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Re: Hi again, new lang, and a lang tool

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Monday, March 12, 2001, 8:06
Aidan Grey wrote:
>Tatra 'the tounge' > >Phonology: unvoiced consonants predominate > vowels: a,e,i,o,u > diphthongs: ai, au, ei, eu > consonants: t, p, k, kh, h, ' (glottal stop) > l, lh, r, s, sh, n, m >
(snips) looks interesting! (Does "kh" represnet a fricative [my guess] or an aspirate [odd, if so]?)
>Pronunciation: does anyone have any hints on how to >pronounce glottal stops before consonants? I can do it >between vowels, including the semivowels and liquids, >but I have no idea how to pronounce it in other >places.>
Depends. In medial position I can't see any problem-- simply [?] plus whatever consonant. There could be a tendency for the [?] to assimilate to the following sound, so [?t] > [t:]. Maybe [?m] > [pm]. etc. In initial position, it's harder to describe the effect-- a little like a suppressed cough. It can be done, though it might be a little difficult to hear. Perhaps best described as "sharp" or "emphatic" onset.
>Stress: how to do? I'm familiar with a lot of systems >that depend on long vowels to indicate the stressed >syllable, but I haven't a clue how to decide which >vowels are long and which vowels aren't.
If you're going to correlate length with stress, then you'll have to decide ;-) In some langs. long vowels (contrastive) determine stress; in others, stress lengthens vowels (non-contrastive). OTOH in some langs. stress and length are independent, e.g. Czech IIRC. Also, I'm not
>familiar with the ffects, if any, that a glottal stop >would have on vowel length.>
IMO none in case of ...V ? V...; in case of ...V ?C V ... it would probably shorten the vowel. But not necessarily in either case. You could make your own rule.
>Fricativization: I know that stops are usually voiced >intervocalically (in general, in world languages, I >mean), but when do fricatives occur?>
I'm not so sure stop voicing is all that common, but in a language like Tatra, with no voiced stops, it could well happen. It would not be unusual for stop > fricative intervocalically; maybe in final position too.
>Vowel dropping (I forget the linguistic term): are >there any semi-universals for how and when this >happens?>
IIRC: _syncope_ dropping of vowels in medial position; _apocope_ dropping in final position. I forget the term for initial position. They all tend to be influenced by stress. An interesting idea: drop alternate vowels. Hope this helps.

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Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>