Re: CHAT: Epenthetic vowels (was: RE: chat: weird names)

----- Original Message -----
From: FFlores <fflores@...>
To: Multiple recipients of list CONLANG <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Saturday, August 07, 1999 10:36 AM
Subject: Epenthetic vowels (was: RE: chat: weird names)


> Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> wrote:
> >
> > Actually, wasn't the /e/ of other Romance Langs originally /i/?  It's my
> > understanding that, for instance, schola --> iscola --> escola -->
> > escuela (in Spanish).  Aren't epinthetic vowels generally a high vowel,
> > as in Japanese where it's normally /u/, or /o/ (/o/ with /t/, /d/, /s/,
> > /z/)
>
> I think short Latin /i/ changed into /e/ in Spanish, but I'm not
> sure epenthetic vowels appeared so early. Italian doesn't have
> them AFAIK (certainly not orthographically), and Brazilian
> _*scolas* do samba_ come to mind too.
Latin short /i/ changed into /e/ in Vulgar Latin, before the Romance period
even, possibly the same period when epenthetic vowels were beginning to
become commonplace. However, I don't know if that had anything to do with
the use of /e/ in Spanish and French. Also, it is my understanding that
epenthetic e- is written in Portuguese, but it is not strongly pronounced,
if at all, thus perhaps <scolas> is really <escolas> but pronounced without
the e-.

BTW, anyone ever notice how a lot of English speakers pronounce the name
Xavier as /Egzeivi@r/ or /Igzeivi@r/?

>
> As for Japanese epenthetic vowels, /u/ and /o/ I've only seen
> in foreign imported words (/o/ before /t/ and /d/, since /u/ changes
> them to [ts] and [dz]). I hear that the /e/ in the negative polite
> suffix <-masen> is epenthetic (the negative being <-n> only). Though
> that could be to avoid changing [s] to [S] by using /i/.
<u> and <o> (and sometimes <i>) are used in Japanese to fill space between
consonants or at the end of the word in words borrowed from foreign
languages, such as <Supein>, Spain, or <potto>, pot. <u> is used in most
places, but since <tu> is actually pronounced /tsu/ and <du> /zu/ or /dzu/,
<o> is used instead after those. <s> and <z> take <u>. I believe there are
some words that use <si> for /S/, because that is actually pronounced /Si/.

I've never heard that theory of -masen, but it is interesting. I guess one
could then also posit that -masu was etymologically /mas/.

>
> I've heard of epenthetic vowels that simply echo the surrounding vowels,
> no matter their height. Not as an example, but maybe Kristian or Barry
> could tell us if the first /a/ in /ma'Na/ (written _mga_ in Tagalog) is
> this kind of echo vowel. Or is this vowel harmony?
>
>
> --Pablo Flores