Re: Phoneme system for my still-unnamed "Language X"

On Mon, 05 September 2005, 14:56 CEST, Julia Simon wrote

 > Hello!

Hallo!

 > So, here's what I have now. It's lengthy, but I hope
 > someone will find
 > it interesting... ;-)

Let's have a look... forgive me stupid mistakes, since I'm
listening to Farin Urlaub's new solo album right now that
I've bought just today. *sings along*

 > <a> [A] (cardinal vowel #5: open, back, unrounded)
 > [snip]
 > <y> [@] (mid central vowel, a.k.a. "schwa")

Yummy, the cardinal vowels! :) You use <y> for [@]. Hm.

 > There are no semivowels or non-syllabic vowels. (There are
 > a few glides,

I hope no stereotypical Sindarin clone? :-P

 > will be pronounced as two separate syllables.
 > There is no phonemic distinction between different vowel
 > lengths. [...] No phonemic length, though.)

Nobody needs that, anyway ;-)

 > 1.2. Consonants
 >
 > There are four basic points of articulation for
 > consonants: labial, dental, palatal, velar.

Nice.

 > There are the following consonant phonemes:
 >
 > voiceless aspirated plosives p_h, t_h, c_h, k_h

Phew, no distinction between [p] and [p_h] as I first
thought when looking over this mail.

 > [snip]
 > approximants/glides w, r\, j, M\

[M\]? *goes figuring* Oh.

 > Furthermore, there are two archiphonemes (nasal, /N/, and
 > lateral,
 > /L/) that are realized as [m], [n], [J], [N] resp. [l_w],
 > [l], [L], [L\] depending on their surroundings.

Of course :) No allophones would be too easy!

 > (No decision reached on consonant graphemes yet. Sorry.)

Why not p t c k p· t· c· k· b d gj g w r j rj ng n l hl?
Just a suggestion. Though evil allophones stuff like in
French wouldn't be bad either ... I'm curious what you'll
do.

 > 2. Sandhi rules
 >
 > 2.1. Vowel changes and variations
 >
 > In most cases, at least one of two adjacent vowels will
 > assimilate to
 > the other in some way. Generally speaking, <a> and <y> are
 > the least
 > stable vowels and <i> and <u> are the most stable ones.
 > Often, a glide
 > will pop up between two vowels; adjacent identical vowel
 > phonemes are
 > nearly always separated by a glide. (Note the difference
 > between a
 > sequence of two phonemic /@/s -- pronounced [@M\@] -- and
 > a sequence
 > of two [@]s, one of which is actually an assimilated
 > /A/ -- pronounced
 > [@.@], i.e. as two separate syllables but without a glide
 > between them.)

Sounds interesting.

 > [snip]
 >
 > Here's a list of all vowel pairs and their pronunciations.
 > (I haven't
 > thought about assimilation in vowel triples, or even
 > longer vowel sequences, yet.

Evil, evil!

 > I'll start worrying about that if and when
 > I see them actually occurring...)
 >
 > [snip vowel list]

I haven't thought about such things yet.

 > Note that when a consonant assimilates to (or dissimilates
 > from) a
 > vowel, it will assimilate to (dissimilate from) the
 > phoneme, not its
 > actual realization. For example, a nasal preceding [Eji]
 > will be
 > realized as [N] if the vowel sequence is /Ai/ or /@i/
 > phonemically,
 > but as [J] if the vowel sequence is /Ei/.
 >
 > Vowels that are immediately preceded or followed by a
 > nasal are
 > nasalized.
 >
 > Word-final vowels are partially devoiced (i.e. a
 > word-final <i> will
 > be pronounced as [ii_o] or even [iC]).
 >
 > [snipped a lot of interesting stuff]

Sounds like fun. So lots of allophones. Please don't forget
to give CXS when you give examples as well ... I hope you're
not going to make a *phonetic* orthography, it'd be insane
I'm sure.

I'm curious what it'll be like when it's ready!!

Viele Grüße,
Carsten


--
"Miranayam cepauarà naranoaris."
(Calvin nay Hobbes)

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