Re: [tied] Verner's Law could be a result of interfamilial contact

From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 57399
Date: 2008-04-15

----- Original Message -----
From: "jouppe" <jouppe@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 4:11 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Verner's Law could be a result of interfamilial contact


--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "jouppe" <jouppe@...> wrote:
>

<snip>

A further observation: Early levels of reconstructed Proto-Finnic had
rather different phonotaxis for quantity in the first and the
following syllables, which could point to a conclusion that the
essence of "stress" may also have been different.

What remains is that for modern Finnic stress is not composite as in
Germanic languages but almost exclusively uses the feature of pitch,
as opposed to duration or expiratory emphasis. In addition the pitch
pattern is 100% conditioned and therefore non-distinctive, which we
would observe in Proto-Germanic as well.

Jouppe

***

Patrick

Would you go into a little detail on the pitch patterns?


Thank you.


***