Re: [tied] Re: Nominative: A hybrid view

On Sat, 31 May 2003, 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)?

I'm afraid this is very far from meeting the requirements set to me by my
critics. They want (he wants) me to point to fifty other languages with
a history known over millennia as safely containing a comparable change
of /e/ to /o/ (vel sim.) in dependency of the voicing properties of the
following segment and independent of the accent (although the
last-mentioned requirement is erroneously replaced by "when unaccented
only"). I am being rebuked for the "low incidence" of such examples;
frankly, I don't think they have any incidence. Also I would have trouble
trusting anybody claiming anything on such a basis which is just outside
our reach.

Jens