Re: Parsing Open Syllables

Gary Shannon scripsit:

> I've always favored open syllables.  They are neat and
> tidy and east to synthesize.  But there's a parsing
> probelem with the spoken language.  When you hear
> "konali" is that "ko nali" or is it "kona li"?  Longer
> sequences of sounds get even more difficult to parse.
xuxuxi uses vowel harmony/disharmony to resolve the problem.
All multi-syllable words are stressed on the first syllable,
and then the other syllables of the word, except the last,
have vowel harmony.  The last syllable of the word has disharmony.
Any remaining syllables before the next stressed syllable are
monosyllabic.

Here's the harmony/disharmony table:

first           medial          last
a               a, e, o         i, u
e               a, e, i         o, u
i               a, e, i         o, u
o               a, o, u         i, e
u               a, o, u         i, e

So a in the first syllable triggers height harmony, and all other vowels
trigger front/back harmony.

> So here's the solution that occured to me as I was
> dozing off last night:
>
> Words take the form CVV or VCVV or CVCVV or VCVCVV or
> CVCVCVV or VCVCVCVV, etc., where the final syllable
> must always have a vowel pair and no other syllable in
> a word is permitted to have a vowel pair.
>
> If you hear "konialiu" there is only one way to parse
> it: "konia liu", since "ko nialiu" breaks the vowel
> pair rule.
>
> Words may occasionally end in three vowels as in
> "taui" but when that happens they are invariably
> pronounced with a glottal stop after the first vowel
> "ta'ui" and the main stress for the word falls on the
> first vowel after the stop.
>
> When the final vowels of a word are the same as in
> "tapii" they are separated buy a glottal stop:
> "tapi'i" and the main stress for the word falls on the
> vowel _before_ the stop.
>
> I'm thinling my alphabet will be 21 letters; the Roman
> alphabet minus C,J,Q,Y,X.
>
> --gary
--
The man that wanders far                        jcowan@reutershealth.com
from the walking tree                           http://www.reutershealth.com
        --first line of a non-existent poem by:         John Cowan

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