Re: yet another new lang sketch (sorry)

Quoth Jennifer:

[most of original post omitted]

>legal initial clusters: stop/non-glottal fricative/non-velar nasal +
>liquid/semivowel
>non-glottal stop + s
>the glottal stop occurs only between vowels
Oh I like this; initial <ks> and <ps>, like Greek...

>pitch-accent: acute accent on a vowel means high pitch stress, grave accent
>means low pitch stress
Nice.  Reminds me of Hausa.

>tentative rules for spplication of accent: final vowels of >/= 3 syllable
>word have low accent
>second syllable of >3 syllable word has high accent
>final syllable of <3 syllable word has high accent
You know, I'm still trying to get Greek accent rules all figured out.  I
mean, when do you put an acute on a long penultimate vowel and when do you
put a circumflex, that sorta thing.

I'm still trying to figure out how I'm gonna work out stress in Tech.  My
basic words are mostly two-syllable with three-syllables thrown in here and
there.  The structure varies from CVCV to CVCCV to CVCVCV to even a case of
CVCCVCV.  Then you got augment stems; for example, the verb _hlot'a-_ means
'to curse', but add _-na_ and you get _hlot'ana-_ > _hlot'na_ 'to accuse, to
be an enemy' (incidentally cognate with Hebrew _s'a:Ta:n_ 'Satan, the
Devil'.  And there's two augmentations of some verb (I don't have my notes
handy, and I forgot!), something like _hala_ to _halya_ and _halwa_.
Augment infixes are apparently going to form the bulk of fully-developed
words, and there might be a logical system where the same infix applied to
the same word root might have the same direction of meaning.  (What am I
trying to say anyway?)

(Note: hl = Welsh ll; t' = ejective t.)

But I digress again.  Chances are, I'll have a pretty regular stress system
along the lines of Arabic and, to a lesser extent, Latin.  First of all,
words are never stressed on the ultima unless you have a case of syllable
reversal (CVCV > CVVC where V becomes a new long vowel or diphthong).
Three- and four-syllable words will tend to fall on the 'long' syllable (and
since basic roots do not have long vowels, this means a vowel followed by
two consonants).  I have a word _dotgihu_ for 'fish' (there are probably a
dozen words for fish and they have various shades of meaning), so stress
there is initial, but another word, _biruwqa_ (I think that means 'frost')
has second-syllable stress.  In the latter case, the first syllable's <i>
disappears but palatizes the <b>, so you'd have [bjrwu:q~V] in ASCII-IPA
transcription.

>aspect infixes - fall after the initial consonant of the verb
>
>telic           -ix-
>repetitive      -ak-
>inchoative      -uun-
>durative        -us-
>perfect         -il-
Okay, time for me to ask a dumb question -- what is 'inchoative' again?

>gender - general rules - masculine ends in high vowel,
>nasal, or liquid; definite article "an"
>                feminine ends in low vowel, schwa or stop;
>             definite article "al"
I do that in Tech as well!  Feminine nouns actually end in a reversed
syllable _ta_, pronounced [VT] or [Vh] and affixed to the end, and they have
a tendency to lower the final vowel of the oblique stem of the masculine
(the nominative is the last syllable reversed, usually, or sometimes marked
by an -s suffix, especially in animates).  Neuters will probably end in -m
or something, like in Indo-European.

>the consonant of the article elides before a noun starting with that
>consonant
>the definite article doesn't decline
Mine (which is _?a_) doesn't either, but it does affect initial mutation of
the next word.  Fortition (gemination) for masculine, spirantization
(aspiration) for feminine, and nasalization (eclipsis) for neuter.  For
words beginning with a laryngeal (especially the glottal stop), the
consonants h-, t- and n- are prefixed, respectively.

Examples (given in phonetic transcription:

k'aT' 'cat, tomcat' (T' = yes, an ejective interdental fricative)
?a k'aT' 'the tomcat'
k'ad'ah 'pussycat' (d' = implosive d)
?a x'ad'ah 'the pussycat'
k'ad'aM 'neutered cat' (M should be a labiodental nasal)
?a N'ad'aM 'the neutered cat' (N' = implosive velar nasal)
(which can also be realized as Ng', a prenasalized implosive stop)

By the way, if you really wanna insult someone, say _?avamax_ -- meaning
'your father who is a eunuch'...

>Suggestions? Comments? It's meant to feel sort of Native American,at least
>at first glance, so what else can I do it to this end? Does anyone actually
>read these all the way through?
Actually it kinda made me feel like Malay-Indonesian with a little Korean
for some reason.  But I like what you got!  Still confused on a few things
(like the 'telic' or the 'relative case'), but I'll figure it out.  (I'm
still trying to work out when to use nominative/accusative and when to use
ergative.)

The Saints be with you!  (Not the football team.)

Danny  http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Hall/5517

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