Re: And who needs vowels?

Sorry for chiming in late.  I've been offline over Xmas.
(Due to laryngitis rather than to going away... :-\)

H. S. Teoh skrev:

 > Old Tibetan has long initial clusters? Heh, I'd never
 > expect that from a Sinitic language (or am I missing
 > something here?). :-)


Yes, you missed a book:

Baxter, William H. A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology.
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 1992. ISBN 311012324.

See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese> and
*especially* the external links there.

A more accessible treatment of the same is:

Sagart, Laurent, The roots of old Chinese, Amsterdam :
Benjamin, cop. 1999,ISBN: 1556199619 (Philadelphia), ISBN:
9027236909 (Amsterdam)

IMHO the difference between Sagart's ^a and ^b classes is
palatalization, but that's of course only my very own hunch,
and probably not only mine!

Your Uni library should have 'em, or you should make 'em
get 'em! :-)  The Baxter book in particular is forbiddingly
bulky and expensive.

As for your vowel-less lang I'd suggest the hard sign rather
than the soft sign as an indicator of stress (and the [@]
that presumably shows up there in the absence of a
sonorant), unless some palatalization is involved.

* Table of Contents
* The Roots of Old Chinese
*      by Sagart, Laurent * *

*       List of Tables
*       Acknowledgements
*       Abbreviations
* 1 Introduction
* 2 Old Chinese Words and Roots
* 3 Root Segmentals
* 4 Prefix s-
* 5 Prefix N-
* 6 Prefix m-
* 7 Prefix p-
* 8 Prefix t-
* 9 Prefix k-
* 10 Other Prefixes
* 11 Infix -r-
* 12 Initial Clusters
* 13 Suffixation
* 14 Reduplication and Compounding
* 15 Etymologizing Old Chinese Words
* 16 Personal Pronouns
* 17 Numerals
* 18 Body Parts
* 19 The Physical World
* 20 Wild Animals
* 21 Mankind and Kinship
* 22 Agriculture: The Cereals
* 23 Other Cultivated Plants
* 24 Domesticated Animals
* 25 Food
* 26 Metals
* 27 Transportation
* 28 Commerce
* 29 Writing
*       References
* App. A Chinese Chronology
* App. B List of Reconstructions
*       Index of Chinese Characters
*       General Index
--


/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se

    a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot

                                 (Max Weinreich)