>Even with the loosing of the intervocalic "b"
>I don'T see how to get an /o/ in Rom. from /ui/
>cubitus > cuitus > cuitu >?
Especially for Romanian native speakers it
is forever difficult - in many circumstances -
to make distinction betw. [o] and [u]. I even
could give you the name of a radio anchorman
who, much as he tries to have an appropriate
diction, he never manages to pronounce
[ro-mI-ni-ya], but [ru-mI-ni-ya]. Etc. Last
but not least, such concomittant occurrences
as "mort, moarte" vs. "murit, muritor";
"ploton/ier", "pluton/ier"; "coloare" (standard
Romanian up to Apr 1, 1954), "culoare" (after-
wards) etc. are possible for this reason.
(And this is not only restricted to Romanian,
but also to other languages, inter alia...
Persian and Hungarian. After all [u] and [o]
are possible due to anatomic efforts that are
almost the same for the utterance apparatus.)
George