Re: Conlang with whistles

On Thu, 20 Feb 2003 15:51:55 -0500, Rachel Klippenstein
<estel_telcontar@...> wrote:

>>> Consonants
>>> three stops: p, t, k
>>> two normal continuants: w, s
>>> two whistled continuants: W and S
>>>
>>> W is a "typical" labial whistle, and S is an
>>> alveolar whistle.
>>
>> I've played around with the idea of whistles in
>> conlangs for a while, and usually consider there
>> to be three or four possibilities:
>> 1) labial (though all of my whistles involve
>> rounding)
>> 2) retroflexed (probably equal to your alveolar)
>> 3) front trilled (superimpose an alveolar trill on
>> the whistle)
>> 4) back trilled (superimpose a uvular trill on the
>> whistle)
>
>I'm pretty sure my alveolar whistle is different from
>your retroflexed whistle.  It doesn't involve lip
>rounding, and the tongue position is definitely not
>retroflex.  If I try to make it and miss slightly, it
>sounds like a slightly sharpish s.  If anything, the
>tongue position is more forward, dental-ish than
>normal alveolar, because when I look in the mirror, I
>can see my tongue more when I'm making my whistle than
>when I'm making s.
Ok. I can make a laminal alveolar whistle that is probably closer to yours,
but without rounding my whistling is rather weak.

>I'd love to incorporate other whistles, but I have to
>figure out how to make them and then make them in
>syllables first.  I want to be able to pronounce this
>language.  I can't do a uvular trill yet, so the back
>trilled whistle is out.  I think with practice I could
>develop the front trilled whistle.  In your
>retroflexed whistle, is the whistle actually produced
>at the retroflex articulation, with lip rounding being
>secondary? or is it the other way round?
I can unround it and still produce the whistling effect with just
retroflexion, but since whistles are very touchy sorts of voiceless
approximants (at least, that's how one phonetician described them), I
usually get better results by adding rounding. So it's a retroflex whistle with
secondary (acoustically enhancing, if you like) rounding.

The trills are fairly tense, voiceless trills with simultaneous rounding -
neither can, I think, be produced as a whistle without the rounding.

>
>I'm also trying to develop a palatal whistle, very
>close in articulation to a palatal fricative.  I can
>currently get a very faint one, but if I can get a
>more consistent, audible one I'm going to use it as
>well as either a palatal fricative or glide.
Since mine would require rounding, it would be the equivalent of a
labial-palatal whistle, but I don't think it would be robustly distinct from
a plain labial trill preceding /i/, so for me your /Wi/ would allophonically
sound like that.

>I also came up with some sentences in this language.
>Here they are:
>
>kwipakwipa kWu psiWu pitapita
>house-PL.REDUP in sleep human-PL.REDUP
>“humans sleep in houses”
>
>tWuksatWuksa kWu psiWu WiSaWiSa
>tree-PL.REDUP. in sleep WiSa-PL.REDUP
>“WiSaWiSa sleep in trees”
>
>tWuksa kWu psiWu kwi sa
>tree in sleep not I
>“I do not sleep in a tree”
>
>Note OVS word order, postposition, negation
>immediately following verb, reduplified forms for
>plurals
Are your stops and plain approximants voiced or voiceless?

Bfowol

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