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Glides vs. vowels, and nCnN



Regarding glides, I don't think they should coexist with certain types
of vowel combinations. It's too difficult to distinguish the following
pairs in connected speech:

bua bwa
bau baw
bai bay
bia bya

My tendency would be to simply drop the glides, as that would make the
rule simpler. Then you could have <w> and <y> for other purposes. (I
recall that we tried <w> as a vowel and didn't like the look of
it--neither of us being Welsh, I suppose.)

Also, do you expect nCnN to be true in practice? If not, why not
narrow it down? Try listing all reasonable combinations, then look for
a relatively compact set of rules. But I would prefer a more complex
set of rules yeilding fewer bizarre possibilities such as /bdomen/ and
/kfey/--not to mention the theoretical possibility of horrors such as
/ksbqrmnlq/ or /bpbpbpqmqmqm/.

Unlike syntax, the complexity of the morphophonemic rules shouldn't
have any practical impact on speakers, but only on those who are
creating new morphemes, which is not something that has to be done on
the fly.

-- 
Mike Wright
http://www.CoastalFog.net
_______________________________________________________
"When they wired us humans up, they really should have
 labeled the wires--don't you think?" -- Ed