Re: [tied] Re: Unreality of One-Vowel Systems (was: Bader's article

On Sun, 23 May 2004 23:57:15 +0000, Richard Wordingham
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...>
>wrote:
>
>> The main thing is to establish exactly what we're talking
>> about. From a _phonetic_ point of view Sanskrit has the
>> vowels [i], [i:], [u], [u:], [&] and [a:] (plus [e:] and
>> [o:] after monophthongization of /ai/ and /au/).
>>
>> It's possible to apply an abstract phonological analysis
>> which reduces all of these to consonants (/y/, /w/) and a
>> single vowel /a/ ([a:] = /aa/ and, to quote Pa:n.ini, [&] =
>> /a/).
>
>Except that I believe Piotr quoted some examples where there were two
>possible surface forms and no obvious rule to choose between them.
>The abstract analysis almost works, but not quite.
>
>Incidentally, why do we have _urdi_ 'of a man'

I don't recognize that form. A genitive in -i? Is it the
first part of a compound?

>but _vr.ta_ 'chosen' and _vr.ks.a_ 'tree'?

Where's the accent on /urdi/?

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...