"o", "u", and "u"

[Michael Mccafferty]

John,
The digraph /kw/, I believe, should have a superscript w. Otherwise, the
historically written independent o and u, which are the same phoneme in
Nahuatl, could be written either /o/ or /u/, where //=italic.

Michael


On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Frances Karttunen wrote:

> Dear John,
>
> The orthographic "u" of "hu" and "cu" is not a vowel like the other two.
> It's part of digraphs for the consonants /w/ and (resorting to yet another
> digraph because I can't do superscripts in email) /kw/. This latter
> represents labialized /k/ as in English quick or Spanish cuando, but
> permitted phonotactically at both the beginning and end of syllables in
> Nahuatl.
>
> So you are really only looking for two distinct vowel symbols.  The hu and
> cu are predictable packages.  Won't u and o do?
>
> Fran
>
> ----------
> >From: John Sullivan <jsullivan at prodigy.net.mx>
> >To: nahuat-l <nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu>
> >Subject: "o", "u", and "u"
> >Date: Thu, Jan 11, 2001, 1:00 PM
> >
>
> > I am working on a nahuatl document from los altos de jalisco whose writer
> > seems to distinguish between the "o", its "u" variant, and the "u" of "cu"
> > and "hu". The "u" in "hu" and "cu" is written with the normal letter "u" (it
> > has a little tail). The "u" which is a pronunciation variant of the "o" is
> > written with a letter "o" that is open at the top, kind of like a "u"
> > without the tail. The "real" "o" is written with a normal closed letter "o".
> > Has anyone seen this fenomenon before? Is it documented? Also, when I get
> > this published, I would like to distinguish between the three sounds in the
> > transcription by using three different letters. Can a linguist give me
> > advice on an appropriate symbol for the "u" variant?
> >     John Sullivan
> >     Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas
> >
>
>


Michael McCafferty
307 Memorial Hall
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana
47405
mmccaffe at indiana.edu

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