hania@rabbit.UUCP (Hania Gajewska) (07/25/84)
I don't know about any other languages, but both "w" and "z" are vowel-less words in Polish, and "Krk" is the name of an island of the coast of Yougolavia (Neither neither w or z are vowels in Polish, and I alobelieve that neither k nor r are vowels in any of the languages spoken in Yougoslavia. I think the name is Serbo-Croatian, and I also think there are other vowel-less words int hat that language). Hania Gajewska
grw@fortune.UUCP (Glenn Wichman) (07/26/84)
bip.
Before we go any further with this discussion, could someone
please define "vowelless"? If we just mean no vowels in the word
as it is spelled, it's kind of a meaningless conversation --
at least in English, spelling is related only tangentally to
phoentics. If we mean phonetically no vowels, there are certainly
a lot of words don't have them (you don't NEED a vowel to make a
word), but I can't think of any English ones (or German, or Japanese).
Unless you don't count "r" phonetically as a vowel. I mean like
the vowel sound in words like "fern", "bird", "worm", and "urn".
Phonetically, that's a vowel though.
On another subject, I have a housemate who claims that 'w'
is never a vowel in non-welsh words, whereas I claim that the
'w' in "down" is a vowel. Any linguistics experts willing to
settle this one?
-Glennpolard@fortune.UUCP (Henry Polard) (07/27/84)
In general and simplistically:
The word "vowel" refers to:
1. A class of letters, such as aeiou. Each writing system defines what a vowel is. In Polish, "y" is a wowel. In Czech and Croatian, "r" is both a consonant and a vowel. In English, "y" is both a vowel (he said slyly) and a consonant.
Sometimes new words violate the old rules: I wonder how the English spelling system will finally deal with the word "nth". When a foreign word is incorporated into English its spelling is also incorporated. "Crwth" and "cwm" are still recognized as being Welsh, so "w" may not yet be a vowel in English.
2. A class of sounds, generally a sound that can be "held" as long as there is breath going out. Each language defines what constitutes a wowel in its sound system. Sometimes a word may consist of only consonants from a abstract point of view, but will have a vowel when spoken. For example, the word for "I" in Cayuga is just "k" (according to one analysis) but is pronounced like the English word "eek".
What constitutes a word can be a matter of debate. As with sound, the writing system of a language is not necessarily a reliable guide, so "v" and "z" in Polish may be followed by a space in writing, but according to some linguists become part of the following word (like the plural ending "s" in English becomes part of the word it follows).
About "down": "ow" is a way to spell a vowel. Whether you want to consider the letter "w" as a vowel in such words seems to be a matter of taste.
For details, take a look at an introductory linguistics textbook or other relevant books. A good one for finding out about vowels is PHONETICS by Hefner. Be sure to verify what these books say by your own experience. I don't have refernces on me now, but if you want a brief bibliography on introductions to phonetics, phonology & linguistics I will send you one on request.
--
Henry Polard (You bring the flames; I'll bring the marshmallows.)
{ihnp4,cbosgd,amd}!fortune!polardgrw@fortune.UUCP (Glenn Wichman) (07/27/84)
bip >In general and simplistically: >The word "vowel" refers to: >1.... > >2. A class of sounds, generally a sound that can be "held" as >long as there is breath going out... By this definition, all non-stops are vowels, including 'm', 'l', 'th'. A better definition would probably include distance from tongue to palate, etc. >About "down": "ow" is a way to spell a vowel. Whether you want >to consider the letter "w" as a vowel in such words seems to be a >matter of taste. Actually, a diphthong. At least in most American pronounciations, "ow" is pronounced /au/. Ignoring whatever traditions may exist, I have always considered: a, e, i, o, and u to always be vowels in English [American]; w, y, and r to sometimes be vowels and sometimes be semi-vowels (vowels within a word, semi-vowels at the beginning of a word). No cute signoff, -Glenn
levy@fisher.UUCP (Silvio Levy) (07/28/84)
I forget which major linguist (but I think it was Saussure) did away with the vowel/consonant dichotomy (an inheritance from Latin and Greek grammar), and proposed instead that sounds be classified along a continuum in what concerns "fluidity". At one extreme would be real vowels (like a in hat), at the other obstruents (consonants like p, t). If you label the continuum 1 through 7, as he did, you can classify fricatives (s, f) -- which, incidentally, satisfy the condition that they can be pronounced for as long as one likes -- under 6, liquids (l, r) under 5, syllabic m, n (not found in English, but similar to nn in manner or tt in matter) under 4, semivowels (y in yes, w in we) under 3, and certain "vowels" like ir in fir under 2. The same sound can have different degrees of vowelness (obstruction to the pas- sage of air). In German "brennend", for example, we have (after bre) a con- sonantal n (7), then a syllabic n (4), then another consonantal n and finally a t. The "e" is not pronounced, but the syllabic n plays the role of a vowel. In Sanskrit and many of its extant daughters l, r, m, n are as common as vowels as they are as consonants (and, taken together, commoner than any of the normal vowels). Under this scheme, what can be said in general about possible and impossible combinations? It seems plausible that one must have some sound of type 6 or below in any given utterance -- if only because air must be expelled from the lungs. However, other than that, very little seems to be verifiable in general. For example, as has been pointed out, slavic languages have lots of consonantal clusters and even some consonant-only words; in fact, Czech has whole sentences without any vowel at all -- under the classification above, the lowest number assigned to a sound would be 5. Complicated clusters with sounds of type 6 and 7 only are common -- ex. Russian k skvazhine, where the s between the two k will form a syllable, simply by virtue of being a 6 between two 7's (still according to Saussure, a syllable is formed when there is a local minimum in the pattern). So just because English is an unimagivative language, let's not generalize and say no language can have vowelless words...