Re: Tallefkeul: tones and whatnot

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.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier
Dept. of Linguistics  "Nihil magis praestandum est quam ne pecorum ritu
University of Chicago sequamur antecedentium gregem, pergentes non qua
1010 E. 59th Street   eundum est, sed qua itur." -- Seneca
Chicago, IL 60637

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