Re: [SPAM][tied] comohota

----- Original Message -----

From: Rick McCallister

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 8:55 PM

Subject: Re: [SPAM]Re: [SPAM][tied] comohota

Languages also borrow alphabets better suited to other
languages and have to sort out how to make them fit
their phonologies. I agree that the <h> is not
meaningless but it may just be a marker for a long
vowel, a hiatus, a different sort of vowel quality
--i.e. a "helping letter". English, Catalan, German,
Basque et al. all have this phenomenon. On the other
hand, it may be the relic of a fricativized stop, or
just an /h/

--- "fournet.arnaud" <fournet.arnaud@ wanadoo.fr>
wrote:

> Modern languages like English or French
> have traditions : that is to say a lot of useless
> letters
> inherited from previous languages
> or previous habits about how to write previous
> languages.
> Hence de-b-t, et caetera....
>
> I suppose Umbrian had nothing like that,
> 2 000 years ago.
> they started from nil and from a white page.
>
> So why is it they wrote como-h-ota ?
> It should be mo(:)ta. Somebody wrote it two days
> ago.
> this leads to two questions :
> 1. why is it they wrote mota as mo-h-o-ta ?
> 2. why is it they chose -h- to display morphemic (?)
> cut ?
> What does all this mean ??
> Neither Greek nor Latin can be a "model" to create
> such a -h-.
>
> You are selling the "just-forget- it" explanation.
> I cannot buy this "explanation" :
> it just does not sound as a possible explanation at
> all.
>
> I am expecting something that looks like a real
> explanation.
>
> What is a "spelling marker" ?
> and what does it originate in ?
>
> Arnaud
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: P&G
> To: cybalist@... s.com
> Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 9:48 AM
> Subject: Re: [SPAM]Re: [SPAM][tied] comohota
>
>
>
> Why should we consider it a real phoneme? Any
> more than the written h in English "she" or "chair"?
> Or the b in "debt"? Why can't it just be a
> spelling marker either of length or of hiatus?
>
> Peter
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: fournet.arnaud
> To: cybalist@... s.com
> Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 6:48 PM
> Subject: [SPAM]Re: [SPAM][tied] comohota
>
>
>
> If this -h- were to be considered as a "real"
> phoneme,
> what would it be ? *gh, *g, *gw ?
>
> Arnaud
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: P&G
> To: cybalist@... s.com
> Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 10:02 AM
> Subject: Re: [SPAM][tied] comohota
>
>
> >I have a question about
> >Umbrian comohota = Latin offerta
> >This word is supposed to be from root *meu
> >Latin mov-ere and Lituanian mauti.
> >What does this -h- in como-h-ota stand for ?
>
> The process in Umbrian should be:
> *move-to > *mov-to > *mouto > mo:to
> with regular syncope, then regular change of
> -ou- to -o:-.
>
> Umbrian spelling is, as one writer puts it,
> "as diverse as possible.
> Various spellings of the same sound are used,
> sometimes wholly
> promiscuously. " The sound /h/ was very weak,
> if not absent, in Umbrian, and
> is commonly used as a sign of hiatus. This is
> in line with Rick
> McCallister' s suggestion. The trouble is, this
> word should have no hiatus,
> merely a single long vowel.
>
> Perhaps we can guess it is merely an aberrant
> spelling.
>
> Peter
>
>
>
>
>

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