Re: Another Urianian phonology problem.

Hi!

First, do you have a home page about your conlang? Google didn't help me.
Anyway, I'm for two years now polishing my PIE conlang, and curiously I'm
doing the phonology again... yet again. So.


On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 11:55 PM, Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...>
wrote:

> Hi,
> I want to discuss another Urianian phonology problem here. Often it helps
> just setting the problem out properly - it doesn't necessarily even make it
> to the list.
>
> I thought I had found a clever way to deal with the PIE aspirated
> labiovelars that gave me a foundation for the vir-vyr-or forms in various
> parts of the highlands, by assuming that the /gh/ part of the phoneme is
> lost and only a rounding remains, manifesting itself as a /w/ phoneme, so
> that for example gwher > wer > vir-vyr-or.

Are you sure you want that much of homophony? vir-vyr-or is... gHWer wi:ros
...?


> This is parallel to the loss of the aspirated voiced velar /gh/. However
> the loss of the aspirated voiced velar is gradual, in that first the stop is
> lost, leaving an aspiration that manifests itself in an /h/ phoneme, which
> then later is lost. This is necessary because the /h/ is still found in the
> east and also in some lost southern dialects. Example: gher > her > er >
> ir/ar. (In a late change, highland dialects front their /e/'s, while lowland
> dialects back them.)
>
> Possibly I am facing a /gwh/ > /wh/ > /w/ process in the labiovelars. It
> seems to be a kind of competition between the various phases of the phoneme,
> where in the case of the labiovelar, the rounding wins, and in the case of
> the velar, the aspiration wins. But I don't feel comfortable with it. Also
> now I have found some lowland forms written _chi_, _kha_ and similar and I
> think the aspirated labiovelars are the best candidates for explaining them,
> for semantical and morphological reasons.
>
> Now, the unaspirated labiovelars regularly turn into fricatives in an early
> stage. /gw/ > /j/, /kw/ > /C/. In the lowlands the voiced ones generally
> lose their voice and merge with the unvoiced ones, and in the highlands they
> suffer the same voicing changes as the stops, otherwise they are not changed
> since this early phase.

So gWena and kWoina will sound really close ; ).

So maybe the aspirated labiovelars should do an early /gwh/ > /jh/? That
> would give me an opportunity for working out something that could give a
> modern sound written _ch_ or _kh_. But then I lose the highland
> _vir_-_vyr_-_or_ that has worked well semantically so far. And I don't
> really fancy having Old Urianians walking around saying /zejhros/, /jheros/,
> /senjhim/ and that sort of stuff. It wouldn't be like them.
>
> Can the Middle Urianian form be something else than /we/ and still give
> modern /vi/ alternating with /vy/ and /o/? Will I need to have the highland
> dialects splitting from the lowlanders already at the M.U. stage (roughly
> 1500 ybp)? That is the best choice perhaps. Well, I'll give up on this for
> now, it's getting late.

I need to know more about your phonological rules first...

>
>
> BTW, I found from NASA's site that there's a total solar eclipse in Uriania
> in 2015. I'd like to take the trip if I'm able...
>
> LEF
>
Edgard.

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