Re: Too bizarre?

On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Ray Brown wrote:
> [...]
>
> I recall that at about the same time that Dirk was suggesting his
> 'syllabary', Srikanth, the inventor of Lin, suggested a scheme whereby two
> consonants actually determined between themselves what their own
> vocalization was.  Unfortunately I did not keep the mail where he outlined
> his scheme; all I have is this tantalizing fragment:
>
> [...]
ANADEW:

If I recall correctly, the analysis of the Kabardian language (the famous
Caucasian language with only 1 vowel (maybe) ) was something like this:
there are many vowels that show up in the output, but they are all allophonic
variations of a single vowel (/@/) determined by the surrounding consonants.
(For example, @->[+round] / C_w __ etc.)

The author of "A grammar of the Kabardian Language" (John Colarusso) analyzes
the language to have 2 or 3 underlying vowels (I forget exactly) but with
a similar analysis.

I don't know any of the details off the top of my head, but perhaps one of
the Caucasian experts knows more?

--Apollo