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Re: DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics

From:Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
Date:Tuesday, January 18, 2005, 10:03
First off an important addition to #1 Q2 (Allophones): /h/ has an
utterance-final allophone [?].

Sai Emrys wrote:
> Same deal as last time. > > Q1: What are your allowable syllable structures?
(S)CrVCC Where V is any vowel, S is /s s\ z/, C is any consonant and r is /r/. Only V is oblicatory.
> > Q2: Onset clusters?
pr, br, fr, tr, dr, kr, gr, xr, (s\r*) (* where |s\r| is probably only a bogus spelling for /r_0/ or [s`]!) In addition the Kidilib dialect has the onsets sp, spr, sf, sfr, st, str, sk, skr. These are lost as onsets in Classical Sohlob and Heleb through the development of a prothetic vowel (/i/ or /&/ depending on vowel harmony).
> > Q3: Codas?
In practice the possible CC clusters are restricted due to the fact that the protolanguage (Kedjeb) only allowed _s, n/m/N, r, t/d_ as syllable final consonants. Due to loss of final vowels a variety of final CC clusters arose: /s s\ z/ followed by any other consonant.(*) /m n J N/ followed by a homorganic stop /r l/ followed by any other consonant Any other non-stop consonant followed by /t d/(*), through the metathesis of most t/d+C clusters, although e.g. */dn/ gives /zn/. (*) Fricative+stop and s/s\ +fricative clusters must agree in voicing. There are no stop+stop clusters.
> > Q4: Any changes depending on place in word, etc.?
Yes. Apart from what already has been described in the context of allophones there is above all vowel harmony. In Classical Sohlob vowel harmony stipulates that the vowels of a root word must be either all high or all low. Thus vowels in non-first syllables will change their height if necessary to agree with the vowel of the first syllable. Heleb also has palatal harmony, whereby vowels must be all front or all back in addition to all high or all low. The elements of compound words need not agree with each other, thus _zurqnansj_ /zurGnans\/ "driver, charioteer, lit. wagon-man" is a well-formed compound.
> > Q5: Motivation / reasoning / goals behind this?
My aesthetic preferences, mostly. I wanted a restricted yet naturalistic inventory of clusters. I also decided at an early stage to have vowel harmony, but disliked ordinary bland palatal harmony, so I came up with height harmony. It turns out Old and Middle Korean has something similar.
> Thanks, > > - Sai
/BP 8^)> -- Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant! (Tacitus)

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Isaac Penzev <isaacp@...>