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Re: The Story of Guper the Foolish Troll

From:Kristian Jensen <kljensen@...>
Date:Sunday, February 28, 1999, 18:55
dunn patrick w wrote:
> >To whoever criticized the phonology. Damn. Got me. Now you know >I'm not only *not* a professional linguist, I'm an English teacher >who can't spell. Mea culpa. Ic nis snotor. heteke trme. ("I act >like a bird", a troll idiom meaning "I'm foolish, useless, and >noisy.")
Don't feel defeated just yet, Patrick. Some of the sounds you claim exist in your conlang has also been claimed to exist in natlangs. But the labels that are given to these sounds are innacurate and misleading - I believe that is exactly the case with your conlang.
>But ya know what? Voiced glotal stops may be impossible, but if >so, I deserve some money, cause I'm making one right now all *over* >the damn place! Guess bumblebees can't fly, either.
According to "The Sounds of the World's Languages" by Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson, there are languages that behave as if there is a contrast between voiceless and voiced glottal stops. One such language is a Papuan language from the Eastern highlands of of New Guinea called Gimi. Where neighboring languages have cognate forms containing _k_ and _g_, Gimi has glottal stops corresponding to _k_ and another segment, symbolized here as _*_, corresponding to _g_. Ladefoged's and Maddieson's own recordings of Gimi show that _*_ [quote] "consists largely of a diminution of energy between otherwise adjacent vowels." "The waveform of _?_ shows some noise in the initial portion, but is otherwise indicative of a tightly closed glottis. The so-called voiced glottal stop is signaled by slight irregularities in the glottal pulses, and a considerable decrease in the amplitude of the pulses which is probably due to an increase in the glottal stiffness; but there is no indication of anything that would normally be called a stop, glottal or otherwise." "In summary, it seems that _*_ in Gimi is voiced, and involves some glottal activity; but it might better be called a creaky voiced glottal approximant rather than a stop."
>Glotal approximants? Nope, I can't really make 'em either. I can >*imagine* them, and come pretty close (sort of a really raspy h, >mixed with a half a gargle). But then, I'm not a troll. It's >purposfully alien, since Trolls are alien from humans. And if you >can't figure out a glotal nasal, well, "I will weep for thee. >Methinks this fall of thine is like another fall of man."
As I have just quoted, man in fact can have a glottal approximant. Methinks that perhaps this glottal approximant is in fact another variant of a creaky approximant. Although it is physically not possible to have a glottal nasal because an obstruction in the glottal area would elimate any air ascaping in the nasal cavity, methinks that your so-called glottal nasal is in fact a a very creaky nasalized approximant. I believe that the gurgliness that youtalk of is in fact a type of phonation. I suspect that this phonation is creaky voice. -----<snip>-----
>But trolls can *make* a glottal approximant. They can make voiced >glotal stops.
So can humans apparently, if you just define them properly!
>Believe it or not they have a hard time making a labial >fricative without chewing a lip off. Their t, d, s, z, r, & l are >farther back in their mouth than alveolar-palatal. Why? Well, >their tongues aren't very long, for one thing, compared to humans
Then I would more properly describe these sounds as coronal sounds with a retracted tongue root than simply saying palatalized.
>Maybe I got some wrong; if so, correct me.
Gorsh! I'm Trying!! 8-) -kristian- 8-)