Re: [tied] -osyo 4 (was: Nominative Loss. A strengthened theory?)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "elmeras2000" <jer@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:
> > Jens:
> > > I am not sure I do not myself have an opposition between
> > >
> > > /pa/ <par> '(a) pair'
> > > /pa:/ <parre> 'to pair'
> > > /pa::/ <parrer> 'pair(s)' (prs.) or sg. 'person who pairs'
> > > /pa:::/ <parrere> 'pairers' (pl. 'persons who pair')
> >
> > And don't forget /pa:::::::::/ 'Paaaaaaaaaa?????!!!!'
> >
> > Can anyone see now how the concept of double-length has now
> > been contorted into some artsy concept that hasn't anything to
> > do with true linguistics? If you honestly speak like this, Jens,
> > then I'm sure that people must be giving you double glances and
> > strange looks. This might be normal for people with cerebral
> > palsy or some other neuromuscular disorder but an average person
> > with an average capacity for speech is not making such contrasts.
>
> Well, I know all that, but I do have to respect the competence of a
> native speaker, and my speech does not deviate from that of
> everybody else on this particular respect, and even if it did the
> point was about human speech in its broadest sense, so I do not see
> how anybody's speech can fail to qualify. It may be noted that the
> fourth degree is (in this set) only represented by a word of low
> frequency, so low actually that I don't believe I've ever heard it,
> but it is certainly part of the productive system, on the basis of
> which I made it up. The only thing I am uncertain of is whether
> there really is a consistent opposition of length between the

second

> and third degree, i.e. whether words like <vare>, <snare>, <klare>
> are really shorter than <varer>, <snarer>, <klarer>. In normal
> speech, even in quite careful speech, they all end in a long IPA

[a]-

> vowel of some length which is certainly longer than the length of
> <par> and <var>, and certainly shorter than that of <snarere>,
> <klarere>, <barere> which have the same vowel only longer still.

The

> three degrees of the a-vowel are beyond dispute. The fact generally
> escapes notice, even of phonetic scholars, because conscious speech
> production perceives of them as /ar/ + schwa ((+ /r/) + schwa). In
> terms of conscious articulation they consist of a long /a:/

followed

> by one or two extra /a/-segments, i.e. /a:a(a)/, but there are no
> audible or articulatory breaks between the elements, it is just the
> very same vowel that goes on and on, or on and on and on. It works
> only with <ar> which produces an open (i.e. normal IPA) [a]-vowel
> which in turn assimilates following schwa and /r/ and even schwa
> again. Other vowels are diphthongized in the same environment.
>
> I once heard Robert Austerlitz say in a lecture that Finnish has
> compounds combining /aa/ and /aa/ into /aa-aa/ which is pronounced
> with a tonal curve that gives away the segmentation, but the tone

is

> of course subphonemic, so it is the length that is phonemic,

meaning

> that this also produces cases of one, two, and three, and quite
> probably even four quanta of duration.
>

And this other Dane concurs unconditionally. That is the way the
Danish language is. I should say, though, that these forms are
considered 'problematical' in spite of being regular by many speakers
and people tend to rephrase sentences containing them.

Torsten