From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 32955
Date: 2004-05-27
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
To: "Mate Kapovic" <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2004 2:50 AM
Subject: Re[2]: [tied] Re: Unreality of One-Vowel Systems (was: Bader's
article on *-os(y)o)
> > I am definitely with Jens here... Monovocalic theory
> > cannot be excluded on typological grounds since some
> > languages *can* (even if it is only a possibility) be
> > analyzed like that and also there is the standard example
> > - if all the Khoisan languages died out before linguists
> > came there, I bet 99% of all linguists would swear that
> > phonemic clics are absolutely impossibile.
>
> Damin?
And the whole Nguni branch of Bantu (including Zulu and Xhosa) would have to
disappear as well (not to mention Hadza and Sandawe, whose relatedness to
any part of "Khoisan" is problematic). While it's true that the Nguni
languages have acquired clicks as a result of areal diffusion, they did so
well before any linguists came to South Africa.
Piotr