Re: new lang: nvwl

On Wed, 13 Nov 2002, Robert B Wilson wrote:

> On Tue, 12 Nov 2002 11:58:42 +0100 Christophe Grandsire
> <christophe.grandsire@...> writes:
> > > well, _ZnpT_ is [Zn=pT] and _ZnlskR_ is [Znl=skR=]. basically it
> > > depends
> > > on what i can pronounce without too much difficulty.
> > >
> >
> > Good rule! :))) But it maybe interesting to formalise it. Who knows,
> > you may
> > find interesting patterns :)) .
>
> i plan to formalise it (i already know there are some interesting
> patterns), but i don't have the time right now
>
> > By the way, can only nasals and liquids be syllabic, or do you allow
> > for
> > instance fricatives to be syllable peaks? (I know I have no
> > difficulty
> > producing a syllable [s=] for instance)
>
> yes, fricatives can be syllable peaks (isn't [R] a fricative?)
>
> i'm uploading a page about nvwl to my web site
> (http://kuvazokad.free.fr/), but it may take a little while to get there
> (the mail2ftp server sometimes takes a while to upload things...)
>
> > Christophe.
>
> Robert Wilson (aka Elentirno Perellar aka Kuvazokad)
Greetings,

I've be lurking for a bit, but this interesting language reminded me of a
paper by Paul Smolensky and Alan Prince, "Optimality Theory: Constraint
Interaction in Generative Grammar" that I thought might interest you.
In this paper, they develop the formalism of Optimality Theory in order
to describe the phonology of languages such as the Imdlawn Tashlhity
dialect of Berber, which allows any segment as the nucleus of a syllable.
They give examples such as (with capitalization indicating nucleus-hood and
periods indicating syllable edges):
        .rA.tK.tI       (ra-t-kti) "she will remember"
        .bD.dL.         (bddl) "exchange!"
        .ma.ra.tGt.     (ma=ra-t-g-t) what will happen to you?"
        .tF.tKt.        (t-ftk-t) "you suffered a strain"
        .tX.zNt.        (t-xzn-t) "you stored"
        .txZ.nAkk~      (t-xzn#nakk~) "she even stockpiled"
        .tzMt.          (t-zmt) "it(f.) is stifling"
        .tM.zh.         (t-mzh) "she jested"
        .tR.gLt.        (t-rgl-t) "you locked"
        .tR.bA.         (t-rba) "she carried-on-her-back"
etc.
You might find that you get some ideas for rules for breaking words into
syllables and deciding nucleaus-hood for your vowel-free language.

Ciao,
Apollo