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Rex: > on 4/30/02 5:39 PM, And Rosta at a-rosta@hidden.email wrote: > > > I don't think optional sa would work. Instead, change its function to > > a hyphenator. Then contrast blu fawl with compound 'blu sa fawl', or > > add new rules for forming short compounds, e.g. f > w: bluwawl. > If we were going to do that, I'd consider nasalizing the first constituent. > that would mean that it combines with the next morpheme. Nasalizing the vowel, you mean? How would you write that? By omitting the space? > However, I still think 'sa' can often be omitted. I can certainly hear the > difference between blue bird and bluebird in English. I can hear the difference too, but it's murder for nonnatives. One possibility would be to signal the nonfinal elements in a compound by laying a whole raft of contrastive phonetic properties on the vowel, such as nasalization AND breathy voice AND whatever-else-you-can-think-of. Each phonetic feature might be different to say or hear when taken individually, but when added together they might yield a sufficiently robust contrast. --And.