Re: VCV syllables? (was: Different Words with Large Common Substrings)

--- On Fri, 11/7/08, Eldin Raigmore <eldin_raigmore@...> wrote:


>
> You know, the peak-through-trough-to-next-peak unit may
> deserve a name.
>
> You've used it to good effect in your software to
> create "random nonsense"
> that sounds/looks like a natlang; I've forgotten what
> you called it, but you
> published it on this list sometime ago.
Oh yes, I'd forgotten about that. Here it is:

<http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0608A&L=CONLANG&P=R1976>

I called it "flavored words" because you collect your VCV set from any language
and the random words you generated would retain the flavor of that language.

>
> So, a string of phonemes beginning at (or just after or
> just before) a sonority
> peak, descending in sonority through a sonority trough,
> then climbing in
> sonority again to then next sonority peak (or just after or
> just before), looks
> useful; at least for machine-assisted conlang-generation.
>
> What should we call such an "inverted syllable"?
...
>
> But VCV (and VVCV and VCCV and VCVV and so on)
> parts-of-words might also
> be useful; in fact, apparently, they are.  Since we
> won't call them "syllables"
> what will we call them?
>
> I guess this is a "Request For Proposals".
In spite of all out coined words in English, in academic fields (except for
physics) authors tend to "overload" existing words rather than coin new ones.
Given that premise, I checked the thesaurus for "valley" and came up with:
glen, dale, dell, vale, dingle, hollow, coomb (coombe, combe, comb), cirque,
corrie, cwm (Welsh), strath (Scots), trough, notch, coulee, ravine, gully,
gorge, canyon, gulch, arroyo, gap, chasm, abyss, break, crevice, crevasse

I kind of like "dingle".

Taking the borrowing approach, the Swahili for "valley" is "bonde" (pl: mabonde).

I still prefer this one:
American Heritage Dictionary -
din·gle
 n.   A small wooded valley; a dell.

--gary