Re: Tallefkeul: tones and whatnot

 --- "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...> wrote: >
Quoting bnathyuw <bnathyuw@...>:
>
> >  --- Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...> wrote:
> >
> > > And just cus a cluster 's stable in your mouth,
> it
> > > doesn't have to be that in the Maggelians'. My
> conlangs
> > > involve a number of sounds I can hardly
> pronounce myself
> > > (most notable is perhaps the complete palatal
> series in
> > > Classical Vaikin). And the Tairezans find [m]
> unpronounceable
> > > except when initial or followed by /p/ or /b/.
> The Yargish
> > > cheat by being physically unable to produce [m].
> >
> > i'm still trying to work out what the tolerance
> for
> > clusters should be in bac. the morphology of the
> language
> > leads to various forms such as
> >
> > bca /btSa/, speaker
> > adihtr /adITt4/ area of shade
> > jga /dZga/ inflammable substance
> > rka /4ka/ friend
> >
> > i'm trying to work out whether they should stay in
> > that form or take the affix t(a)-/-(a)t which is
> > usually used when words cannot be directly
> modified
> >
> > tabca
> > adihtrat
> > tajgat
> > tarka
>
> If the problem is simply how to deal with these
> unrepentent
> consonant clusters, why not use epenthetic
> consonants, or
> delete? That's how many natural languages deal with
> illicit
> syllable structure.  Also, what is the functional
> purpose of
> t(a)-/-(a)t?  If it's like a definite article, then
> you have
> a perfectly good precedent in French, where articles
> often
> help simply to provide an extra VC.
>
t(a)-/-(a)t derives from the word |tat|, which i
usually refer to as the neuter pronoun or the article.
i mentioned it in a message a couple of weeks ago. it
is used for grammatical function only and therefore
has no meaning

as bac modifies the meaning of words by changing their
external consonants ( and final vowel ) it seemed
helpful to have a way of adding an external consonant
when no obvious candidate existed. for example, the
initial consonant is nasalised to give the definite
form of a noun :

|gaj| /gadZ/ eye
|gnaj| /NadZ/ the eye

if there isn't a single initial consonant, the prefix
|t(a)-| is used :

|ark| /a4k/ pub
|tnark| /na4k/ ( high register /n_0a4k/ ) the pub

|rka| /4ka/ friend
|tnarka| /na4ka/ the friend

the treatment of foreign words depends on register

|reyg| /4eg/ monarch
|rneyg| /reg/ or |tnareyg| /na4eg/ or |tnata reyg|
/nata 4eg/ the monarch

the question is whether i should tolerate forms such
as |rka|, or whether i should backform a quasiregular
form in |ta-| viz |tarka|

i don't know if this answers your question. i suppose
you could eventually see the forms in |t(a)-/-(a)t| as
the usual, and the forms which directly inflect the
root as historical oddities ( as i can see the non CVC
roots multiplying ), but of course that's not how it
started

incidentally, verbs use the affixes |P(e)-/-(e)r|,
which are derived from the verb |Per|, root meaning,
to be actual, but which is usually used as the
existential verb or the copula

bn

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