Re: The Story of Guper the Foolish Troll

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-)