Re: Toki Pona survey

From:    Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
> I wouldn't be so pessimistic. Just combine Khoisan phonemic inventories
> with Georgian syllable structure, and you're looking at millions of
> distinctive _syllables_ already. Waitaminnit, and I'll get my virtual
> envelope ...
>
> Lemme see; CCCCCCVCCCC syllable structure, 30 vowels and 100 consonants
> make for some 30*100^10=3*10^21 syllables already. That gives us many
> times more four-syllable words than there are electrons in the visible
> universe. Should take a while yet till we need that many words, I
> should think.
Actually, Georgian allows up to *8* preceding consonants
(e.g. gv-prckvn-i-s 'He is fleecing us'), but strongly resists
complex codas.  I'm fairly sure they allow no more than about
2 or 3 in a complex coda.  Thus more like: CCCCCCCCVCC(C). What's
more, if you count harmonic clusters as single units for purposes
of syllabification, then the number of possible onset segments goes
down some.

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Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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