Re: USAGE: syllables

On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, Elliott Lash wrote:

> --- Tristan McLeay <zsau@...> wrote:
> > On Sun, 1 Feb 2004, Elliott Lash wrote:
> >
> > > --- Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...> wrote:
> >
> > > > No.  What I'm saying is that you could have a
> > > > language with a rule that
> > > > says "vowels followed by a nasal in the same
> > > > syllable become nasalized",
> > > > a common, but by no means universal, rule, or
> > > > "vowels with a nasal in
> > > > the same syllable become nasalized", but not
> > "vowels
> > > > preceded by a nasal
> > > > become nasalized"
> > > >
> > >
> > > Well...actually, there are languages in which a
> > vowel
> > > followed by a nasal consonant can become
> > nasalized.
> > > Take Sundanese:
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/appendix/languages/sundanaese/sundanese.html
> >
> > That doesn't contradict Nik. To get something like
> > that, we don't need to
> > get as exotic as Sudanese; my dialect of English
> > pronounces 'now' as
> > [n&~U\], but I nasalise (lowish) vowels before n,
> > too.. Is a word like
> > (hypothetical) 'talin' [talin] or [tali~n]?
>
> Hm...it seems like it contradicts Nik. He said "vowels
> preceded by nasals dont get nasalized" but, if I
> follow the chart accurately, that's what they say is
> happening in that language.  Also note, that they
> state the rule quite nicely, down at the bottom, which
> is in opposition to Nik's generalization.
>
> "the language has a rule of nasal spreading whereby a
> sequence of vowels .... become nasalized when
> following a nasal consonant"
Nik was a bit ambiguous, but it seems to me he was saying that it's
allowed for nasals before vowels to nasalise vowels, so long as nasals
after vowels do the same too. That page doesn't say anything about what
nasals after vowels do, and the only examples of nasals before and after
show nasalisation the way though. It doesn't contradict Nik, but that
might be because it's not telling the whole story. What you'd need is a
word like 'natan' or 'patan', if the second a in either case isn't
nasalised, then it contradicts. (As I said, my own dialect of English has
nasals before causing nasalisation, but it doesn't contradict Nik because
nasals after low vowels do to.)

(Perhaps the exception is meant to prove the rule, but I'm more used to
logic than legal.)

--
Tristan