Re: [tied] Re: Syncope

>From: "P&G" <petegray@...>
>
> >> > Do you have any underlyingly asyllabic endings in your
> >> > pre-PIE morphology at all?
> >> No. Is that bad? Does Japanese have asyllabic endings?
> >No, come to think of it, nor does Slavic.
>
>In Maori all syllables are open - allegedly. Yet in speech word-final
>consonants are sometimes heard. Everyone knows the vowel is there even if
>not spoken. Native speakers will even believe they have pronounced it,
>though they haven't (though this may depend on your analysis of how the
>vowel is realised). I believe something similar can be heard in Japanese,
>but I stand open to correction.

Not exactly. Vowels following certain consonants (such as s or f) are
"whispered" in some dialects (including the standard Tokyo dialect). They
are actually pronounced, but are surd rather than sonant. This means desu
sounds something like *dess, and futari ends up like f'tari. The vowels are
definitely THERE, but are voiceless and much harder to hear unless you are
used the pronounciation.

>Therefore: it is possible for a language to have no underlyingly
>asyllabic
>endings, yet a phonetic realisation which does include asyllabic endings.
>
>Therefore: if our phonetic reconstructions require asyllabic endings, and
>Glen's MIE requires no asyllabic endings, there may not be such a conflict
>between the two as it appears.
>
>Peter
>

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