Re: USAGE: minimum number of vowels?

Isaac Penzev wrote:

>Mark J. Reed jazdI:
>
>
>
>>My question: do any languages recognize *fewer* than three vowel
>>qualities - two or even just one?    If so, which vowel(s) tend(s)
>>to be "missing"?
>>
>>
>
>My Linguistic Dictionary (Moscow, 1990) says that some North Caucasian
>langs (Abkhaz, Abazin etc.) have only two vowel *phonemes*: low /a/ and
>high /@/,
>
In this context, AKA /i\/. I've also seen it claimed that some dialects
of Abkhaz only really need one phoneme, but such claims are in the minority.

>but from what I saw in text samples, those are realized as a
>good bunch of vowels (5 and more) conditioned by the quality of
>surrounding consonants: palatalization, labialization, glottalization
>etc.
>
>-- Yitzik
>
>

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