       |
>                |       |       |
>               /e/ --- /a/ --- /o/
>
> Now I find, in fact, that 3x2 distributions like this seem
> pretty uncommon.
Another one is found in Bulgarian. The phonemic distinctive features are
front ~ back and open~close

/i/-----/@/-----/u/
/e/----/a/------/o/

> All comments or observations, whether pro or con, are invited ;)
Once again, this depends on whether you want to it be neat or to be
naturalistic. I, personally, have nothing against high central vowels,
but then, my native lang is Russian :-)

Pavel
--
Pavel Iosad               pavel_iosad@mail.ru

'I am a philologist, and thus a misunderstood man'
                 --JRR Tolkien, _The Notion Club Papers_

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