Re: 'Vocalic Theory'

From: fournet.arnaud
Message: 56223
Date: 2008-03-29

----- Original Message -----
From: Piotr Gasiorowski

On 2008-03-29 21:01, fournet.arnaud wrote:

> Who agrees with you ?
>
> Watkins for example ?

Whether *o was originally long or not, at least it behaved in some
respects like a long vowel. For example, we have two patterns of
alternation in acrostatic roots: *o/*e and *e:/*e. In both cases the
_weak_ variant has the full vowel *e, which functions as the reduced
counterpart of either *o or *e:.

Piotr

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o is inherently longer than e or a
because you need to move your lips round
and your tongue back
so o is longer mechanically
and it will remain longer unless
you change the mouth of Homo Sapiens.

For the same reason ? glottal stop
is inherently the shortest possible stop,
because you can do it
while moving nothing else.

So this argument proves nothing at all.

To be frank, from competent people
I would expect something less naive.

Arnaud

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