Re: 5 phonemes, was: Another phonological extreme

--- Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...> wrote:

> Yes, I know I’m abusing a certain understanding of phonology... but
> here is it: a system of only 5 phonemes, which sprang out while I
> was revising Ija.
I don't think you're abusing phonology!  In fact, you're explaining
quite well the relationship of phonemes to phones.  And the effect of
history on the move from phonemics to phonetics.

> 1. Deep
>
> C: p k m
> V: r= e
>
> Allowed syllable structures: (C)V(C)
The "deep" phonemes should be written, I think, with a phonetic script
other than Latin or Arabic.  Here a syllabry would be more practical,
since it has a very small phonology.  Also, syllables are going to
become somewhat alphabetic because of how your "deep phonemes" relate
to "surface phones".

Plus with a syllabry you only have to learn six characters; in an
alphabetic script only one less!

> No restrictions on syllable combinations within a word. Besides,
> intervocalic _p_ and _k_ (but not _m_) can be geminated. Such 'true
> geminates' are distinct from the combinations ...Vk.kV... and
> ...Vp.pV... that can appear on morpheme boundaries etc.
Are your "true geminates" grammatical in origin (as in certain Arabic
verb classes)?  That would double your consonant phonemes, since
gemination is not simply a VCCV group with identical C's.

[large snippage, sorry]

> 3. Deep to surface
>
> a) Vowel contraction and emerging glides
>
> To avoid the mistake I made with Ija, for Miituu I state explicitly
> that the contraction rules work right-to-left. The subordination of
> rules is as follows:
>
> r= (+V) /r/
> eer= /ju/
>    otherwise er= /a/; otherwise r= /u/
>    otherwise ee /ja/; otherwise e /i/
With /r=/ being a vowel, you have a vowel to consonant shift, kinda
like Proto-Indo-European.  Is there a high-falootin' technical name for
such?  (I can only think of "reduction", PIE having /er/ ~ /or/ ~
/r=/.)

> b) Syllable-final consonant transformations
>
> Syllable-final consonants (except _p_ and _k_ in 'true' geminates)
> are treated as follows:
>
> ap /aw/  ak /ai/  am /aN/
> up /uu/  uk /aa/  um /uN/
> ip /iw/  ik /ii/  im /iN/
Oh, that's where you get /t/, /j/, /r/; I was clueless...

This is great!  Why did I call the "deep" segments "phonemes" and the
"surface" sounds "allophones"?  I don't know.  That is the approach of
Tech linguists towards their amazing language.  You tell a Techian his
language has hundreds of consonants, he'll be like "yeah right".  The
established scholarship in the Kingdom of Techia (at least the
"official" stance of the Crown and Tribal Senate) is very modest in
describing their language phonemically:

Labials: p' p b m w
Dentals: t' t d n
Alveolars: ts' ts dz r
Palatals: tS' tS dZ S j
Laterals: tl' tl dl l
Velars: k' k g
Uvulars: q' X R
Pharyngeals: h- 3
Glottals: ? h
Vowels: a i u

30 consonants and 3 vowels?!  And Tech is said to have hundreds of
consonants and dozens of vowels?  Where are the retroflexes?  The
voiceless pharyngeal/epiglottal ejective affricate?  The velar nasal?
The voiced implosive stops?  The voiceless and implosive nasals?  The
fricatives?  All the sibilants?  The long, nasal and pharyngealized
vowels?

A Techian would just say that those extra phonemes are "contextual
variants".

But maybe they're right.  Most likely, Proto-Tech (remember, it's still
an isolate unless you belive in Nostratic) probably had only the
aforementioned phonemes, so these would be what Vasily called "deep".
I probably left out a few I should've listed.  The legion "surface"
phonemes came later as the language evolved (and revolved)...

As for the "surface" phonemes, I won't get into that.  I posted the
full phonology, and boy was it a scary sight...

DaW.

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