Chris Bates wrote:
>> I am particularly interested the way moraicity is used as an
>> explanation in this paper. I am familiar enough with moraicity in
>> ancient Greek (and _Classical_ Latin) prosody, and from Japanese -
>> but this seems, shall we say, a bit different ;)
>>
> Yes, the limitation to 4 morae suggested for roots (and what counts as
> a morae) seem truly weird.
Yes, I agree - the more I think about, the more weird Nina Topintzi's
analysis seems.
> I'm more tempted than ever to make my own evil lang with such
> screwyness, but I really shouldn't abandon my project in progress.
> Perhaps later....
I look forward to it :)
[snip]
>>
>> So arguably whether xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłs has any syllables or not will depend
>> upon one's definition of 'syllable'.
>>
> Yes, that seems to be a problem to me too: ....
[snip]
> shared structural properties of languages fail. I tend to take a more
> descriptivist view of things: I'd use a concept if it works for
> describing a particular language or makes that language easier to
> describe, and discard it if it doesn't.
Exactly. Concepts like phoneme are just useful abstractions which can
make the description of a language easier; but many of us, I guess, have
come across instances where the phonemic approach seems to fall down.
Then i look for a more apt description. My approach is essentially
empirical.
> I'm really not that interested in Chomsky style theories which are too
> abstracted from the actual data, since in my experience as a
> mathematician (well, a student mathematician) it's not a brilliant
> idea to build massive complex extremely abstracted theories which your
> data may not support then try to claim that your theories always work
> or are in some way universal.
AMEN!
[snip]
>> The problem I think with Bella Coola is that there seem to be no
>> restrictions whasoever in the clusters for the most part. There is no
>> restriction as far as I can tell forbidding words like:
>
>
> k'p't' [k_>p_>t_>]
>
> or, to take an example from a language called Klamath,
>
> gank@nktktdamna
>
> with long sequences of stops.
Yes, but how are these long sequences of stops pronounced? Even if you
put your tongue etc through all those stop positions, what audible sound
is produced? I would dearly like to *hear* these words.
[snip]
>>> Do you think that an analysis that says that xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłs has no
>>> syllables is correct?
>>
>>
>>
>> I remain to be convinced :)
>>
> So do I. My intuition insists that every word should have at least one
> syllable,
It depends, I suppose, on what you mean by word. But certainly, my
intuition is that every utterance must have at least one syllable.
==================================
Rodlox R wrote:
[snip]
> my science teacher told us that the vowels were "a,e,i,o,u; sometimes
> y; and rare-er than y, m.
Well? So your science teacher wasn't a linguist.
--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://wwww.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY
--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://wwww.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY