Re: Vallian (was: How to minimize "words")

Hi John

On 26/02/07, John Vertical <johnvertical@...> wrote:
>
> Well don't have them then. (I'm afraid I can't help if the problem is trying
> to have your cake and eat it too...)
>
Ain't it the truth?!

>
> No, I like the idea of palatalization / cluster-with-j and similar pairs as
> gradation alternants. Actually, if this is the MAIN reason for their
> co-occurence (you mentioned them arising that way in another message), you
> could do with one spelling for both; the syllable closure would be
> sufficient to tell which way to pronounce eg. <ly> or <th>.
True enough. As I've long given up trying to design "pristine"
systems, however, I may keep at least one of them. Again, Finnish is
the inspiration: it uses "ng" to represent /N/ even though it seems
never to occur when it's not the result of CG (except maybe in
loanwords) of /nk/ -> /N/. So maybe I could use digraphs with "h"/"w"
as indicators of both (a) aspiration/labialisation, and (b) of
consonant clusters, with "j" in consonant clusters and "y" as an
indicator of aspiration.

>
>
> >Well, not having a /w/ would make it easier to use "w" as a "labialisation
> >sign", but I was thinking of having /w/ too.
>
> In addition to /v\/? That's pretty rare I think... but probably for
> sound-evolutionary reasons, so I can't see why it wouldn't work.
Cool.
>
>
> What's not to understand? Example:
> * /ph) th) ch) kh)/ written p t c k
> * /p t c k/ written b d j g
> * /mb nd JJ\ Ng/ written mmb nnd ññj NNg (I'm unable to type an eng but you
> get my drift, do you?)
Ah. Yes; I dunno, maybe I just didn't read the original properly.
FWIW, eng is available in Times and Arial by going through Character
Map in Windows. (This is how I got all the odd characters in that last
email). I'd have to check on my (currently down) Linux machine to be
sure, but I suspect there's a similar option there.

>
> This might not be too adaptable to your 9-POA system however, and if
> aspirates are just alternants of "normal" consonants (so you don't need
> palatalized aspirates, rounded aspirates etc.) the <h> scheme could work
> just fine after all.
Yes, I wasn't intending to have palatalised-and-labialised-k or anything.
>
>
> >So d'you think having both c (=/ts/) and "ts" (as in "hats", Finnish
> >"katso") is a bad idea, too?
>
> Not necessarily, since that /t/ is dental. "Hats" and "katso" *are*
> phonetically affricates tho, you'll need Polish or something for a genuin
> [t.s]
Good point.
>
>
> > > a) Switch umlauts for digrafs (the French solution)
> > > b) Switch the circumflex for dubbel acute & grave (the Hungarian
> >solution)
> > > c) Stacked diacritics (the Pinyin solution)
>
> Oh, and a 4th alternativ would be use _two_ vowel letters if you needed more
> than one diacritic; this is in use in !Xóõ (one of the San languages). If
> you have vowel length and wish to write that out independatly, you might be
> still in trubble, but I don't think you've mentioned having vowel length.
Currently I'm thinking only two tones, with acute over a,o,u and grave
over umlauted letters.

>
>
> >but I'm a BIG fan of "-nen -> -se"
>
> BTW that's a case of suppletion, y'kno? There's no further diachronic
> explanation, unlike with most other consonant stem alternations.
>
Yes, you're right - suppletion. I simply never considered it for
{phon,morph}emes before - I always think of suppletion as being of the
"person/people" variety. That would make "childre-" suppletive, as
well, I suppose.

Ironically, though I never thought of this as suppletion, Vn already
has "-r" for the nominative plural of animate nouns and "-t" for the
plural of inanimates. (I think I made a mistake in putting a "-t" on
an animate noun on this list somewhere).

>
> > > > (Maybe I could make a rule that, say, "lh" represents aspirated /lh/
> > > > and that an /l/ followed by a ("full") /h/ => "lk"?)
> > >
> > > <lk> for /lh/ seems a little strange, IMO. Does the sequence /lk/ not
> > > occur?
> >
> >Sorry. What I meant was that /lh/ could change automatically to /lk/
> >phonetically, not orthographically.
>
> Hm. Since you have a separate /x/ too, wouldn't /l?/ be a more expected
> fortition result? Unless the /h/ comes from an older /x/ by some way; or
> maybe vice versa: ? > k in this context?
>
On second thoughts, maybe /x/ should be an allophone of /h/.

