Re: Two questions about Esperanto

From:    "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
> P.S.  I was taught that Esperanto |e| represented [E], not [e],
> but that [e] was allowed.  The quotations from the message I was
> responding to above indicate that [e] is actually the preferred
> realization.  Perhaps the book I read, being targeted at English
> speakers, chose [E] because we already have [E] in our native
> speech, whereas [e] tends to turn into [ej] (a phenomenon well-attested
> in my Spanish and French classes in high school).
I wonder whether there is any complementary distribution of the
two phones.  Does the phoneme /e/ become [E] in closed syllables,
and remain [e] elsewhere?

 =========================================================================
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