Re: Phonological Relay Proposal

Nik Taylor wrote:
>Marcus Smith wrote:
>> Telek does not allow for monosyllabic words.  If any show up, they will be
>> bumped up to two.  That might be a good way to increase the size of words
that
>> get worn down.
>
>How would they be lengthened?  Extra vowels?
Depends on the word.

CV    -> yCV    (y is a high, unrounded, central vowel, probably "reduced" to
[I] here though)
CVC -> yCVC

This is just a basic idea.  Other factors would play a role.  The stressed
syllable would have to be heavy, so the first example would have to have a
long
final vowel: yCV:.  If there was an initial cluster, say CCV, this would
likely
(though not necessarily) come out as CyCV:, but it could also be yCCV,
depending on what the exact consonants were.

VC would really depend on which vowel and consonant are used.

The additional syllable would always be unstressed, which requires them to be
added initially, since stress cannot be on the first syllable.  This is the
reason why expanding VC will be complicated.

 You could also attach
>unstressed monosyllables to other words.
Does that mean everyone will have to include stress/pitch/tone in their
transcriptions?  Actually, Telek does this kind of cliticization quite
regularly with its own words.  All case markers are actually monosyllabic
postpositions.  Since a "stressed" syllable (actually it's pitch-accent)
cannot
be initial, they attach to the immediately preceding word, so that they are a
final syllable and capable of being -- indeed required to be -- stressed.






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Marcus Smith
AIM:  Anaakoot
"When you lose a language, it's like
dropping a bomb on a museum."
  -- Kenneth Hale
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