Jens:
>Of course /a/ and /aa/ contrast, but so do /t/ and /tt/; we do not
>posit a unit /t:/ for that reason.
Um, no. Your /tt/ is the result of two distinct phonemes being
placed one after the other. They do not share the same syllable.
Of course, we could have a hay day and claim that /aa/ is two
syllables just like with /tt/ but then there is no obvious rule as to
why we don't find /aaa/ or /aaaa/ or /aaaaa/, etc. Yet then,
we could probably even oppose this conclusion by stating, and
quite rightly so, that such instances do exist when reading the
Kama Sutra...
>But mostly we do not *know* PIE well enough to make statements about these
>things, [...]
Oh God, the mantra again.
- gLeN
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