ADS-L/NTY synergy, "umlaut"

[Jan Ivarsson TransEdit]

French has "diérèse" for pronouncing a bi-vowel as two syllables (as in the verb "plier"). This does not necessitate a "tréma" (from Greek "holes" or "dots on a dice"), the two dots that you put over the vowels "e", "i" or "u" to indicate that the preceding vowel should be pronounced as a separate sound, "romaïque" against the normal rule, as in "romain".
The same goes for many other European languages.
The "Umlaut" ("re-sound") is something different. The two dots here represent an "e" that has been moved up by the mediaeval scribes. In German, you can write "Goebbels" or "Göbbels" (he himself changed his spelling in his signature!) - the pronunciation rests the same. This is the "real" Umlaut: "Buch", "Bücher".
But languages like Finnish or Swedish use this sign also just to indicate the pronunciation: "väst" (waistcoat) never has had an "a" - it is borrowed from the French "veste" and thus pronounced. In those languages, "ä" and "ö" today are perceived as letters totally distinct from "a" and "o" (not to speak of the Swedish "a" with a little circle on top, pronounced very close to "o").
The "Ablaut" again is something different: "sitzen", "sass", "setzen".
Jan Ivarsson
jan.ivarsson at transedit.st

----- Original Message -----
From: "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 7:44 AM
Subject: Re: ADS-L/NTY synergy


> At 7:21 PM +0200 4/24/01, Paul Frank wrote:
> >  > >  I call the
> >>  >double-dot in Finnish and Chinese "umlaut" with no shame ...
> >>
> >>  The Finnish one, at least, IS an umlaut, as is the Turkish
> >>  counterpart--they mark the vowels they sit on as fronted.  Seems like
> >>  umlautish behavior to me.  Likewise the one in Tibetan, I'm pretty
> >>  sure.  I don't know about the Chinese one, though--is it a
> >>  vowel-fronter?
> >>  larry
> >
> >Chinese u in, say, lu is also an umlaut. Depending on tone and written
> >character, lu can mean law, deer, green, and a number of other things. I
> >don't know if it makes sense to speak of umlauts in Chinese. Isn't an umlaut
> >a German vowel sound that has changed from u to u or a to a or o to o, such
> >as singular Mann and plural Manner? No such process takes place in Chinese.
> >But don't take my word for any of this, because I know nothing about
> >linguistics. Or is an umlaut such a diacritical mark? In that case the
> >pinyin transliteration of Chinese does have umlauts.
> >
> Well, even in German "umlaut" is also used for non-alternating front
> vowels.  The idea, as I understand it, is that the umlaut "changes"
> the sound to that of the fronted vowel, although certainly
> etymologically your observation is correct.  In most of the languages
> we've been discussing, an umlauted vowel is a fronted vowel
> regardless of whether that vowel alternates with a back alternant (as
> with the singular/plural opposition), i.e. orthographic ü (that's an
> u-umlaut) = IPA [y].
>
> (By the way, in my version of the above e-mail, the umlauts were
> neutralized out of existence, but their ghosts are reconstructible
> from the context.)
>
> larry