--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer@...>
wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Jun 2004, Richard Wordingham wrote:
> > Would you say Latin was well-nigh a 3-vowel (/a/, /e/, /o/)
language?
This was not planned as an ambush.
> I suppose I would. The Romans did fine in their own writing using
I and V
> as both consonants and vowels. Vowel length would have to be
handled by
> doubling which would be unproblematic since there are no hiatuses
between
> identical vowels.
There are! See discussion of /VV/ below.
> It won't work for Greek for precisely that reason. I
> even believe some tough ones would work in Latin, as VIIVVM
(vi:vum),
> VVVIDVS (u:vidus), IIENS (iens) vs. IECVR (jecur). Have I missed
some?
What about _fi:o:_ 'I become' compared to _facio:_ 'I make'?
I assumed you'd know the minimal pair (I assume) _qui:_ 'who (rel)'
and _cui:_ 'who (d.s.)'. It's one of the reasons I said 'well-nigh'.
Vowel length is difficult to handle as a geminate. /VV/ is
ambiguous in the environment C_C. In the 4th declension we have, in
modern spelling -u:s (g.s., nom.pl.), but -uum (g.pl.), to which we
can add add 2nd declension forms _servus_ 'slave (nom.s.)', and
_servum_ (acc.s.), both of which are two syllables.
_arduus_ 'steep, high; troublesome' and _viduus_ 'bereft' add to the
troubles unless the modern spelling is wrong.
/II/ has a two-fold ambiguity. In compounds of _iacio:_ throw,
the 'adverb' is long by position; I was taught that <inicio> was
actually /injicio:/.
Richard.