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

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.

Reply