Epenthetic schwa?

["61510::GILSON" <cbmvax!uunet!CCF3.NRL.NAVY.MIL!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!gilson!61510.decnet>]

Ivan A Derzhanski <iad%COGSCI.ED.AC.UK@CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU> writes:


>I'm generally opposed to the idea of a buffer vowel, because I think
>it would make word recognition much more difficult.  I would favour an
>epenthetic schwa, say, {.ymlatu}, where the listener would naturally
>delete the {.y-} as a semantically empty space filler.

I wonder when anyone would need the epenthetic schwa. Lojbab pointed out to
me that words like "mlatu" aren't as hard to say as I'd think, _because_ they
will usually be preceded by the ending vowel of a word like "la" or "doi" and
one can (so to speak) lean on that vowel; i. e., pronounce "la mlatu" as if
it were "*lam latu." If people habitually do that, it seems that Ivan's schwa
isn't needed.

                                                  Bruce