Re: new Unnamed Conlang

On 18 Sep 2004 Andreas Johansson <andjo@FRE...> wrote:

> Various 'lects of German and Spanish. Frenchs for /r/ in words like
> "croissant".
  I do not wat to defend Mongolian as a specification for |kh|, but
I think, 'lects of better known languages could be equally unknown
to the general public as a standard of a less known languages.
(E.g. in a previous thread there was no solid conclusion about
affricative pronunciation of Spanish |y|.)

  French /r/ is the voiced variant of |kh| (that is |g| before back
vowels is Khalkha). I am not completely aware of French sound
assimilation rules.  Is /r/ really become unvoiced after voiced
stops?


> Well, I'd be more incline to go by Rodlox' statement that it's [J\]
> than by some reconstruction of AE phonology that might differ from the
> one he's familiar with.
  IMHO it is not so simple. Hungarian |gy| in phonetically
affricate [J\j\] but it usually written as a plosive [J\].  This is
rather about accuracy of the notation and not about different
phonology.

  And Rodlox used notation |jy|. If we take it serious, this sound
is somehow a modified |j|. If |j| is to be read as [j] than it is a
modified _approximant / fricative_.  Approximants (fricatives)
change more likely into an affricate than into a plosive.  But |ii|
= [ai] seems to be an English-based solution.  In this case |j| can
be treated as [dZ] and |jy| is still a modified affricate.

  Let's suppose that |y| makes approximant / fricative |j| into a
homorganic plosive. What can we suppose then for |sy| and |zy|?  An
alveolar [t] and [d]?  In this case, on the one part it is not too
East European, on the other what can be Rodlox's |d| (like "Dog" &
"aDD")?

  In another argumentation |y| can denote a shift in articulation
place and not in the type of the plosion (or lack of plosion).  In
this case |jy| is either an approximant/fricative or affricate.  If
it would be a plosive like [J\], it should be spelled as |dy|
instead.

  However, there is a third option: notations |jy|, |sy|, |zy| are
not systematic.  In this case, you are right but we cannot say
anything about |sy| and |zy|.


> Since by Rodlox' own words, 'jy' is a palatal, it seems most likely to
> assume that '-y' denotes palatal POA rarther than palatalization or
> alveopalatal POA.
  Personally I pronounce different [J\(j\)] sounds before front and
back vowels.  And the distinction between my [J\(j\)] before
palatal vowels and alveolopalatal [dz\] is not the place of the
articulation but the shape of my tongue.

  IMHO "alveolopalatal" is rather a label than a description of the
exact articulation place.  Therefore I think the term palatal could
cover also prepalatals e.g. as alveolopalatals.

  Another possible solution is outlined by Christian Thalmann: >>On
romconlang, somebody told Rodlox that the change from dentals and
velars to /tS dZ S Z/ etc was palatalization, so maybe he means one
of those sounds by "palatal".<<  Palatal(ization) is not just a
phonetical term but even a functional.  And Roxlox did not use
exact phonetical terms -- this is why we can argue about the
pronunciation --, Rodlox did not mention palatals at all, just used
the notation [J\].  And I still do not know the background, on the
other hand [dz\] is not on the IPA chart, [J\] does.


> Since you appear to be familiar with EEan languages, do you know any
> that uses the digraphs 'sy' and 'zy'?
  Originally I did not mean that the notations |sy| and |zy| would
be Eastern Europish, just the concept they convey.

  But to answer your questions, I see two instances where |sy| and
|zy| occur in Eastern European orthographies:

1. Romanizations of Cyrillic script. In a number of these
Romanizations pre-iotic Cyrillic letters are transcribed by |y| as
|ya|, |yu|, |ye|, |yo| etc.  It these systems, we get Russian
|syuda| [s'u_X"da] '(to) here' and |zyat'| [z'at'] 'son-in-law,
brother-in-law (sister's husband)' etc.

2. Some Romany dialects preserved "soft" sibillants. These sounds
are written as |sy| and |zy| in some Romany orthographies (e.g. in
the one used in Hungary).  In these systems |y| is a diacritic for
palatalization, just as in Rodlox's system, e.g. |dy| [J\], |ly|
[L], |ny| [J], |ty| [c].  In case of sibillants, the result is
rather an alveolopalatal than a palatal: |sy| [s\], |zy| [z\].
(They are merged
into |sh| [S] and |zh| [Z] in the majority the present dialects).
  (Some other Romany orthographies use |j| instead of |y|, others
use
accent marks.)

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