Re: H

On Wed, Mar 14, 2001 at 08:35:49PM +1300, andrew wrote:
> I am meditating on a problem at the moment and that is the value of [h]
> in a Romance creole.  I posted a couple of weeks ago a Babel text that I
> had developed from Lingua Franca for a language I call Feringistani.
> Arabic influences has meant that this language has borrowed pronominal
> suffixes which include [-h] him/his and [-ha] her.  This means the
> language has constrast like:
>
> nome/nomeh 'name/his name'
> sta/stah 'be/be him'
>
> Now I am wondering what value this [-h] has if it is remained
> productive.  If it has become silent then it may be articulated at the
> end of words.  If it has become silent, as h has elsewhere then it may
> have caused a change in stress /'nome/~/no'me/, similar to Tokana, or
> altered pronunciation in some other way.  Which option would make better
> sense, considering the context?
I don't know what would make the most 'sense'; it's your call, whichever one
you like best. But another change you could consider is changing the quality
of the vowel before syllable-final /h/ (and plausibly any syllable-final
consonant). For example, IIRC in Spanish dialects where syllable-final /s/
becomes [h] or [0], the preceding vowel is more "lax," e.g.:

/"fuente/   ["fwEnte]
/"fuentes/  ["fwEntEh] <- more open/more lax [E] for /e/
/"kosa/     ["kosA]    <- back [A]
/"kosas/    ["kosah]   <- more front/more lax front [a] for /a/

--
Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo