Re: Nominative: A hybrid view

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

>
> > I have been taken to task for not producing exact parallels for

the

> > voice-governed e/o alternation, and funnily not for making it

voice-

> > governed, but for connecting that fact in turn with the tone.

Now,

> I
> > actually don't know of *any* other cases of a voice-governed
> > alternation e/o, so the "low incidence" of the association with

the

> > tone is not of much relevance.
>
> I was wondering if Swedish 'dom' vs. Danish 'dem' "them" might be
> relevant here (both alternating with schwa!), Swedish voiced stops
> being more voiced than their Danish counterparts (which actually
> aren't)?
>
> Torsten

Hi Jens and Torsten,

I think it is hard to argue that a certain vowel always found itself
connected with a certain consonant. Both dom and dem are possible,
of course, but they have a completely different tone quality and that
was my point. It is only possible to assume that at the early stages
of human development language had not reached its level of complexity
as of today. Yet this is almost impossible to prove, especially with
the tools of comparative linguistics.

Eva