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Re: Why Consonants?

From:John Vertical <johnvertical@...>
Date:Saturday, February 17, 2007, 14:14
"T. A. McLeay" wrote:
> >On 17/02/07, Alex Fink <a4pq1injbok_0@...> wrote: > > > Hah, never mind a speaker of Berber (/tftktstt/ 'you sprained it'), or > > Salishan (/xKp_>X_wKtK)pKKs/ 'he had had in his possession a bunchberry > > plant'). > > > > I can't think of any natlang that goes to these lengths with all-vowel >words > > longer than about four or five. So is the situation reversed at the >extremes? > >Well, there's words like "k&#299;lauea" in Hawaiian with his longer if you >count the /l/ as vowel-like and much longer if you count the &#299; as two >vowels; "Hawaiian" in English has a good long string of vowel-like >segments too.
This is probably where I'll have to whip out the Finnish contender _riiuuyöaieauer_ /ri:.u:.y2.Ai.e.Au.er/ (IML ['ri:u:y9,6j:e\,6w:e\r]) "dawning of the dating night plans".
> > >> This came up on the list some time ago, and someone observed that the > > >> opposite is true for Spanish: Vowels are (apparently) pronounced >quite > > >> consistently between dialects, which are distinguished largely on the > > >> basis of consonants (pronounciation of frex ll, j, z, -s). > > >[...] > > > > > >Interesting, I didn't know this before. I wonder what causes some > > >languages to change vowels faster than consonants, or vice versa. > > > > I'd imagine that has something to do with the fact that Spanish has a >nice > > stable cross-linguistically favored five vowel system, whereas the >English > > system has crammed in entirely too many vowels for its own good. > >Actually, makes me wonder, aside from the addition of a handful of >diphthongs and the loss of a back unrounded vowel *&#616;, the Finnish >vowel system looks like it's been relatively stable since >Proto-Uralic/Proto-Finno-Ugric (at least, they both have/had more than >their fair share, in essentially the same ways). Anyone know if this >is just a deceptive superficial appearance, or is it so? > >-- >Tristan.
Concentrating on the cross-linguistically more volatile bimoraic vowels: * Stressed /Q: &:/ > /o: e:/ in Proto-Fenno-Ugric * Stressed /iu/ > /y/ in PFU * Unstressed /Qu &u Iu/ > /o o u/ in Proto-Finno-Samic * Unstressed /Qi &i Ii/ > /oi ei i:/ > /o i i/ in Proto-Fennic * Stressed /Qi &u/ > /Ai &y/ at some nondescript time between PFU and mid PF * Stressed /Ai/ > /ei/ in PF * Stressed /V:i/ > /Vi/ in PF * Stressed /e: ey 2: o:/ > /ie 2y y2 uo/ in erly Finnish This for Standard Finnish. It's not nil, but not very much either, considering that Proto-Uralic has been dated to 6000-4000 BC. Especially, stressed /u: y: i: ui ei ou &i/ have remained intact at least since. Dialectally, however, there's been more additional vowel shifts: * /A: &:/ > /oA e&/ in the East * /ie y2 uo/ > /ia y& uA/ in the West * /Ai Au &i &y ei eu oi ou/ > /Ae Ao &i &2 e: eo oe o:/ in both * further /oA e& Ao &2 eo/ > /uA i& A: &: e:/ in Savo All of these during the last millenia. Central suthern dialects are largely identical to the standard vowel-wise. Of the consonants, many have changed into something else - everything palatal except for /j/ and everything velar except for /k/, principally - and then there's been the whole gradation bizniz going on. The lenition of /D G/ was pretty complex too, with half a dozen simultaneous reflexes each. But for fairness, eg. any and all instances of /r l/, and by far most of /s m n/, have also remained intact since PU. I don't think it's just the amount of vowel vs. consonant phonemes in play here, Finnish and its ancestors have always had lots of the former; I suspect it's more of a Sprachbund thing whether vowels or consonants end up being more volatile. John Vertical _________________________________________________________________ Uutiset ja kasvot uutisten takaa. MSN Search, täyden palvelun hakukone. http://search.msn.fi