ooh, vowels, these luvely vowels...

Oh, thanks for the reply, Aidan! your data is always
appreciated. my reply follows farther down...

>i want to go from a system of:
>
>a: e: i: o:
>a i o
>
>to:
>
>a: i: u:
>a i u @
>
>-with a low vs. high tonal distinction, just to make
>things interesting....
>
>so, any ideas how i might derive such a thing from
>existing Cree vocabulary? i realise not having my
>wanted consonant inventory makes it a bit
speculative,
>but still... any input would be nice.
Aidan stated:

>Aha! Easy - very similar to Old Irish development!
oh, that's kuehl. i like irish's etabnannimousness.
(sp?) my top would blow off if i ever had to learn it,
though...

>First, where do the high/low tones present? Are long
>vowels high tone?
>I've got other ideas, which I'll get to in a second.
i was planning to incorporate a tonogenesis sequence
somewhat like what's been ascribed to Kickapoo. its
preaspirated intervocalic consonantal series dropped
aspiration, and the preceeding syllable became [+ low
tone]. since Cree has a preaspirated consonant series,
i figured i'd do somewhat the same thing, in keeping
it's 'algonquian plausibility factor'. lots of
alaskan/northern BC athapaskan langs got hi/lo tone
this way too, by the loss of a glottalised consonant
series. although, i do need to look up Siksika,
(blackfoot) - it's got tone too, and REALLY radical
sound change.


>   e: > i: (you might also have shortened e>i show up
>in certain contexts)
>   o, o: > u, u:
>   (all of these exactly as in Old irish)
>   @ arises in unstressed syllables (from a or orig.
>o), or from /&/ as a
>result of i-umlaut. Or some other way.
hmm, let's take a look at some Albertan Plains Cree,
and run it through that:

maamawipicikeewinan - 'an amalgamation'
okaaminakasiy - 'rosebush thorn'
ciipacistahweew - 's/he pierces him/her through with a
spear'

maam@wipicikiiwinan
ukaaminakasiy
ciip@cistàwiiw

hmm. doesn't look much different in these three
examples, but i like the ideas from old irish, indeed.
but, what should i do with /i/, or /a:/ and /a/? i've
decided (here, anyways) that /a/ centralises to /@/
following a long vowel.

looks like i need to get out the ole graph paper and
make a chain-shift diagram...

>
>   High tone can be an effect of stress - IE
>supposedly had tone determined
>stress, as does Greek. Another way to do it would be
>that closed syllables
>(syllables ending with a consonant not a vowel)
>become low tone, with high
>tone in open syllables. This would happen at an early
>stage,  that later
>sound changes could have low tone open syllables, and
>high tone closed
>syllables. Is there a neutral tone too?
nope, just low vs. high. rather an on/off sort of
thing. close-syllable tone is a neat-o process, but
wouldn't be much good with Cree, cuz the only codas
allowed are /n/, /s/, /w/, and /y/, with the last two
only word-finally.


>    Examples based on totally random words (stress ',
>high tone with -
>after, low tone unmarked):
>
>    tanopse: > t@-'nu:-psi:- or ta-
>    kantora > kan'tu-r@-
>
>    For a properly Amerindian sort of lang, I think
>you'd need to have
>vowels (and clusters) affecting consonants too (tua >
>twa), and you should
>probably allow allophonic variations (so that a>o
>before u in next syllable
>kan'tu-r@- > kon'tu-r@-, and prob i>e/_a, u>o/_a,
>a>e/_i, and so on).
hmm, yes. allophonic variation must be considered.
Cree has some word-boundary vowel transformation that
i should look into for that sort of thing. i wouldn't
want to go so far as worrying about vowel harmony or
umlauting processes, though.

lotsa stuff to chew on though.

any ideas for /i/ or /a:/ movement?

byron




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