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Re: THEORY: final features, moras, and roots [was: it's what I do]

From:Marcus Smith <smithma@...>
Date:Wednesday, October 4, 2000, 0:21
Estelachan@AOL.COM wrote:


>well, most of this final features evades me completely, but mora I know >about. Japanese is a nice example because there's no such thing as syllables >(internally)....only moras.
That's debatable. As a matter of fact, I find it easier to discuss the distribution of consonants and vowels in terms of syllables than in morae.
> "mora" may actually be the Japanese term. >Japanese "syllable" structure is (C)(y)V(same V/n)..... but something that >went C(y)Vn would actually be two moras, because a mora is strictly C(y)V, V, >or "n".
You are forgetting geminates -- they are also moraic.
>The Japanese syllabry (hiragana) actually has characters for moras, >not syllables....
Indeed. So don't forget the _tu_ character used to mark geminate consonants.
>so the word "kanji" or "kanzi" (Japanese ideogram[s]) is three mora: ka-n-zi. >the borrowed word for party, "paatii", is four mora: pa-a-ti-i.
And the word _chotto_ is also three morae: cho-t-to. =============================== Marcus Smith AIM: Anaakoot "When you lose a language, it's like dropping a bomb on a museum." -- Kenneth Hale ===============================