24-04-2004 11:17, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
> The convention is to use the half-long sign in mètre and the
> long sign in maître (/mEtr/, /mE.tr/ and /mE:tr/), but that
> of course amounts to the same thing.
Geg Albanian distinguishes between "half-length", which if I remember
correctly is produced by open-syllable lengthening mainly before a
postposed article, e.g. gjak-u [3'a.ku] 'the blood' vs. gjak [3'ak] and
"full length", resulting mainly from historical contractions, hence e.g.
dy '2' [dy:] (f.) vs. [dy] (m.), mjek 'physician' [mje:k] (< Lat.
medicu-), or from compensatory lengthening in formerly disyllabic words
before a lost schwa (preserved in Tosk), as in plakë [plA:k] 'old man'
vs. plakë [plA:k] 'old woman'.
Piotr