Re: Your Help Appreciated

On Second Life of Tenderness of Red Cat, John Mietus wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Well, I knew I was a total amateur in this, but I'm sorry I've stirred up
> such controversy by my (now rather pathetic, I realize) attempts to
> explain
> the sounds of my proto-root language. Here's a stack of replies:
>
Don't worry, we are all learning.

        [...]
> At any rate, perhaps I should have stuck with an entirely orthographic
> representation to avoid such confusion? Or learned more of SAMPA before
> trying to express myself with it. Let me try again:
>
> The consonants in Palaged, in order of frequency, are:
> r, n, l, s, d, t, k, m, th (/T/), v, g, dh (D), p, f,
> sh (/S/), b, j (dZ), w, z, ch (/tS/), h/, zh (/Z/), wh, rh, kw, kh, gw,
> kth, vh, ng
>
> ...where "r" is trilled and "rh" is not, and "vh" is a /v/ without any
> dental element, "kh" is the "ch" in "loch", and "gh" is a voiced "kh".
>
Then, kh is /x/, gh is /G/ in SAMPA, rh is either /4/ if flaped (Spanish or
Japanese) or /r\/ if approximant (English), and vh seams to be /B/.  I guess
ng is /N/ and I'm not sure about kw and gw (are they /kw/ and /gw/?)

> The vowels, again, in order of frequency and represented orthographically,
> are:
> e in "pet", a in "father", o in "boat", é in "pate", a in "cat", í in
> "peat", i in "pit", ü in "put", ú in "poot", u in "putt."
>
In SAMPA:
  í is /i/
  i us /I/
  é is /e/ (no diphthong, like /ej/?)
  e is /E/
  a is /&/ (in "cat"), I guess some diacritic is missing...
  a is /a/ (in "father")
  u is /V/ *
  o is /o/
  ü is /U/ *
  ú is /u/

* (or am I having these values wrong?)

> (if you're not seeing the diacritics over the e, i, and u's, I apologize)
>
> Allowed dypthongs:
> éo, aí, ío, íé, íe, ía, íú, íü, éa, éü
>
> The syllable structure is essentially:
>     (C)V(M)(E)
>
> Where M = r, n, m, l, s
> and E = d, t, k, th, g, dh, p, f, sh, b, j, z, ch, zh, kw, kh, gw, v, ng
>
> Certain ending combinations are still not possible (e.g. sng, mgw) --
> for the most part, if it¹s allowed in English or Proto-Indo-European, it¹s
> allowed in Palaged.
>
I have problems with sillable final /kw/ or /gw/, for me there is a tendency
to pronounce them as /ku/ and /gu/, then probably kw is something else:
labialized k: /k_w/ or double articulated: labiovelar stop /kp)/?

> So, to try and bring us back to my original request, what I'm looking for
> are suggestions for sound changes that will make my words sound more like:
>
> 1. Germannic
> 2. Gaelic
> 3. Latin
> 4. Ancient Greek
> 5. Balto-Slavic
>
> Any suggestions?
>
Well, I'm not experte in Indoeuropean but some of the changes that happened
from PIE were.

The German shift: voiceless plosives became fricatives: /p/ > /f/, /t/ >
/T/, /k/ > /x/.  Some of those changes evolved further into the different
Germanic languages, but this explains contrast like _father_ vs. _pater_.

Velolabial sounds became velar in Romance languages: /pk)/ > /kw/ > /k/.

Well, any experts?

-- Carlos Th