Re: Quick language sketch -- Hrondu

On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Patrick Dunn wrote:

> On Fri, 26 Jan 2001, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
> > :-)  Looks vaguely like Korean or Japanese in that respect.  (Korean I
> > *think* only has one topic particle.)
>
> I've been playing with Japanese (I wouldn't say studying it) and that's
> where I got the topic-compliment stuff.
Yeah, I've been playing with Japanese myself (I *have* semi-coherent
Japanese grammars, but haven't been able to find anything resembling a
descriptive grammar of Korean in English, which is a real pain because my
Korean is certainly far, far better than my Japanese).  I'm contemplating
doing a German-Japanese mix, and no, it's not meant to be plausible, just
fun.  Mix two at-some-point-in-the-past-militaristic cultures' languages
and see what happens....

> > (Is a mora something vaguely related to a syllable?)
>
> Yes and no.  To put it in native terms, a mora is one syllable symbol in
> the writing system, but since we're using a transliteration here, it's
> hard to see that.
Oh!  That makes lots of sense.  :-)

> Think of a mora less as a syllable and more as the lenth of time it takes
> to pronounce the syllable.  The native name, for instance, is made of
> three mora but only two syllables:
>
> Hro -- unvoiced /r/ followed by a vowel
> n
> du
(Unless, OC, some foreigner like me were to pronounce the "n" syllabically.)

I confess I haven't figured out how to unvoice any [r].  But I can
produce a faltering but recognizable trilled [r] thanks to Dan Sulani's
instructions long, long ago.  I'm still working on it.  :-)

> > JOOC, how does that work?  I am probably just peculiar, but my biggest
> > problem in Latin is that I keep wanting to loudness-stress long vowels.
> > (For some reason Japanese doesn't bother me that way.)  And then, on the
> > "real" stress of Latin words I find myself pitch-accenting instead of
> > loudness-accenting, which makes me feel like an idiot.
>
> *smiles*  You're more fastidious than I am.  I just read the thing whoever
> I wish; I figure I'm not likely to run into Caesar anytime soon.
I'm a pedant.  I even pronounce the stupid names in Robert Jordan's Wheel
of Time books, which I don't even read anymore (I gave up after _Path of
Daggers_--Jordan fans, please don't flame me; I don't think he's
horrible, I just have no more desire to read Jordan), the way he puts 'em
in the glossary, even though IMHO [egweIn'] is awful and [nai'niv] is
pretty bad, too.  (I was perfectly happy with pronouncing the latter
[nineI'vi] until I saw the glossary.)  This does not, OC, guarantee in
any way that I'm going to be remotely close to the "real" pronunciation.

> BTW, some scholars think that Latin *was* at one time pitch-accented.
> However, I personally suspect this is based on unreliable evidence
> (namely, the assertion of various Romans who were trying to point out
> similarities with Greek).
<G>

> > The point of this digression being to say, as a foreign speaker of this
> > language I would find myself shifting stress to the ultimate mora? (final
> > syllable-like thing?) with the doubled final vowel.  Perhaps it could be
> > a Yoonian accent.  =^)
>
> Here your instinct woudl be correct.  In, say,
>
> kipuu -- to cook; to burn(tr)
>
> the accent is on the penultimate mora, which is in the final syllable.
>
>  kipusa -- will cook
>
> the accent is still on the penultimate mora, but now this mora falls on
> the penultimate syllable.
>
> So you wouldn't have an accent after all!  At least, not an accent based
> on -- well, accent.  hehehe
Oh, I see!  :-)  I guessed wrong on where mora-boundaries were because I
was thinking vague syllables.  Thanks.

YHL,
finally understanding after all this time what a mora is
(I missed the definition in the long mora-thread some months? ago and was
consequently quite confused)