Re: G'amah phonology

Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:
>>FFlores wrote:
>[...]
>>> <h> is /H/ (uvcd pharyngeal fric), with allophones
>>>     [x] after /i/
>>>     [H] otherwise
>>Intuitively, [x] after /i/ as an allophone of /H/ seems rather unlikely
>>to me.
>Yes, I don't know why /H/ has this allophone.  [Ix] certainly occurs in
>Welsh, so I guess [ix] also occurs in natlangs.  But if [i] triggers
>allophones, it's generally a palatalizing effect.  I'd have expected German
>ich-laut [C] after [i] rather than ach-laut [x].

I was toying with the idea, yes, and it could certainly be a
free variation. But palatalization (seen as assimilation) is
not in the spirit of the language so far; /i/ would just front
/H/ a bit (and it could well be to the uvular, not velar POA).
To me it's actually difficult to pronounce [ix] instead of
[iC].

>>> <ll> is [Z<lat>] (much like Welsh <ll>, but rather palatal)
>>
>>Do you mean that it is a palatal lateral fricative?  Quite interesting!
>
>Yes, a sound I make with ease.  I once intended to use it in a now-dormant
>conlang of mine and was subsequently reliably informed that the sound
>occurs in Icelandic.

Oh, I didn't know that! Yes, it's palatal, or at least noticeably
more back than /l/. And on a higher level of abstraction, it belongs
with the "palatals", which are rather irregular: <ch>, <j>, <sh> and
<zh> are phonetically postalveolar; <ch'> is more palatal, and <j'>
is a palatal stop, not an affricate.

>>> all as in IPA. /o/ sometimes alternates with [@_O].
>>Voiceless schwa?
>Ah, the zero vowel   :)

Oh no! Well, I took my ASCII IPA chart and [@_O] is supposed
to be a "more rounded" schwa. ("O" is letter "O", not number
zero).

As I haven't worked on the ancestor language, I don't know what
has happened to the vowels throughout history. I know there's
a reason why /o/ gets centered, and I think there was a central
high /i-/ at some point, which could explain some puzzling
alternancies (like [H] > [x] sometimes, and /H/ > /S/ some
other times).


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/index.html
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/draseleq.html