From: Rick McCallister
Message: 53217
Date: 2008-02-15
> Richard Wordingham wrote:____________________________________________________________________________________
> > 4 vowel systems are usually more asymmetric. For
> yet more examples, we
> > have the
> > Proto-Austronesian system of /a, e, i, u/...
>
> I'm sure you're aware of this, but others may not
> be: PAN *e represents
> central schwa, not a mid/low front vowel. (At least,
> last I heard...) Its
> use dates from days of the typewriter, when
> inserting a real schwa into your
> ms. was laborious and prone to omission, no longer a
> problem thanks to
> computers, except in email. But the system was
> indeed asymmetric, and *e was
> somewhat restricted as to occurrence in the
> proto-language, probably was
> always unstressed, and shows many peculiarites in
> later development.
>
>