LINGUIST List 6.1016

Fri Jul 28 1995

Qs: IPA, 'Vowelless' lgs, Provencal, Citing email

Editor for this issue: Ann Dizdar <dizdartam2000.tamu.edu>

Directory

1. , how do you cite e-mail
2. , Query: Recordings of 'vowelless' languages
3. Charles Reiss, Provencal
4. heather marie anderson, how do you cite e-mail

 <Laura_Labonte-Smith.INCONTEXTicnotes.incontext.ca>

Does anyone know if IPA symbols are available as
(i) an SGML character entity set?
(ii) a Windows font?

Thanks very much,

Laura Labonte-Smith InContext Corporation
lauraincontext.ca http://www.incontex.ca

I would like to obtain on audiotape some recordings of texts in languages
which have been claimed to have a very small phonemic vowel inventory (just
one or two vowel phonemes or even none at all, with both the position and
quality of all vocalic sounds predictable from the consonantal context).
Such language include Kabardian and Abaza, but there may be others. Quite
short texts will do; I just want some feel for what such languages sound
like. Could anyone suggest possible sources?

My immediate interest arises from the way these languages have been brought
into discussions about the evolution of language. For example, pointing
out that some protolanguages (e.g. Proto-Indo-European) have been
reconstructed as having maybe just one vowel, Krantz has argued that such
protolanguages (and also modern languages such as Kabardian) may reflect a
pre-modern stage of language evolution before the descent of the larynx had
extended the available vowel inventory. (See Grover S. Krantz 'Laryngeal
descent in 40,000 year old fossils', _The genesis of language_ 173-180, ed.
by Marge E. Landsberg, 1988, Mouton de Gruyter.)

Quite apart from doubts one may have about the timescale, this suggestion
seems to me unconvincing because it wrongly implies that a small *phonemic*
inventory necessarily implies a small *phonetic* inventory -- and of course
it is the phonetic inventory which matters when one is considering
restrictions which may be imposed by a given vocal tract shape. I have
always visualized those North-West Caucasian languages with few phonemic
vowels as nevertheless having plenty of vowel *sounds*, helping to
distinguish neighbouring consonant phonemes. But it would be nice to hear
for myself whether or not I am right.
Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy
Department of Linguistics, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800,
Christchurch, New Zealand
Phone +64-3-364 2211; home phone +64-3-355 5108
Fax +64-3-364 2065
e-mail a.c-mccling.canterbury.ac.nz

Can anyone tell me if there are any endowed chairs in Provencal (Modern)
in the States?

Charles Reiss
11 Gerry St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 491-2407
fax 492-7430
creissdas.harvard.edu

Dear Colleagues,

I have a practical question. How does one cite information recieved via
e-mail? Would personal responses to a query be different from postings on
a list? I think this would be useful information not just to me but to
others as well.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Heather Anderson
"hmandersindiana.edu"