Re: Azurian phonology

Den 18. okt. 2008 kl. 19.37 skreiv Benct Philip Jonsson:

> Both Icelandic and Faroese have an aspiration
> contrast rather than a voicing contrast, as does
> Danish.  It is disputable whether there was a
> shift from a true voiced--voiceless contrast
> since even in Swedish and Norwegian
> accents rather have a fortis vs. lenis stop
> opposition with lenis stops realizad as fully
> voiced stops only between two vowels or a
> vowel and a nasal or liquid.
I'm trying to work my way through this. I assume you are using
'accent' as a synonym for dialect, aren't you?

I think there is something like what you are describing in the west
and north of Norway. What Swedish dialects are you thinking of?

> In the same position
> fortis stops are voiceless unaspirated.  Elsewhere
> fortes are voiceless aspirated and lenes are
> voiceless aspirated, though usually still
> more weakly articulated than intervocalic fortes.
So, elsewhere, the only difference between fortes and lenes is that
the latter usually still are more weakly articulated than
intervocalic fortes?

> One interesting discrepancy is that while
> intervocalic lenis geminates are voiced
> fortis geminates in the same position
> -- and of course after /s/ -- are
> usually aspirated!
I think I can make sense out of this if there is a comma after 'voiced'.

> Even preaspiration is
> found in that in some accents any -- not only
> geminate -- postvocalic aspirated stop can be
> realized as weakly preaspirated.
I think I get this too, if "in that" is synonymous to "seeing that"
or similar.

Sorry if I sound rude. But I don't feel like a linguistic insider,
and probably I never will. Decoding linguistic inside talk,
especially in English, can be hard work to me. I don't have such a
head for this stuff as some others here. But with a little patience,
and some hard work, I think I can get by.

> These
> alternations are fully automatic, operate
> across word boundaries and are usually
> unconscious to speakers, but there all the same.
No doubt there's a lot about my language that I'm unconscious of as
well, though I've been more analytic about it than most. I really
should study my own language better, especially now that I'm working
with a conlang that's closely related to it. Next on my plough-
through list is Gustav Indrebø's "Norsk Målsoga", which I recently
bought.

> Of course most accents of English have a
> similar fortis--lenis system.
Interesting. Must learn a bit more on that as well.

> OTOH Scots
> Gaelic has a system entirely analogous to
> that of Icelandic and Faroese.
That was an important insight. Possibly one of either Gaelic or Norse
has caused a substrate effect on the other, or there is a common
substrate. Pictish? Or Old Albic? Or Urianian? As Gaelic has only had
a limited foothold in Uriania historically, I am wondering if I
should limit the Azurian aspirated-unaspirated contrast system to
those areas.

LEF