Lahob languages: Difference between revisions

Proto-Lahob's vowel inventory, on the other hand, is fairly simple, with five pairs of long and short vowels - /a aː e eː o oː i iː u uː/ - plus the two vowels /ɨ ə/. The non-high vowels could also form diphthongs with /ɨ̯ ɪ̯ ʊ̯/, while /i iː/ only could with /ʊ̯/ and /u uː/ only with /ɪ̯/. Diphthongs centered on schwa, once controversial among Lahob linguists, have now become accepted by most linguists because of *əj being so far the only reasonable explanation for palatalized consonants in Chlouvānem - as with e.g. *nodəjn-ə- "to hit, strike" > ''nadьn-'' "to trip into, to hit" - much like the *əjV sequence explains the distinction between CʲV and CjV (as with *ʕiŋjō > ''liliā'' "my, mine" (*CjV > CʲV) and *ērəjo > ''yarya'' "beer" (*CəjV > CjV)).