Vowelless words

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Kai_DaiGoji
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Vowelless words

Post by Kai_DaiGoji »

Is it possible to have a word with no vowels? I''m not talking about syllabic consonants like nasals functioning as the nucleus - the example I was thinking of was more like using /p'/ as a one syllable preposition. Would this be more likely to be analyzed as a prefix, which would attach to the following word; or perhaps as having a voiceless vowel afterward? Or is it possible to have a vowelless (maybe I mean nucleus-less) syllable.
[quote="TomHChappell"]I don't know if that answers your question; is English a natlang?[/quote]

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Post by Acid Badger »

Aren't there prepositions like z or v in some slavic languages? I think I've seen some there.

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Post by din »

Russian has some vowelless function words. So do some other Slavic languages (Polish?)

I speak neither Russian nor Polish, though. I just remember seeing them in texts.

(edit) well, there you go ^
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Post by Alces »

Russian has /v/ for 'in', and probably more like that. And French has /l/ as an definite article before words beginning in a vowel. Many Northern English dialects have /ʔ/ for 'the'. So it's certainly possible, but I don't know any examples with non-function words.

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Post by MrKrov »

xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłskʷc̓
Case closed.
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Post by Viktor77 »

Fanu wrote:Aren't there prepositions like z or v in some slavic languages? I think I've seen some there.
But they are prefixed to the following word in speach or have a quick vowel following them.

French also has l' before consonants such as l'bazaar, but it is not a pure consonant.
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Post by Trailsend »

MrKrov wrote:
xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłskʷc̓
Case closed.
Ayeah. Along with plenty others.

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Post by Guitarplayer II »

Sonorants can be syllable nuclei easily.

German reduces final /əl(n)/ and final stop + /əm ən əŋ/ to syllabic consonants: <Deckel> [dɛ.kl̩], <wechseln> [vɛk.sl̩n], <bleiben> [blae.bm̩], <sagen> [zaː.gŋ̩], <können> [kʰœn.n̩] ...
giˈtaɹ.plɛɪ̯ɚ‿n dɪs.ˈgaɪz • [b][url=http://sanstitre.nfshost.com/sbk]Der Sprachbaukasten[/url][/b]
[size=84]And! [url=http://bit.ly/9dSyTI]Ayeri Reference Grammar[/url] (upd. 28 Sep 2010)[/size]

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Re: Vowelless words

Post by Trailsend »

That's not what he's talking about, though.
Kai_DaiGoji wrote:I''m not talking about syllabic consonants like nasals functioning as the nucleus

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Post by Ziz »

Viktor77 wrote:
Fanu wrote:Aren't there prepositions like z or v in some slavic languages? I think I've seen some there.
But they are prefixed to the following word in speach or have a quick vowel following them.

French also has l' before consonants such as l'bazaar, but it is not a pure consonant.
You're talking about written colloquial French, right? Le is never condensed before a consonant (h muet doesn't count).

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Re: Vowelless words

Post by Guitarplayer II »

Trailsend wrote:That's not what he's talking about, though.
Kai_DaiGoji wrote:I''m not talking about syllabic consonants like nasals functioning as the nucleus
Shame on me for not properly reading the OP.
giˈtaɹ.plɛɪ̯ɚ‿n dɪs.ˈgaɪz • [b][url=http://sanstitre.nfshost.com/sbk]Der Sprachbaukasten[/url][/b]
[size=84]And! [url=http://bit.ly/9dSyTI]Ayeri Reference Grammar[/url] (upd. 28 Sep 2010)[/size]

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Post by Viktor77 »

Snaka wrote:You're talking about written colloquial French, right? Le is never condensed before a consonant (h muet doesn't count).
Yes, colloquial French.
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Post by Kai_DaiGoji »

MrKrov wrote:
xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłskʷc̓
Case closed.
You know, I even remember reading that one on Wikipedia, now that I think about it. I'd still want to hear someone pronounce it - I would definitely stick a few vowels in if I tried.
[quote="TomHChappell"]I don't know if that answers your question; is English a natlang?[/quote]

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Post by AnTeallach »

Kai_DaiGoji wrote:
MrKrov wrote:
xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłskʷc̓
Case closed.
You know, I even remember reading that one on Wikipedia, now that I think about it. I'd still want to hear someone pronounce it - I would definitely stick a few vowels in if I tried.
The UCLA phonetics archive does have a recording of some of the vowelless words from Nuxálk/Bella Coola, but I didn't find the sound quality very good:
http://archive.phonetics.ucla.edu/Language/BLC/blc.html

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Post by Ziz »

[deleted]
Last edited by Ziz on Thu Aug 05, 2010 9:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by ná'oolkiłí »

Kai_DaiGoji wrote:You know, I even remember reading that one on Wikipedia, now that I think about it. I'd still want to hear someone pronounce it - I would definitely stick a few vowels in if I tried.
I can just barely wrap my tongue around that the bunchberry one—I get about 4 syllables with nucleuses pretty much falling on sibilants and laterals. It helps a lot that it's all voiceless; I find it more difficult to weed out vowels of long clusters containing voiced consonants. I can't find a recording of the bunchberry or the animal fat word specifically, but this is very cool.

