Re: Messy orthography (Re: Sound change rules for erosion)

Quoting Isidora Zamora <isidora@...>:

> And I should add that, since I have thought it through over the last 24
> hours, I think that things get kind of messy when you want to pluralize
> a noun ending in a consonant.  It might form its plural by labialization,
> or
> it might form it in -Vn.  Unfortunately, you simply have to know - and
> if
> it forms its plural in -Vn, then you simply have to know which vowel.
> It
> is entirely conceivable that there could be another word <tatw> in the
> singular with the plural of <tatwon>.  It could be any one of the five
> vowels.
While this idea in itself is plausible and naturalistic (and I like it),
you might want to think about which one of the five vowels is generalized
for use on new words, and if this ending perhaps starts to replace the
others. For example, surely the five vowels didn't occur with exactly the
same frequency in the proto-lang, and the one(s) that were more common
would have survived on more plurals and come to be viewed as regular and
then spread to other words. I'm reminded of Welsh, which has had a very
similar history and so inherits a rediculously large number of plural
formations--but only one or two of those are active for neologisms.


--
JS Bangs
jaspax@glossopoesis.org

"We're counting on our virtues
   Because it's too hard to count the dead."
     -Jason Webley

Replies