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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dear Corpora colleagues, many of you are working
with different corpora in different languages, so you may know. I'm
interested in devoicing of consonants at the end of the word, not only in
Slavonic, but all world languages. It looks like devoicing does not depend on
the language family since in the same language family there are languages with
and without devoicing. Even in language groups, which are smaller language
taxons, there may be languages with and without devoicing at the end of the
word: e.g. in the Germanic group of the Indo-European language family - in
German there is devoicing, but in English there is no devoicing. In the Slavonic
group of the Indo-European family: devoicing in Russian, Belorussian, Czech,
Slovak, Polish, Bulgarian, Macedonian and Slovene, but no devoicing in
Serbian, Croatian, Old Russian or Ukrainian. I wonder if devoicing is the
new tendency in languages or on the contrary, the old phonetic law? Was there
devoicing at the end of words in Old Greek, Latin, Hebrew, old Persian,
Sanscrit, old Turkic, etc? Looking forward to your opinions to <A
href="mailto:yutamb@hotmail.com">yutamb@hotmail.com</A> Be well! Remain yours
most respectfully Yuri Tambovtsev e-mail: <A
href="mailto:yutamb@hotmail.com">yutamb@hotmail.com</A>
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