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Post by Jacqui »

Strč prst skrz krk, meaning "stick a finger through your neck" in Czech.
Smrž pln skvrn zvlhl z mlh "A morel full of spots wetted from fogs". (Here zvlhl has two syllables based on L; note that the preposition z consists of a single consonant. Only prepositions do this in Czech, and they normally link phonetically to the following noun, so do not really behave as vowelless words.) In Russian, there are also prepositions that consist of a single consonant letter, like k "to", v "in", and s "with". However, these forms are actually contractions of ko, vo, and so respectively, and these forms are still used in modern Russian before words with certain consonant clusters for ease of pronunciation.
Berber examples include /tkkststt/ "you took it off" and /tfktstt/ "you gave it". Some words may contain one or two consonants only: /ɡ/ "be", /ks/ "feed on".

Source: Wikipedia.

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Re: Vowelless words

Post by Acid Badger »

Once again.
Kai_DaiGoji wrote:I''m not talking about syllabic consonants (...) functioning as the nucleus

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Post by Nortaneous »

I'd analyze it as a prefix unless there's a good reason not to, but that doesn't mean it can't happen.
Jacqui wrote:Berber examples include /tkkststt/ "you took it off" and /tfktstt/ "you gave it". Some words may contain one or two consonants only: /ɡ/ "be", /ks/ "feed on".
I think Berber has an epenthetic vowel.
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

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Post by Mecislau »

Russian has a total of six vowelless, one-consonant words:

/s/ = "with, off of"
/k/ = "to, towards"
/v/ = "in, into"
/b/ = subjunctive/conditional mood particle (~"would")
/Z/ = emphatic particle
/l_j/ = interrogative particle

They're usually just pronounced slurred into the neighboring words, though.

The last three of these are contracted forms of /b1/, /Ze/, and /l_ji/ respectively that occur as stylistic/positional variants. The first three, however, really are vowelless prepositional clitics.
Jacqui wrote:In Russian, there are also prepositions that consist of a single consonant letter, like k "to", v "in", and s "with". However, these forms are actually contractions of ko, vo, and so respectively, and these forms are still used in modern Russian before words with certain consonant clusters for ease of pronunciation.
No, they aren't. At least not strictly speaking. Ko, vo, and so are variants of k, v, and s with a filler vowel, not the other way around, even though the ancestral form did have a vowel. The regular development of the Common Slavic prepositions *kъ, *vъ, and *sъ in Russian yields simply /k/, /v/, and /s/, while /ko vo so/ are positional variants caused by things such as stress shifting or the general pattern of reduced vowel loss in Old East Slavic.

Even easier way to demonstrate it: As a Russian to say the word "in" or "with". They'll just say the consonant.
Nortaneous wrote:I'd analyze it as a prefix unless there's a good reason not to, but that doesn't mean it can't happen.
In Russian, for instance, they're best analyzed as clitics, since you can freely stick other words or phrases in between.

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Post by Silk »

Mecislau covered everything I would have to say about Russian, but here's a Ukrainian example.
The word for "and" is usually і /i/, but if it comes after vowels it is й /j/.
Ukrainian has в /v/ (like in Russian), plus з /z/ which is a cognate of Russian с.
Polish has w /v/and z /z/ but I don't know about others.

I'm not an expert on Ukrainian or Polish so correct me if I'm wrong about these.

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Post by Boşkoventi »

na'oolkili wrote:
Kai_DaiGoji wrote:You know, I even remember reading that one on Wikipedia, now that I think about it. I'd still want to hear someone pronounce it - I would definitely stick a few vowels in if I tried.
I can just barely wrap my tongue around that the bunchberry one—I get about 4 syllables with nucleuses pretty much falling on sibilants and laterals. It helps a lot that it's all voiceless; I find it more difficult to weed out vowels of long clusters containing voiced consonants. I can't find a recording of the bunchberry or the animal fat word specifically, but this is very cool.
I'd like to hear a recording of the "bunchberry" word too. But, it's definitely possible; a while ago someone here was trying to make a language without vowels, and wanted a recording to make sure it was pronounceable or something. So I made one of a word from that language (the name of it, I think): [Cqstxnh]
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Post by Echobeats »

AnTeallach wrote:The UCLA phonetics archive does have a recording of some of the vowelless words from Nuxálk/Bella Coola, but I didn't find the sound quality very good:
http://archive.phonetics.ucla.edu/Language/BLC/blc.html
That guy should work in sound effects for TV and radio. Unless, as I can't help suspecting, he was actually just spinning a rusty bicycle wheel instead of speaking...
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Post by Niedokonany »

@Silk: in pl there's also k "towards", archaic or dialectal (the standard form of this preposition is now ku, not that it is used very often anyway).
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Post by Torco »

isn't church pretty much wholly consonantal ? [tʃɹtʃ]

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