The stress is always placed on the first syllable of a word in Uusisuom.
Where the word is a compound (very common in Uusisuom!), the stress is
placed on the first syllable for each word in the compound.
SUUpi (bear)
UUsiSUom (the New Language)
KIRojaRAKahSOIka (somebody who loves books; a bookworm)
As for my reference to 'accusative', I may be mistaken. Please help me out
here:
'The book is for him'
In this sentence, in what case is the word 'him'?
In Uusisuom, this sentence would read:
'Kiroja suuollu yllule'
Lit: the book is for he
In short, the pronouns NEVER change in Uusisuom (as they do even in English,
ie he > him)
Daniel
----- Original Message -----
From: "J Matthew Pearson" <pearson@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 8:00 PM
Subject: Re: Some myths answered
> Daniel44 wrote:
>
> > Myth 1: There is no difference, or there is a largely indistinguishable
> > difference between 'u' and 'y' in Uusisuom.
>
> Nobody ever claimed there was, unless by "difference" you mean
"(subjective)
> perceptual difference".
>
>
> > Answer: There IS a difference in these two vowel sounds. The 'u' is the
same
> > sound as in the English words 'pUt' and 'bOOk' and is transcribed as <U>
in
> > IPA. The 'y' is the same sound as in the English words 'bOOt' and 'whO'
and
> > is transcribed as <u>.
>
> OK, so that business with French "lune" and Italian "punto" was a red
herring.
> So I guess that "Uusisuom" is pronounced [U:.si.sU.om]. Where does the
stress
> fall, by the way?
>
>
> > Myth 2: Surely having two similar vowel sounds makes Uusisuom difficult
to
> > pronounce
> >
> > Answer: No. Uusisuom has been specially designed to make pronunciation
> > relatively simple, with practice and effort.
>
> The key here is the last four words: "with practice and effort". What
some
> people on this list have been arguing is that an IAL should be designed in
such
> a way that the pronunciation requires as little practice and effort as
> possible. Given that the difference between "y" and "u" is relatively
rare
> among the world's languages, that would supposedly make it difficult for
people
> to acquire the contrast if their native language does not have it.
>
> Of course, if ease of pronunciation is not one of your goals, then there's
no
> problem.
>
>
> > The 'y' sound is relatively
> > rare anyway, and is employed mostly to indicate pronouns and the
accusative
> > (seeing as there is no object case in Uusisuom).
>
> I'm not sure what this means. The accusative *is* an object case.
>
> Matt.
>