Schwa (Re: non-phonetic english spelling)

From: Jacques Guy (jguy_at_alphalink.com.au)
Date: 12/24/04 

Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 13:59:45 +1000

Bart Mathias wrote:

> In what way? The devoiced (or fricated[?], after a fricative) vowels in
> Japanese are all lexically "there," not added because consonants have to
> be released. In French there are perhaps two kinds, lexical as in, say,
> "monde," and rule-derived, as in "cinq."

Vous vous fourrez tous le doigt dans l'oeil jusqu'au coude.

Why?

Because you are trying to fit disparate phonetic
phenomena into an arbitrary word ("schwa") instead
of trying to find what makes the phenomena tick.

There is no "French schwa". There is an epenthetic
vowel the phonetic value of which oscillates between
rounded and less rounded, central and less central,
and so on, the presence or absence of which is partly
predictable, partly impredictable. To call it "schwa"
is fine. But to try to fit it into the Procrustean
bed of English schwa (or, Jehovah forbid! Hebrew
schwa)... it's a bit like... yes... here is my
"Grammaire de la langue tahitienne" by R.D. Lovy
and L.-J. Bouge... page 81:

Conjugaison de quelques verbes

Fabriquer (Conditionnel présent):

_Je fabriquerais, si..._ E hamani au, ahiri...

and, page 88:

Etre arrêté -- Passé lointain, indéfini:

_J'ai été arrêté_ Ua tapeahia vau

It's a bit like that.

I wrote: "There is an epenthetic
vowel".

Well, no. I should have written: "there are
circumstances ("environments" if you prefer)
where an epenthetic vowel...". And there
are circumstances when a vowel which was
or should be there disappears in a puff of
orange smoke(*), and you have no real idea why
... and when not.

(*) Allusion to "Colossal Cave".

Relevant Pages

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