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Nasal vowels (WAS: [Re: [IE conlangs]])

From:FFlores <fflores@...>
Date:Tuesday, April 13, 1999, 1:29
John Cowan <cowan@...> wrote:
> Tom Wier wrote: >=20 > > Which is why Nik originally said that they're homophones in Southern > > American English, because /E/ just doesn't exist before nasals, excep=
t
> > as an allophonic variant of /&/. (Pronouncing a full /&/ before nasa=
ls
> > sounds positively foreign to me! :) ) >=20 > So you make "sand" like my "send", and both "send" and "sinned" > like my "sinned", apparently. (Of course, I may indeed be a > foreigner to a Texian.)
I've noticed there's a tendency to reduce vowels when nasal (or before a nasal, as in this case). Some time ago a French speaker (Christophe? Mathias?) said that he didn't distinguish the nasal vowels in _brun_ and _brin_. Is there a physical reason for that kind of simplification? I'm asking this because I'm doing exactly that in my latest lang, Syngrais'l'th (a daughter of Drasel=E9q). There are eight oral vowels (/i e a o u y 1 @/), but only five nasal vowels (/a~ o~ e~ 1~ @~/), only two (/@~ 1~/) in unstressed position. So, does nasality mean less distinctiveness? --Pablo Flores * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Universe is not user friendly. Kelvin Throop