Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Ref Hercle, Zimite

Kreso Megyeral miskec4096 at hotmail.com
Thu Mar 8 01:27:53 UTC 2001


Chester Graham wrote:
>  Is there any known language which has intervocalic syllabic continuants?

In Croatian or Serbian (or, rather, Central Southern Slavonic, considering
the newly being created languages of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro) the
vocalic "r" can remain vocalic in front of the "o" which is derived from "l"
at the end of the syllable. Thus, if you have "grlo" - throat, and make a
deminutive form it will be "grlce". Since it has two syllables (grl-ce) the
"l" is at the end of the first one and it becomes "o", following the sound
law which says that every "l" at the end of a syllable becomes "o". So, we
have "groce", but the word has now three syllables, since "r" remains
vocalic (gr-o-ce), and it even holds the accent! Quite atypical feature, but
it's possible. However, there isn't any such example of vocalic sonant
remaining between two vowels.



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