Re: USAGE: minimum number of vowels?

From:    Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
> Thomas R. Wier wrote:
> > > Why none? The opposition still may exist as /vowel/ :: /no vowel/. Some
> > > people think PIE worked this way.
> >
> > Granted, but the question was how many contrasts were in the set
> > [vowel phoneme].  The answer to that was "none", because there is
> > no nonpredictable factor within that set to distinguish one from
> > another.
>
> What about [+syllabic]?
Ah, but that is still not salient in the set [vowel phoneme];
all members of the set have this feature. Indeed, it's what
distinguishes that set from its superset [phoneme].

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637