I wouldn't trust anything Starostin says. His Altaic
reconstruction is just too sloppy.

Let's start with the three-vowel system in Steppe as follows...


i u

a


If I understand correctly, Altaic vowel harmony first developed
out of the harmonization of vowels in any given word according to the
presence/absence of roundness and the presence/absence of
frontness, qualities which started spreading from one syllable
to all syllables of a particular word. If the "main" vowel was
round, the others would be rounded too. If the main vowel was
a back vowel, the others would be made back vowels as well. This
caused a five-vowel system, with *� and *� being new additions:


i � � u

a


As we can see, *a was a neutral vowel (central and unrounded)
and would not have participated in the vowel harmony changes.
So I wonder if *e, *o and *� are justifiable in Altaic
reconstruction or whether this is just more phonemic overkill.

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gLeNny gEe
...wEbDeVEr gOne bEsErK!

home: http://glen_gordon.tripod.com
email: glengordon01@...
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