Re: Representing Boreanesian (was: Re: quantity triggered vs.

And Rosta wrote:

>Kristian:
>> And Rosta wrote:
>>
>> 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).
>
Sounds like a good idea. As far as I know (composed), there is a
group of Boreanesian languages spoken in the northern most island of
Boreanesia. These languages still retain very archaic features and
has given linguists clues as to how ancient Boreanesian must have
been like. Unfortunately, these peripheral languages are either
extinct or moribund. The islanders are being sucked into the
mainstream Boreanesian society. A commission of the likes you have
mentioned could perhaps prevent extinction.

>> 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.
Ooops...! I always seem to leave out something when I reply to you.
I meant to write: "instead of the previously CVX(CV) structure,
Boreanesian lexeme structure is now (C@)CVX." Monosyllables do occur
cuz minor syllables are optional. Yet, bisyllabic lexemes still
predominate.
>
>> 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.
>>
-----<<<<<<snip>>>>>>-----
>>
>> 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.
That is because of the way I'm marking tone/register. I'm using
syllable final digraphs in some cases. First, recall what I wrote
below. I'll explain the rationale afterwards:
>>
>> 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].
>>
Thus, if I were to make a compound of say "kenuyh" followed by
"pal", then I'd have "kenuyhpal". But if I did not mark minor
syllables with an -e- (or any other grapheme), then I'd be combining
"knuyh" with "pal" to create "knuyhpal". Ambiguity arises when
trying to read this new compound word because it could be read as
either "knuyh-pal" [k@nuj<o>'pal] or as "knuy-hpal" [k@nujh@'pal].
One would be unsure of two things; the tone/register, and the roots
that make up the compound.

-----<<<<<snip>>>>>-----
>>
>> 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.
>
The ethnonym is now "lemah". Boreanesians could called their country
"Lemahnesia", but I'll just stick to the name Boreanesia in case I
make any more drastic morphological changes in the future.

>> 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?
Perhaps. I'm not an expert on the subject so I don't really know.

>> 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.
>
No, there are two syllable patterns: minor with the C@ template, and
major with the CVX template. X is a cover symbol for any of the
possible sonorants (ie., /l/ /N/ /j/ /w/) or vowel length. There are
three possible types of laryngeal settings for X: voiceless which
triggers a level tone, glottalized or creaky voiced which triggers a
(falling) creaky tone, and modal voice which triggers a falling
(modal) tone.

I have intended the script to be a modified syllabary like Indic
scripts, not a pure syllabary like Japanese or Ethiopian. Each
grapheme would therefore represent consonant with an inherent
vowel - a CV sound. For Boreanesia, it makes sense that the inherent
vowel would be /@/ since the only CV syllables that occur in
Boreanesia is phonemically C@. Since all the other vowels
(/a//i//u/) only occur in major syllables, it would make sense that
a grapheme representing the coda should have the honor of being the
symbol that can alter this inherent /@/ vowel. I have yet to work
out the exact details.

>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.
>
I was thinking more historically. The script would have been
introduced from the Philippines. An incredible archeological find
was made back in 1989 when the oldest written document was dredged
up from Laguna Lake near Manila, Philippines. This document, dated
905 AD, was written in the ancient Kavi script which was more
widespread in those days and used almost throughout Southeast Asia.
Many ancient Philippine kingdoms are known to have presented
memorials to the Chinese court engraved in gold tablets but have no
native scripts in modern times. I decided to make the script a local
adaptation of the ancient scripts, just like the scripts that are
still being used among the tribes in Mindoro and Palawan islands in
the Philippines, and among the Bugis and Makasarese in Sulawesi.

Of course, local adaptation could change the Indic writing system
drastically. I'm all ears to suggestions. Besides, you are right
about a mal-adopted writing systems occuring naturally. In fact, the
syllabaries used in the Philippines and Sulawesi are grossly
defective. They all lack signs denoting syllable final consonants.
I'm not sure that this would be a problem for Boreanesian though.
The kavi script was able to represent syllable final consonants. If
Boreanesia adopted the Kavi script from the Philippines before it
deteriorated, I'm sure the Boreanesians would have kept the signs
denoting syllable final consonants since they can be used to
symbolize tone/register - an essential part of Boreanesian
phonology. The script can perhaps be defective in other ways.

Regards,
-Kristian- 8-)