"syllabicity"

[Rich Alderson]

On 13 May 1999, Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer at cphling.dk> wrote:

>But even so, the preform *divaz-dyvai, supposing it is correct (and it is
>a _very_ good idea), may be analyzed as /dyvas-dyvay/ and so makes do with
>only one phoneme that is always syllabic. Would you not agree that the
>vowel was /a/ at one time - and still is synchronically in one stage of
>abstraction - in both cases?

Thank you, the idea is not mine.  As for the phonological analysis of the
phrase, we shall have to agree to disagree, as I cannot accept the lexical
status of the /y/s in the first syllables--the surface realization is *always*
[i], never [y], and is therefore underlying /i/.

(Phonology is a lot simpler, in this way, than Chomsky & Halle thought, though
it is much more complex in others.)

								Rich Alderson