Re: USAGE: syllables

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]?

--
Tristan

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