--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com,
Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <richard.wordingham@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2003
11:46 PM
> Subject: [tied] Re: Laryngeal Loss
(was Does Koenraad Elst Meet Hock´s
Challenge?)
>
>
> > Do the heavy initial
> > clusters of Polish include
> > (predictable) silent vowels?
The
> > notion is inspired by some
remarks
> > in Piotr's paper on
presigmatised
> > plosives.
>
>
> They are analysed as involving
silent vowels by proponents of
Government Phonology -- but this is
that school's routine treatment of
funny clusters in _any_ language.
Anyway, it's an abstract
phonological analysis. There are no
surface vowels there, and the native
speaker's judgement is that words
like <mdlec'> 'faint', <rdest>
'knotweed' or <krtan'> 'larynx' are
monosyllabic (they also function as
such in poetry).
>
> Piotr
:
Whereas I am certain that /ptklli/
is polysyllabic. Perhaps the vowels
are better described as zero-length
than silent. - Richard.