Re: [tied] -osyo 4 (was: Nominative Loss. A strengthened theory?)

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 14:30:46 +0200, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

>For the record, I said they were _fairly_ rare, not _extremely_ rare. To be
>sure, Ladefoged and Maddieson mention only Mixe and Yavapai as languages
>with lexically relevant overlong three-way length distinctions. They thus
>ignore (unjustifiably, IMO) the Low Saxon/Limburgish data I mentioned here
>yesterday, which may mean that they have overlooked other such cases as
>well.

There's also French, where we have three vowel lengths in:

mettre /mEtr/ "to put"
mètre /mE:tr/ "meter"
maître /mE::tr/ "master"

The overlength in the third case is another example of
compensatory lengthening (maistre > mE:htr& > mE::tr).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...