Re: târuven vowels and diphthongs
| From: | daniel andreasson <daniel.andreasson@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Saturday, October 14, 2000, 17:44 |
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Tal skrev:
> By popular demand ;) (Daniel, please ask and comment eyh?)
Okelidokeli. Someone else, please ask and comment too, eyh? :)
It's gonna be mostly questions though.
> The IPA-ASCII scheme used is X-SAMPA, see
I saw it. It was pretty useless since I'm having troubles with my
soundcard. And I couldn't find the x-sampa signs there either so
I went to http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/x-sampa.htm instead.
Anyway. I'm not used to x-sampa at all so I have a few questions.
1. What's /L/? x-sampa says "palatal lateral approximant"
2. What's /H/? x-sampa says "voiced labial-palatal approx."
> TÂRUVEN VOWELS AND DIPHTHONGS
>
> târuven has six short vowels:
>
> a /A/ e /e/ i /i/ o /u/ u /}/ y /y/
/}/ is Norwegian/Swedish {u}, right?
> An umlaut (¨) does nothing to the actual pronounciation of the vowel,
> it's just an orthographic quirk. [In the native script, morphemes
> containing an umlauted vowel have a separate, non-alphabetic sign aka.
> "shortcut symbol" or "abbreviation symbol".]
Okay, I'm with you this far.
One thing I notice is that your uni is focused on phonetics/-ology. :)
> * TWO VOWELS NEXT TO EACHOTHER
>
> When two vowels stand next to each other, having no diacritics, an
> umlaut or a circumflex (^), they are
>
> 1) pronounced separately: ai /a.i/
> 2) counted as two separate, short sounds
> 3) not of the same syllable
Ok. This one was easy.
> If the _second_ vowel in the combo has a grave (`) or acute (')
> diacritic they are:
>
> 1) a _diphthong_: aì /AL/ åì /AH/ aò /Aw/ yí /Hi/ oí /wi/
So {aì} is A followed by a palatal lateral approximant? Sounds
weird. And {åì} is A followed by a voiced labial-palatal approximant,
which must sound a bit like a /w/, right? I'm not sure why {aì}
and {åì} would sound that different, though.
Or should L and H be read as high and low tone? I guess not since
that should be _H and _L as you have done further down this mail.
> The diacritic on the second vowel tells which of the two vowels that is
> reduced:
>
> - if it's a grave (`), it's the second that is weak/reduced
> - if it's an acute ('), it's the first that is weak/reduced
Ok. So {oí} sounds something like {wi} in "twin"? And would be
spelled "toín" in târuven?
And the {y} of {yí} isn't really a /j/ but rather something in
between /j/ and /w/?
> The mnemonic I use is that the diacritic "points downwards" towards the
> weak vowel.
Good rule.
> If the two vowels next to each other are of the same type, and the second
> has a grave or an acute we have:
>
> 1) a _double vowel_: aà /A_H:\A_L>/ aá /A_LA_H:\/
>
> As you can see I've used tone-marks here for emphasis, diphthongs are in
> fact similar, tone-wise: grave gives high-low, acute gives low-high.
Ok. Let's see if I've got this right.
aà /A_H:\A_L>/ would be A with half-long high tone followed by a short
A with a low tone.
aá /A_LA_H:\/ would be A with a low tone followed by a slightly longer
A with a high tone.
Okay, I think I've got it!
Summary so far: The only thing I'm having problems with is the
pronunciation of /L/ and /H/.
> * THREE OR MORE VOWELS NEXT TO EACH OTHER
>
> To illustrate:
>
> a) aaa /A.A.A/
Got it. You don't actually have a word with three a's in a row,
now do you? :)
> b) aáa /A_LA_H:\.A/
Yep. The last A belongs to another syllable.
> c) aìa /AL.A/
A falling diphthong followed by an A in a different syllable.
> d) aìá /ALA/
Hmm. I'm having a hard time pronouncing this as a single syllable.
The last A comes out as a syllable of its own.
> e) åìò /AHw/
Or {kåjw} which I could imagine a Swedish child saying when trying
to pronounce "korv" (= 'saussage'). :) Something like that at least, eh?
> a) has three syllables, b) and c) two each, and d) and e), which are
> triphthongs, have one syllable each.
Okay. Got it.
> All of this is, of course, a somewhat simplified version of the real
> thing. Fact is, the weak/reduced vowels aren't as reduced as one might
> assume from the above, so aì /Ai_X/ is another possible IPAfication.
Oh, no! What's the _X? ... Aha. "Extra-short". We should have gone
through this more thouroghly last summer, shouldn't we? :)
>
> * EXERCISES
> Exercise A:
>
> An aìóáoùíoóêy is probably some form of bird.
>
> 1) How many syllables (and where are the breaks?)
Yikes. Ok. Here's a try:
/AL.wA.wu.jo.we:.y/ or perhaps:
/AL.wAou.jo.we:.y/
Phew. This was hard. I think I'm going for my second alt.
> 2) How many
> - short sounds
One. {y}
> - long sounds
Four.
> - short vowels
One. {y}
> - long vowels
One. {ê}
> - double-vowels
One. (the êy at the end.) Or perhaps zero, since I'm guessing
{ê} is part of the {óê} diphthong.
> - diphthongs
Three.
> - triphthongs
Zero.
> - tetraphthongs
One.
I'm expecting a big fat red F on this test.
> Exercise B:
> Find some other, better way to mark up the same thing. ;) (You may ask
> for occurance-frequencies)
Okej. How 'bout: {ajwaåwjowêy}? ;)
Daniel, wiping the sweat off his forehead.