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Re: Announcing Ale, the first ever Mungayödic daughter language!

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Tuesday, July 3, 2001, 17:11
Dan Seriff wrote:


>Well, sort of. I only started thinking about it last night, after >finishing most of the material on sound change in Trask. At the moment >I've got three phases worth of unconditioned phonological changes that >took place over a period of about 1500 years. > >I'm using 0/ for a null marker. A V or C in parentheses stands for any >vowel or consonant. > >First wave (~ -2000 yrs, called the "Glottal Collapse" by native
linguists):
>Also called Old Ale > >q -> k iI -> i@ >? -> 0/ iu -> ij >h -> 0/ ao -> Aw >l -> w N -> n >gr -> kr >dv -> dz > >Second wave (~ -900 yrs, the "Great Fronting"): >Middle Ale > >x -> S ij -> il uw/Uw -> w >j -> l -(V)m -> -(V)~ >T -> s (apical) -(V)n -> -(V)~ >D -> z (apical) -t/-d -> 0/ >all affricates -> s/z (laminal) > >sk -> S >(C)r -> r > >Loss of nasality (~ -700 yrs): > >V~ -> V > >Third wave (~ -500 yrs, "Great Vowel Collapse"): >Modern Ale, or just Ale > >i@ -> i: I -> i >(C)j(V) -> (C)i: e -> i >& -> E: V -> @ >ei -> E: Y -> @<rhotic> >a -> A: O -> A >Ai -> A: U -> u >OY -> o: >u -> u: >i -> i: > >The short vowels /E/ and /o/ remain the same. This vowel change >certainly needs a bit of shuffling for realism, but I think I've got the >basic shift worked out. > >So, the Mungayöd word /Ibeidv&/, father, would change thus: > >1: /Ibeidz&/ >2: /Ibeiz&/ >3: /ibE:zE:/ > >/fiuvUljO/, daughter (I really like this one): > >1: /fijvUljO/ >2: /filvUljO/ >3: /fi:lvuli:/ > >/imoqU/, brother: > >1: /imokU/ >2: /imokU/ >3: /i:moku/ > >Is this sound change plausible?
All plausible, but a couple minor considerations: (a) in general one might expect stress to play a role; (b) IMO in Stage 3 it might be more logical/symmetrical for /o/ to merge with /U/ > /u/, in line with /e,I/ > /i/-- but I'm sure you could come up with reasons why not. Bigger problem with *fiuvUljO-- Stage 1: iu > ij, so ** fijvUljO OK and l > w, so **fijvUwjO this is the problem I think Stage 2: j > l, so **filvUwlO another problem and Uw > w, so **filvwlO so you have no environment left for the final syllable in Stage 3, (C)j(V) > (C)i: Unless I've overlooked something.............?

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Dan Seriff <microtonal@...>