"But the schwa isn't an independent phoneme, is it? Isn't [r&] the
_phonetic_ realization only, of the
Czech _phoneme_ syllabic "r"?" David WORDINGHAM, ENGLAND
[So [&] is schwa? OK.]
I was necessarily talking about phonetic realizations since I started from
what I heard. As I know next to nothing about Czech, I'm unable for the
moment to determine its phoneme chart, and say whether [&] is the
realization of the phoneme /&/. All I wanted to say is that, for me, the
so-called "syllabic [r] of Czech" does not exist, and that it is the
spelling that mislead some linguists to posit its existence.
Maybe I could provisionally propose the rule: in Czech, whenever <r> [r] is
found in a consonantic cluster without a written vowel after it, it is
followed by the default vowel [&]. <prst> [pr&st] CRVC not *[prst] *CRCC.
Besides, schwa also occurs in other consonantic clusters: e.g. <kdy> [g&
'di] "when" CV-'CV.