Re: fewest sounds?

Check the reply-to field--I have Gmail.

Length is still a morphing feature.  At lease two features of sound
are required, which include length, tone, phoneme, etc.

On 11/28/05, Tim May <butsuri@...> wrote:
> tomhchappell wrote at 2005-11-28 23:16:29 (-0000)
>  > --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@N...>
>  > > wrote:
>  > > On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 15:43:06 -0500, Reilly Schlaier
>  > >> <schlaier@S...> wrote:
>  > >> what are the fewest sounds in any language i was wondering how
>  > >> many sounds are required to make a language work
>  > > [snip]
>  > > Technically, you only need two phonemes for a workable language,
>  > > but I can't see that occuring naturally.
>  >
>  > Hi, Paul, Reilly, et al.
>  >
>  > I agree, Paul.  Assuming no tones, and only CV-type
>  > syllable-structure, you would either need two different consonants
>  > -- all variety then being in the choice of consonants, if there
>  > were only one vowel -- or two different vowels -- all variety then
>  > being in the choice of vowels, if there were only one consonant.
>  >
>  > So, I'm going to say "at least three phonemes -- at least one
>  > vowel, at least one consonant, and either at least two vowels or at
>  > least two consonants".
>  >
>
> Why would you assume CV syllables?  In any case, one can make an
> arbitrarily large number of words from different length strings of a
> single syllable - or for that matter a single phoneme (e.g. a
> consonant with some kind of vowel epenthesis).  Not remotely
> practical, but practicality isn't the issue here.
>

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