ABSTRACT
In the previous two chapters, I have reconstructed the consonants and vowels of OJ. In (4.34), I provided a crude formulation of OJ syllable structure:
(9.1) *C + ‘vowel’
I am now able to supply specific values for the variables ‘C’ and ‘vowel’:
C = {*p, *mb, *m, *w, *t, *nd, *n, *r, *s, *nz, *y, *k, *Yg, *Ø} ‘vowel’ = {*a, *i, *t, *u, *e, *Ry, *o, *R}
I find the formulation of OJ syllable structure in (9.1) to be somewhat awkward because it treats the diphthong *Ry as a single ‘vowel.’ I cannot reanalyze OJ syllables such as key (*kRy) as two-syllable sequences (i.e., as *kR + *i) because:
(1) Most phonograms represented single OJ syllables. If OJ key were composed of two syllables, it might have been written with two phonograms as * EMC *ktR qyi. Yet scribes never wrote OJ key or any other ey-‘syllable’ with sequences of phonograms.
