Re: Unilang: the Phonotactics

On Wed, 18 Apr 2001 11:59:51 -0400, Oskar Gudlaugsson
<hr_oskar@...> wrote:

>Based on the phonemic inventory I presented in the _Phonology_ thread
>(which should have been called _Phonemes_, admittedly), I would have the
>following rules:
>
>CC (onsets):
>
>/p b/ + /l r/
>/t d/ + /r/
>/k g/ + /l r/
>
>/p b m f/ + /j/
>/t d s n l r/ + /w j/
>/k g h/ + /w/
I'm tempted to add /ts/ and /ds/ to this list; affricates, though almost
exclusively coronal ones, appear to be a common feature in human languages,
and would otherwise be unrepresented in my unilang scheme.

---

On Fri, 20 Apr 2001 07:55:02 -0400, Oskar Gudlaugsson
<hr_oskar@...> wrote:

>Reduced syllables are basically the "endings" used in the morphology; they
>are unaccented, by definition. They have their own inventory of more
>distinctive phonemes: the vowels /a i u/, and the finals /n s r/; if it is
>a "stem syllable", i.e. part of a bisyllabic stem, it may have one onset C
>from the following list: /p t k m n l r s/. So reduced syllabes are CVC,
>and grammatic endings (a subset of reduced syllables) can only be VC.
I had already decided /b d g/ should be added to that list of consonants; I
don't see why /f h/ shouldn't be there too, so I remove, effectively, any
restriction on what consonant can be the onset of an unaccented stem
syllable. Also, I find it nicer to designate the vowels /a e o/ in
unaccented syllables, instead of /a i u/; it still just comes down to a
three-way distinction, but I simply want to emphasize the laxness that most
speakers will prefer in their unaccented vowels. It is also an orthographic
concern, though orthography has not yet been discussed.

Óskar