Re: vowels: are they necessary?

Rene Uittenbogaard wrote:

> IIRC, the extra |o| only appears before certain consonant
> clusters, most notably |vs-| and |mn-|:
>
> vo vsyom        "in everything"
> so vsyem        "with everything"
> ko mnye         "to me"
> so mnoy         "with me"
Yes, definitely with |vs| and |mn|. I'm sure I've seen it with
one or two others, but I can't recall what they were.


> If a word happens to start with the same consonant as the
> preposition, then that alone is not reason enough to add |o|.
Yes. Actually, I suppose that I could have answered that probably
nothing happens in the case of /s zdra-/, but I thought I'd answer
the implied wider question.


> To make a distinction, I believe that the consonant is
> pronounced long.
In fact, since all of these one-letter forms are prepositions,
they often prefix to noun steps to form new words, just like
pri- and po- and all the other prepositions. The strange result
is that there are actually words which begin, orthographically,
with doubled consonants, and which I suppose are pronounced with
an initial geminate. I guess if they are further prefixed by a
preposition, nothing extra happens(?).

Some examples from a dictionary:

_ssora_ 'a quarrel' (it takes a lot of concentration for me to
     avoid typing "ccopa", in Latin latters)
_ssylka_ 'exile'
_vvek_ 'never'
_vverjat'_ 'entrust'

Mercifully, I don't see any words beginning _kk-_ :)


> v voskresen'ye  "on Sunday"        pronounced as [v:]-
> v vodu          "into the water"
> s sestroy       "with the sister"  pronounced as [s:]-
> k kafe          "towards the cafe" pronounced as [k:]- ?

I think there is indeed a [k:] here. Well, it may not actually
be a geminate, but instead have a slight hiatus between two
[k]s? Hmm, aren't there any native Russian speakers around at
the moment? It's not as if we're talking about an obscure lang :).

s.
--
Stephen Mulraney    ataltane@ataltane.net   http://livejournal.com/~ataltane
I remember that I tried several times to use a slide rule, and that, several
times also,  I began modern maths textbooks, saying to myself that if I were
going slowly,  if I read all the lessons all in order,   doing the exercises
and all, there was no reason why I should stall             -- Georges Perec

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