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Re: Partially-heard words. (or phrases?)

From:John Vertical <johnvertical@...>
Date:Monday, July 14, 2008, 7:11
>Are there any natlangs in which, by hearing the last part of a word, you can >get an idea how long the first (unheard) part was? > >Are there any natlangs in which, by hearing the first part of a word, you can >get an idea how long the last (unheard) part was? > >(If "word" isn't the appropriate concept, substitute "phrase". >Or, substitute "morpheme" or "syllable" or whatever applies in the natlang in >question.)
In monosyllabic languages word length is obviously totally predictable; but if you miss it, you miss it. With the "sesquisyllabic" type common in East Asia (i.e. (C@)(C)CV(C)), we can do slightly better: if you catch an unstressed syllable, you'll kno you missed the stressed one afterwards. (Or, in theory, before, but I don't have examples on that.) Similar scenarios are possible in languages with more complex wordforms and vowel qualities limited by position. Suppose we have a vowel inventory of /i e a o u/, but this is reduced to /I @ U/ in sufficiently unstressed syllables. If you only hear one of the former vowels, you'll kno you missed a stressed syllable - and, depending on the language's rules of vowel reduction, perhaps a minimum of two or three. Or, say that vowels are long in monosyllabic words; then, hearing a short vowel will likewise imply having missed part of the word. Or, in a language that's just beginning to develop umlaut - hearing an /y/ could imply that you've missed a folloing syllable with /i/. Other types of harmony also apply, say, nasal harmony: [tãs] could imply having missed a syllable with a nasal consonant somewhere along the line. Telling apart *how* much of a word one has missed I suppose would require factoring in stress, eg. in the umlaut case, add it on the penult: then a [#fy] was from /fyCi/ if stressed, /fyCiCV/ or longer is not - because I can't really see the presence of a syllable N spots away affecting vowel or consonant quality any more... John Vertical