Re: New/revised language: Phonology
| From: | Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, December 18, 2001, 17:23 |
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Quoting Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...>:
> On Tue, 18 Dec 2001 10:10:10 -0600, Andrew Chaney <adchaney@...>
> wrote:
> >stops: p /p/ t /t/ c /k/
> >fricatives: f /f/ s (1) x /T/
> >liquids,etc: w /w/ j /j/ r (2)
> >nasals: m /m/ n (3)
>
> If you don't confine yourself to ASCII, þ /T/ would look more
> traditional ;)
Agreed, especially since [x] and [T] are so different
acoustically.
> >0. Most consonents have voiced allophones.
> >1. /s/ or /S/
> >2. r or l
> >3. /n/ or /N/
Are there environments for these alternations? Does voicing
occur, for example, intervocalically?
> >a /a/
> >æ /& (i think)/
> >i /i/
> >î /I/
> >å /e/
> >e /E/
> >¦ /?/ english "aw" as in "awful"
> >o /?/ english "oh" as in "Ho Ho Ho"
> >u /u (i think)/ english "oo" as in "oops"
> >ø /?/ english "ou" as in "could" not "ouch"
> >y /y/
Ah. So, basically, the vowels of English, plus [y].
> Why not use one and the same diacritic everywhere? /e/ could be {ê}.
It depends. When you transcribe a language into phonemic
notation, you are actually making an assertion about what the
salient distinctions are in that language. So, for example,
the difference between the vowels in English "hit" vs. "heat"
is normally said to be one of a lax vowel (/I/) versus a tense
vowel (/i/) where the difference in quality is small but
noticeable. However, tense vowels in English are usually also
longer than their lax counterparts, which raises the question
of whether the real distinction is one of length (i.e., [/i/
vs. /i:/). If Andrew thinks that length is more important than
vowel quality, maybe having one set of graphs for vowel quality
and some kind of diacritic for length (or the lack thereof)
would be more appropriate.
(Also, if Andrew is taking a conculture into consideration, that
too might have an effect on orthography.)
=====================================================================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...> <http://home.uchicago.edu/~trwier>
"...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street and not complete one road that has no turn"
Chicago, IL 60637 Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers
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