Representing Boreanesian (was: Re: quantity triggered vs.

Kristian:
> And Rosta wrote:
>
> >A belated reply, but I think not repeating what was in other
> >messages in the follow-up thread,
>
> Thanks for the reply, And. Lumanesian is presently undergoing a
> reform and is now called Boreanesian. Several elements of the
> language remain the same. The only change is where stress is located
> now - no longer penultimate but ultimate. I'll explain in more
> detail what the changes, but first, I have kept what I have written
> previously so that others can see the changes:
Maybe there should be some kind of confederation of minor insular
languages, with representatives from the Maldives, the Andaman
islands, from Sakhalin, from Boreaneasia and from Hesperonesia
(comprising Livagia, Scungria, the Azores and in some classifications
the Canaries), etc.. And at their congresses they could discuss their
various neglected tongues, like Ainu, Andamanese, Boreanesian, and
the numerous languages of the Boreatlantic group (comprising [IIRC -
it's Paul Roser who has been working on this] Macro-Tsxaah, Macro-Livagian,
and Guanche).

> Boreanesian is now stressed in ultimate position, and it is this
> ultimate syllable (a.k.a. the major syllable - following Mon-Khmer
> conventions) that is still consistently heavy (or CVX). So instead
> of the previously CVXCV structure, Boreanesian lexeme structure is
> now C@CVX.
You seem to have morphemes that don't fit this template: sal, kan,
nal.

> Like Lumanesian however, this major CVX syllable still appears in
> one of the three forms described for Lumanesian. That is, they can
> appear in one of the three possible tones/registers: falling-creaky,
> level-aspirate, falling-modal. Schematically, this is: C@CV?, C@CVH,
> and C@CVX.
>
> >Orthographically, then, you need a three-way distinction that is
> >located in some (ideally unambiguous) position on the
> >orthographic word (e.g. initially, finally, or on the penult
> >itself). The distinction nnedn't be marked on the penult if (i)
> >it is marked elsewhere, and (ii) there is some independent way of
> >delimiting orthographic words. If one knew the overall
> >distribution of CV?, CVH and CVX syllables it might be easier to
> >choose between alterntive orthographic solutions.
>
> I have chosen to mark this in the final position. This is an ideally
> unambiguous position now that I'm representing all minor syllables
> as Ce-.
I didn't respond to the thread that led to that decision, but could
you repeat the rationale for writing the -e- in minor syllables? You
said it was to avoid ambiguities resulting from compounding, but I
wonder whether now that major syllables are stem/morpheme-final the
ambiguity remains.

> Here is how:
>
> Words with a creaky tone (i.e., a heavy syllable ending in a glottal
> stop or glottalized sonorant) is marked by writing the symbol for a
> glottal stop "'" at the end. E.g.: "sal'" [sal<?>], "peya'" [pja?],
> "kan'" [ka~N<?>], "keluy'" [kluj<?>].
>
> Words with a level tone (i.e., a heavy syllable ending in a glottal
> fricative or a voiceless sonorant) is marked by "h" at the end.
> E.g.: "nalh" [nal<o>], "kenuyh" [k@nuj<o>], "telah" [t@lah].
>
> Words with a falling tone (i.e., a heavy syllable with a long vowel
> or ending in a voiced sonorant) is unmarked - although long vowels
> are written double to indicate heavy syllables without a consonantal
> coda. E.g.: "pal" [pal], "pe'aa" [p@?aa], "meney" [m@n@j].
>
> >A comparison with Livagian may be of interest [especially to you,
> >because the two conlangs that currently most remind me of
> >Livagian are Lumanesian and Lojban].
>
> Is the common "L" a coincidence in all these languages?
Yes. _Loj-_ is etymologically ultimately from an amalgam of sources
including _logic_. _Li(v)-_ is etymologically ultimately from the
Livagian first person inclusive deictic _luj_. _Luma_, IIRC, is an
ethnonym. Also Claudio Gnoli's _Liva_ is named after (IIRC) a
childhood friend from Slovenia or somewhere near there.

> I have plans to indicate tone in the Boreanesian syllabary through
> the graphemes indicating the coda themselves.
Isn't it the case that tone and coda are exponents of the same
phonological feature?

> Other symbols represent C@ syllables. The @ can modified by these
> coda graphemes, similar to how Indic scripts modify the inherent "a"
> in their consonants by adding super/sub-scripts.
How does this work? As I understand it, there are four syllable
patterns: C@, CaX, CiX, CuX. Is that right? With three possible
values for X, that gives a total of (3 * 3) + 1 multiplied by the
number of possible Cs.

But if lexemes really must have the form C@CVX without exception, a
syllabary doesn't quite seem the ideal option, because there would be
other ways of reducing the inventory of graphological contrasts to
the point where it reflects the phonological contrasts without
redundancy. Mind you, I'm thinking like a Livagian here, rather than
as a naturalisticalist of the Pearsonian variety. Naturalistically,
it seems very likely that Boreanesian would, like so many languages,
have a grossly maladapted writing system.

--And.