Re: English questions
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, May 23, 2003, 13:05 |
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En réponse à Thomas Leigh :
>
>(And while I'm at it, I know that the slashes / / are supposed to enclose
>phonetic representation, not phonemic representation, but I can't remember
>what you're supposed to put around the latter, so if anyone could remind
>me I'd be grateful.)
I think you have everything reversed: the slashes are supposed to enclose
phone*m*ic representation (i.e. the abstract phonemes opposed by people).
What you want is what encloses phone*t*ic representations (the actual
sounds). It's the brackets [].
>
>Also, does anyone know why Modern English ended up with /x/>/f/ in a few
>words (e.g. laugh, enough) rather than /x/ just dropping as it did in most
>words? Yes, I know that sentence was ungrammatical, but it's early and I
>can't figure out how to say it well. :)
I've heard those were a proof that sound changes could have exceptions,
i.e. those would be irregularities. Or maybe it has to do with the quality
of the vowel before...
As for the Great Vowel Shift, IIRC it lasted over a few centuries.
Something like between the 14th and 16th century IIRC, although I may be
off by one century :(( .
Christophe Grandsire.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.