Re: intervocalic consonant clusters in Lojban & Vorlin

[And Rosta <cbmvax!uunet!ucl.ac.uk!ucleaar>]

Rick Morneau writes:
>In a previous post, John Cowan writes:
>> You are probably right.  Lojban does have a device for simplifying
>> difficult medial consonant clusters:  the non-Lojban vowel [I] may
>> be inserted into any difficult cluster, so that "mamta" can be
>> pronounced [mamIta].
>Are you sure this is correct? Is [I] the same sound as the "i" in
>English "hit" (close, central, unrounded)? If so, I wonder how this
>can be considered a *simplification*, since the phoneme /I/ is
>extremely rare. What do you gain by allowing people to break up a
>difficult consonant cluster with a vowel that they don't know how to
>pronounce?
IPA small capital I represents a centralized front vowel three-quarters close.
It may well be rare. However, I'm wondering whether both Rick and John
are thinking of a nonround central halfclose or 3/4-close vowel, which
would be written as barred small capital I. This vowel does *seem*
rare, but it has been plausibly suggested that this is because it is
habitually mistranscribed as schwa, which is just a notch lower. Those
people who contrast _George's_ and _Georgia's_, or _Unix_ and _eunuchs_,
may well have this vowel in the first of the pair. 

>By the way, I doubt if many people would have a problem with "mamta",
>since the combination nasal+stop is extremely common. 
- even when they're not homorganic?

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And