>
> (This bit from Eric:)
> > > I believe there are probably phonetic reasons nasalization differs
> > > from e.g. labialization and palatalization, in that in occurs before
> > > or after consonants, but not necessarily simultaneously with them;
> > > someone who has actually studied phonetics should correct me, but I
> > > think that if you pronounce e.g. a [b]-like phone with simultaneous
> > > nasalization, the result is [m], not a prenasalized [b] (which I am
> > > unsure how to show in XSAMPA).
>
> AFAIK that's exactly it. [m] = nasalized [b]. Nasalization may _technically_
> be a co-articulation, but it _acts_ more like a phonation most of the time.
>
>
> >Wikipedia has a few pages which claim this or that language has
> >prenasalation - it even claims that some Australian languages have both
> >pre-nasalization and post-stopping (e.g. ~d, n_d)
>
> All I'm seeing is a claim of prenasalization vs. _pre_stopping (/mp)/ vs
> /pm)/) which looks a lot more plausible.
Sorry, yes, got my terms muxed ip there.

>
>
> > > You might also want to consider preaspiration, especially since you
> > > like Finnish anyway.
> > >
> >
> >Indeed. At least on Sami dialect has this; I don't remember reading
> >anything
> >to that effect but maybe the dialects of Finnish spoken in Sami areas have
> >them too.)
>
> Finnish has preaspiration all over the place, if you count the clusters with
> coda /h/ as that. And yes, some (if not all? I'm no capital-e expert on
> them) of the Sami langs have "proper" preaspiration. Curiously tho, northern
> Finnish dialects don't adopt that, but they do have C + /h/ clusters more
> commonly than the others.
Again, going by Wikipedia (I really must budget for a copy of "The
Uralic Languages" sometime soon), preaspirated consonants in Saami are
allophones of non-aspirated consonants, and they appear in non-initial
position (almost the reverse of English).


> /Z/ as the only voiced fric. in such a large system looks rather suspect...
> I'd either toss it or bring in at least /z z`/ alongside. Or did you decide
> shift /j/ to that maybe, as it's lacking from this list? :)
Hmm, well, yes, THAT site again lists /l/ as the only lateral, /j/ as
the only palatal, and /h/ as the only glottal in English, so I think
natural languages are bound to have at least one or two that are
alone. (And of course, /j/ and /h/ seem to be fairly common across
languages, for whatever reason. Anyone have a theory/explanation for
this?)

And no, I haven't excluded j; by this time I was simply not doing too
well at keeping up with the kitchen sink!

>
>
> >3a) /T_h, s_h, Z_h, s`_h, C_h, x_h, X_h
> >
> >         t_T_h, t_s_h, t_S_h, (c_x_h, c_C_h)
>
> Are you sure you're not going overboard here? Aspirated fricativs are
> extremely rare to begin with, voiced ones dubbly so, as is contrasting them
> with the corresponding aspirated affricates. But if they're just allophones
> of fric + /h/ in closed syllable, I suppose it's not completely implausible.
> :)
>
Well I'm getting rid of some now, anyway. But yes, as I envisage it
now, aspirated fricatives and affricates would be allophones of
clusters with /h/
>
> >4a) /p_j, t_d_j, t`_j, c_j, k_j, q_j, ?_j, m_j, n_d_j, n`_j, N_j, N\_j,
> >r_j,
> >4_j, r`_j, T_j, s_j, S_j, Z_j, s`_j, C_j, x_j, X_j, P_j, l_j, l`_j
>
> I would think /c_j C_j/ are impossible to contrast with /c C/ since they're
> palatal to begin with.
>
Good point, I missed that.

>
> >*Since the sequence /Ng/ exists independently, I don't know whether it
> >would
> >be better to use ng for /Ng/ or ~g.
>
> Huh? You totally forgot to list this /g/ previously then. (Unless you mean
> /N.~g/, in which case I'd go for a repeated eng.)
Good idea!

>
>
> >Compared to all that, the vowels are incredibly easy:
> >
> >/a, e, i, o, u, {, 9, y, (E, O, 7, M (@))/
> >a, e, i, o, u, ä (a umlaut), ö (o umlaut), ü/ÿ (u/y umlaut)*, (ε**,
> >?***, õ,
> >ũ, ĕ/ě/Ə)
>
> Wouldn't /A/ fit into the system better than /a/, and /2/ (IPA o-with-slash)
> better than /9/ (IPA oe digraf?) Having both of the latter would also seem
> good if you had /E O/ too, tho.
Yes, they would, (to both statements!). I keep thinking Finnish "a" =
/a/ and Finnish "ö" = /9/, though. Thanks for correcting me on that.

>
>
> >**Greek epsilon, also used for E in the IPA
>
> Actually, that's a different epsilon symbol - IPA (and derived African
> orthograffies) uses the "Latin" epsilon. The difference, I gather, is that
> the Greek one may have a "member-of-set" like appearence, but the Latin one
> mayn't.
>
Ah, I see.

While I'm at it, anyone know how to get IPA "open O" (X-SAMPA /O/")?

TFT, John

Jeff

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