Re: Umlaut (was: More questions)

To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
Subject: Re: Umlaut (was: More questions)
Various replies to thread.  Bottom up again I'm afraid!

At 23:04 26.11.2003, Andreas Johansson wrote:

>Doesn't Icelandic make something patently weird along the lines /a/>/2/? Seem
>to recall something about _altar_ being _altörum_ or _ölturum_ in some
>inflected form.
It is actually /a/ > /&\/, and _ölturum_ is indeed dat.pl.
The process is the reflex of u-umlaut, after the fronting
of *a and *Q.  It occurs regularly before a preserved following
_u_ ([Y] or [2]), and sometimes where an *u ending has been lost,
notably in the nom.sg. of feminine (e.g. _hönd_ 'hand')
and in the nom./acc.pl of neuter (e.g. _lönd_ 'lands') nouns
and adjectives.  A stressed _a_ becomes _ö_ and an
unstressed _a_ gets fully assimilated to _u_.
Some foreign proper names and words violate the latter
rule, e.g. _Agatha_, which becomes _Ögöthu_ in olique
cases.


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To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
Subject: Re: Umlaut (was: More questions)

At 22:26 26.11.2003, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> >
> > > On Tuesday, November 25, 2003, at 09:06 PM, Amanda Babcock wrote:
>  ...snip...
> > the latter.  However, as I think about it, I think a-umlaut is a good
> > idea.  Makes matters neatly symmetrical and more complex.
>
>My conlang Tersnuvu - I guess it must be characterized as effectively
>abandoned for know; it never got much past phonology and nominal morphology
>anyway - managed, using only i-umlaut and reduction of diphthongs in certain
>positions, to expand it's vocalic inventory from /i a u ai au/ to /i y e a o u
>ei ey ai au/. Should I start seriously working on it again, I guess I ought to
>introduce a- and u-umlaut too, wrecking some REAL havoc.
AFMOC Sohlob it went through three stages:
first umlaut, then merger of some of the
results of umlaut, then high/low vowel
harmony:

                 a-uml   i-uml   u-uml
         a       a       &       Q

         i       e       i       i/

         u       o       y       u

Then /e/ merged with /i\/ (that hence is written
_e_ in the romanization), /y/ merged with /i/ and
/o/ merged with /Q/, giving the following vowel system:

         i       _e_     u

         _ae_    a       _o_

Sometime during the nine-vowel phase vowel-height harmony
nocks on the door requiring all vowels of a word to be the
same height, so that vowels in non-initial syllables get
raised/lowered as appropriate.  Initially _e_ 'remembers'
its mixed origin, so that its lowered counterpart is
sometimes _a_ and sometimes _ae_, while _o_ sometimes
gets raised to _u_ and sometimes to _e_.  This in turn
is subject to a lot of later analogy and confusion, which
makes for an interesting morphology, especially as final
vowels are lost, so that what originally was the theme-vowel
of the stem gets reintepreted as part of the ending, with
several allomorphs due to vowel changes.

Then there is the Kitilib dialect where _e_ merged with _i_
(_kitilib_ would properly be _ketjeleb_ in Classical Sohlob,
although the mixed form _kitileb_ or even _kidileb_
is actually used), and the Heleb dialect where VhV, VyV, VwV
and VqV (_q_ = /G/) sequences were contracted into long vowels,
some of which are front rounded, so that short vowels in
the affected words get subject to front-roundness harmony
as well.  There is also the _Lindjeb_ dialect where the
mergers were different:

& > e, i\ > y, Q > o and harmony never took place.

Etymological exercise:
Try to figure out the etymology of _kitilib_,
given that _kedjeb_ means 'ancient language',
and _heleb_ means 'city language'.



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To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
Subject: Re: Umlaut (was: More questions)

At 22:08 26.11.2003, Paul Bennett wrote:

>My still unnamed project (provisionally WC8, de facto, it seems) has vowel
>mutation that works like umlaut, and which may have historically been
>umlaut (or more properly vowel harmony followed by umlaut).
Wow, that's the opposite sequence compared to Sohlob! :)


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To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
Subject: Re: Umlaut (was: More questions)

At 22:02 26.11.2003, John Cowan wrote:

> > The tendency, if there is a shifting, seems to be towards one of the
> > apexes of the 'vocalic triangle' as, I think, John's email implies.
>
>At first I thought so too.  But the u-umlaut process is rounding, not
>backing: it mutates /i/ > /y/ and /e/ > /2/.  Presumably it could even
>transform /A/ > /Q/.
Historically it did all that in Germanic:

*triwwaz > *triggwaz > ON tryggr
alu > ON öl  (yes, _alu_ is attested in inscriptions!)

I can't recall any e > ø example off the top of my head,
but they exist.


/BP 8^)
--
B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X)
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