Sorry, I wanted to reply to your question
and accidentally posted the message before I finished typing the first sentence.
Let me start from scratch.
In a system like Etruscan, with the
monophthongs /a, e, i, u/, /a/ may play the role of "schwa", having no marked
features. The features [high] and [front] suffice to encode the system: /e/ is
[front], /i/ is [high, front], /u/ is [high] (and also redundantly [round]), and
/a/ is the default realisation of an unspecified vowel. In phonological terms,
it is the "cheapest" vowel to delete. Even if we added /o/ to the system, there
would be place for "schwa" = /a/:
/i/ [high, front]
/e/ [front]
/u/ [high, round]
/o/ [round]
/a/ -
As a matter of fact, any unrounded central
vowel could play the role of schwa. Typical schwas are mid or mid-high vowels,
but they may be (non-distinctively) low as well, especially in small vowel
systems with few distinctive features. In more crowded systems
/a/ becomes _distinctively_ [low] and is no longer available as schwa. In a
system like that, the neutral vowel will be one that is not front, high, rounded
or low, i.e. what we have agreed to symbolise as [&] (schwa
proper).
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 9:18 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Glen's Strange Rule
Thank
you very much, Piotr. I can understand why as in proto-Slavic *I and *U can
disappear, why would /a/ (certainly when stressed in the first syllable) be a
preferred target of elision?