Re: vowels: are they necessary?

Rene Uittenbogaard wrote:

> IIRC, the extra |o| only appears before certain consonant
> clusters, most notably |vs-| and |mn-|:
True. Also before some polyconsonantal clusters:
|vo zdraviye| 'for health'
|so skrezhetom| 'with gritting'.
OTOH, |v strakhe| 'in fear'.

> If a word happens to start with the same consonant as the
> preposition, then that alone is not reason enough to add |o|.
> To make a distinction, I believe that the consonant is
> pronounced long.
>
> v voskresen'ye  "on Sunday"        pronounced as [v:]-
> v vodu          "into the water"
> s sestroy       "with the sister"  pronounced as [s:]-
> k kafe          "towards the cafe" pronounced as [k:]- ?
Yes, that's true too.

----------
Stephen Mulraney wrote:

> Yes. Actually, I suppose that I could have answered that probably
> nothing happens in the case of /s zdra-/, but I thought I'd answer
> the implied wider question.
I'm afraid v ~ vo alteration is a reflex of older state of the language,
disappearing nowadays. Originally these words contained "yer". It would
follow all the rules of yer falling, disappearing in _# position, and giving
/o/ in odd syllables (not sure I'm clear here - I never learnt History of
Russian).

> The strange result
> is that there are actually words which begin, orthographically,
> with doubled consonants, and which I suppose are pronounced with
> an initial geminate. I guess if they are further prefixed by a
> preposition, nothing extra happens(?).
I guess you are right.

> _vvek_ 'never'
> _vverjat'_ 'entrust'
You cannot add a preposition to an adverb or a verb ;)

> I think there is indeed a [k:] here. Well, it may not actually
> be a geminate, but instead have a slight hiatus between two
> [k]s? Hmm, aren't there any native Russian speakers around at
> the moment? It's not as if we're talking about an obscure lang :).
Here I am ;)
No, the this no hiatus. It's a plain geminate.

-- Yitzik