From: Arnaud Fournet
Message: 61253
Date: 2008-11-02
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Jarrette" <anjarrette@...>
>
> A bit aside: I've always wondered how English has [wu] as in <womb>
> and <woo> ([wum] and [wu]). Is the [w] in this position
> extra-rounded, to distinguish it from the almost identical vowel that
> follows? It doesn't become [B] or something similar, yet the [w] is
> clearly audible before the [u]. We also have [ji] in <year>, <yeast>,
> <yield>, <yean>, <ye>. The [j] doesn't become fricativized or
> otherwise hardened (cf. Spanish), but nevertheless it is clearly
> audible. I know that Mandarin has similar combinations (although in
> some dialects /w/ is actually pronounced [v] or the approximant
> variety of [v]) -- yet PIE did not seem to allow similar combinations.
> Should [w] be considered an allophone of /u/ in PIE, as Arnaud says
> it is in French and other Romance languages? (Apparently, as is well
> known, this is what the original writers of Latin thought of their /u/
> and [w], but it later caused problems in words like <equus> for
> earlier *<equos> or <<uulgus> for earlier *<uolgos>).) Or is it
> already established doctrine that /u/ and /w/ are allophones of a
> single sound in PIE?
>
> Andrew
>
=========
Your remark is very clever, i think.
the fact that English allows combinaisons like wu and yi is a sign that w, u
and y, i are different phonemes.
This does not happen in French (once again...)...
The issue in PIE has been discussed here before :
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/50199
Best
Arnaud