david_russell_watson wrote:
> Do I understand this correctly, that there is supposed to be no
> distinction of vowel length in Ossetic?
No phonemic contrast of length, though in fact the duration of the
strong vowels is typically greater than that of the weak ones; the
strong ones also have a narrow degree of allophonic variation, while the
weak ones vary considerably. These, however, are surface phonetic
phenomena that should perhaps be described in terms of a tense vs. lax
distinction. The duration differences don't seem to have ever mattered
in borrowing between Ossetic and Slavic (either way), while qualitative
distinctions are obviously important.
Piotr