Re: Circumfixes and syllabic consonants

---Christopher Palmer <reid@...> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 1 Nov 1998, Peter Clark wrote:
>
> > P.S. Once I decided that I wanted more syllabic consonants, I did a
> > little fudging with the phonological rules, not to mention the
> > romanization, which is why Enamin is now spelled Enamyn: the "y"
> > preceeding a consonant (can) indicate a syllabic consonant. Thus,
> > /En.am.n/.
>
> What I'm more interested in is your syllabification -- a preference
for
> codas over onsets (counter to natlang universals)? Can you give us
more
> cool examples?
   Oh! Freude! Bliss unbound, someone is actually showing interest!

   Syllabic consonants are a fundamentally important feature to Enamyn
(ever since I added them this spring). I haven't actually figured out
a frequency list, since I'm in the process of restructuring the
grammar to make room for even more of possibilities. (Originally, only
/m n r l/ were going to be allowable syllabic consonants.) So, with
the caveat that this could be out of date by tomorrow morning, here
goes:
   Syllabic consonants are almost entirely grammatical; only a few
roots have them, and most of them are onsets. For instance, "pyscin"
/ps=.kin/, "a whisper". (Here, I'm using "=" to indicate a syllabic
consonants, using SAMPA.) But there are a couple that occur in the
root's coda; "torhm" /t7x.m=/, "thunder" (the /7/ is an unrounded
closed-mid back vowel; basically, say /o/ with unrounded lips).
   As for the grammatical examples, I really wish that I had some, but
I'm still working out mutations, and haven't had much time to do even
that. I'm still debating how I want case, tense, aspect, and modality
to be used morphologically. A part of me wants to use mutation and
vowel umluat/ablaut/whateverlaut, but another part of me dreads the
challenge and wonders if there isn't an easier and quicker way to do
it. (Which means that I'll probably go with mutation, just because
it's the hardest, most complex way I know. I'll gladly take
suggestions, though.) I wasn't thinking of universals when I added
syllabics; I just like them both in the onset and coda positions.
Basically, my philosophy is "If I can say it, and I like what I hear,
it's in."
   :Peter
==
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