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

Hello!

On 9/6/05, Jeffrey Jones <jsjonesmiami@...> wrote:
> On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 19:13:58 +0200, Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
> wrote:
> >
> >Julia "Schnecki" Simon skrev:
[consonant list snipped]

> >> (No decision reached on consonant graphemes yet. Sorry.)
> >>
> >
> >What about:
> >
> >/p_h/ p         /p_>/ p'        /b/  b          /w/  w
> >/t_h/ t         /t_>/ t'        /d/  d          /r\/ r
> >/c_h/ c         /c_>/ c'        /J\/ z          /j/  j
> >/k_h/ k         /k_>/ k'        /g/  g          /M\/ h
> >
> >/L/ l, /N/ n
> >
> >?
> >
> >Yes, I admit I enjoy constructing romanizations...
>
> I'm afraid I can't do much more than endorse BPJ's romanization.
Well, it *is* a pretty good one. :-)

> I'll point
> out an alternate one, though: Consonantletter + |h| for aspirated an plain
> Consonantletter for ejective. Use of |y| for /@/ pretty much limits /j/ to
> |j|, which leaves a choice of |z|, |q|, or |x| for /J\/.
*grin* I'm German, I can't help associating the letter <j> with the
sound [j].

As for the <y>, I wanted a "simple" yet "real" letter for /@/ (i.e. no
weird diacritics and no stopgap non-alphabetic characters such as the
apostrophe). I want to be able to write this language both by hand and
by keyboard without getting too many knots into my fingers and/or my
pen... Diacritics are hard to type; unorthodox characters (<@>,
numbers, whatever) are hard to write in the middle of a word; and
apostrophes are a little too reminiscent of the "let's stick a few
apostrophes here and there and call it alien" school of thought.

And after using up <a> <e> <i> <o> <u> for the other vowels, <y> was
the only remaining letter that looked even vaguely like it might be a
vowel. :-)

(Besides, as I wrote in another mail: if they can do it in Chukchi, I
can do it in Language X.)


Hmm... Since I'd be happiest with a one-grapheme-per-phoneme system,
I've decided to adopt the proposed consonant romanization with a few
changes:

/p_h/ f         /p_>/ p         /b/  b          /w/  w
/t_h/ s         /t_>/ t         /d/  d          /r\/ r
/c_h/ h         /c_>/ c         /J\/ z          /j/  j
/k_h/ x         /k_>/ k         /g/  g          /M\/ q

/L/ l, /N/ n

... at least for the time being. (I'm quite happy with most of the
correspondences now. As you can see, I've reassigned the "plain"
plosive characters to the ejectives, and I'm using fricative
characters for the aspirates. Using <q> for /M\/ came out of sheer
desperation. Maybe I'll reconsider and use <v> for /M\/ instead.
Unless that turns out to be too easily confused with <u> in my
handwriting. <scratches head> Well, I'll figure something out.)

> But I don't completely understand the sandhi rules yet -- they're quite
> different than the simple ones I tend to use, except for some of the glide
> insertions.
I can assure you that for at least some of them, there *is* some sort
of regularity. For example, I distinctly remember writing down four or
so phonological rules that covered all my vowel sandhi phenomena, but
now I can't find that piece of paper anymore. :-(

And the first two gradation rules (nasal+stop : nasal;
aspirated plosive : fricative) should look somewhat familiar to anyone
who has studied Finnish phonology (even though I changed the rules a
little).

Some of the other rules I just made up, though; and in at least one
case (the third gradation rule; ejective : nasal+glide) I was being
deliberately "weird", so I don't know if that one even *can* be
understood. ;-)

> Oh, and let me say something about this part of the original msg:
>
> >> Clusters of more than two consonants are avoided. Such clusters can
> >> never occur within a morpheme, but sometimes they appear at morpheme
> >> boundaries (for example, when a consonant-initial suffix is attached
> >> to a stem that ends in two consonants). In such cases, a predetermined
> >> "buffer" vowel will appear. ("Problematic", i.e. consonant-initial
> >> resp. -final, morphemes come with their own inherent "buffer" vowels.)
> >> (There are of course exceptions to this rule; namely, a
> >> stop+nasal+stop sequence will drop the nasal, as described above,
> >> instead of sprouting a vowel.)
>
> I find working out the details of this kind of thing to be real trouble;
> even with 2 consonants, I never see the end of it. With MNCL-2B I took a
> different approach: I arranged the morphemes so that all intraword clusters
> are also intramorpheme. Then I pick the nicest ones for the roots and if I
> run out, add new types of combinations, such as those with buffer vowels.
> Tha way I don't have to decide everything at once. But then, I haven't
> tried to make MNCL-2B naturalistic. I _do_ allow some 3-consonant clusters:
> of the form Cpl, Ckl, Cbl, Cgl.
It's possible that I'll eventually have to adjust my rules to allow
CC+lateral or CC+glide as well. (I'm not sure about other complex
clusters, but I almost expect it for at least a few
something+something+continuant combinations.) However, since I have a
whopping four (!) stems and a handful of affixes at the moment, it's
far too early to tell...

Regards,
Julia

--
   Julia Simon (Schnecki) -- Sprachen-Freak vom Dienst
_@"  schnecki AT iki DOT fi / helicula AT gmail DOT com  "@_
si hortum in bybliotheca habes, deerit nihil
                                        (M. Tullius Cicero)

Replies