beged-kefet, spanish, and Re: yet another romance conlang

On Wed, 5 Jan 2000 00:08:21 -0300 FFlores <fflores@...> writes:
> > simple stops:  / p t k b d g /  ~  { p t c b d g }
> > stops' allophones:  [ P s x B z G ]  ~  (marked in 'full writing'
> with
> > cedillas), according to Hebrew "beged-kefet" rules, only staying
> hard at
> > the beginning of a word, after a syllable-ending consonant, and
> between
> > two vowels where the first is 'small', some other exceptions.
> Could you explain 'small' and 'big' vowels? Are they short and long
> respectively? I think you mentioned this once... Are these ones
> the beged-kefet rules?
.

I don't understand them myself....near the end of the phonology unit in
my intro to linguistics class i tried to figure out how it works, and i
couldn't.  If they were just long and short versions of / a e i o u / it
would be simpler, but they're not.  Beged-kefet is a very complicated
thing.  It was a late development in Hebrew, and somehow weaseled it's
way into the entire structure of the language.
Commonly, the vowels are listed in " a e i o u " pairs -
but some Medieval grammarians, such as Yehuda ha-Leivi, split the vowels
into 3 series.
And it doesn't help that the names of the vowel-marks have changed over
the years.

There are also vowel gradations that don't follow the (probably
Sephardic/Israeli-influenced) 2x5 series we have now.  For instance, when
a short /i/ can't be inlaid in a particular consonant pattern because of
guttural consonants, it isn't replaced with "big" /i/, (/i:/?), but with
/e/!
Similarly, /u/ (/U/?) can't be replaced with "big" /u:/, but has to be
replaced with a form of /o/ (hholam hhaseir) - and there are 3 different
/o/s!

Hholam-malei: written with a vav, usually stays intact when moved away
from the stressed syllable.
Hholam-hhaseir: written without a vav, collapses into a hhattaf-qomatz
(ultrashort /o/ replacing an /@/) when far from the stress.
Qomatz-qattan: written exactly the same as the vowel qamatz (variously /a
O o u/ in different accents), but pronounced /o/, and is the only /o/
which causes gemination and beged-kefet hardening.

Some plural nouns have vowel shifts (probably due to the stress shift)
and change vowels...but it doesn't alternate according to the 5x2 system
(maybe i should research the older system):

YOM (with hholam-malei) "day"  ~  YAMIM (with qamatz)
YAM (with qamatz) "sea"  ~  YAM*IM (with patahh and gemination of the M)

Only the qamatz~patahh alternation could be predicted from the 2x5
system.

Also, in Biblical Hebrew, shuruq (big /u/) and qubutz (small /u/) were
completely interchangable, while later on, one causes gemination and
beged-kefet hardening, while the other doesn't.

> > tap:  / r /  ~  { r }
>
> At the beginning of words too?
.

I guess so...i did think of having a trill in geminated position, but
then i abandoned the idea of having true gemination (except maybe in
nonstandard dialects) and just having beged-kefet.

> > 'small' vowels:  / a E i o u /  ~  { a e i o u }
> >
> > 'big' vowels:  / A<r> e ij ow uw /  ~  { a: e: i: o: u: }, {:} =
> macron.
> Oh, forget the question about vowels. But what is /A<r>/?
.

Rounded /A/.....in different Hebrew dialects, the vowel _qamatz_ varies
between /a/ and /u/, with the most common pronounciations today being /a/
and /O/.  It was also supposed to be /O/ in the Tiberian system (back
when the vowel system was standardized), but since Ju:dajca is romance,
and i wanted it derived from /a:/, i moved the interacting languages'
low-back vowel closer together, to get /A/, which is almost always
rounded somewhat when i try to say it.  I was able to pronounce the
rounded version (in the "mother tongue" phrase _pleknu gamna-zOH_ in a
10th grade story) a few years before i could figure out /A/ properly.

> > Ju:dajca is commonly written in boustrophedon style, with
> alternating
> > lines of latin (left-to-right) and hebrew (right-to-left) scripts.
>
> Must be pretty confusing, huh? I'd like to see some ancient
> manuscripts if you have them at hand. :)
.

I thought that it would be easier to read....or at least faster, no need
to find the beginning of the next line of text if it's right there below
the end of the previous line.

~~~~~~~~~

> > En el mundo es importante que
> > siempre recordemos -
> > tu' no puedes mirar el futuro.  Y
> > e'so me da miedo.
> > Be'salas a las horas que pasan,
> > antes que te abandonen -
> > ni aqui' ni alla', en la oscuridad.
>
> Is this yours?
> In any case, *<e'so> doesn't need an accute (<esto> and <aquello>
> don't either). And you may want to say just _Besa las horas_, for
> the sake of both grammar (nah...) and rhythm. _Antes que_ could
> also be _antes de que_ (those two forms are the source of endless
> and fruitless dispute) -- but this one sounds more spontaneous
> and keeps the rhythm.
> --Pablo Flores
Yup....it's from AP Spanish class last year (i don't know why i put it in
a sig there, maybe because it's also a romance language, and i had been
helping work on our spanish magazine "La Estrella" which my grade never
finished).  Eso doesn't need an accent?  Hmm...i thought i remembered
learning something complicated in class about when it's used like an
adjective vs. when it's used like a noun...ohwell, maybe that's something
else.  What's the grammar problem with "Be'salas a las horas..." ?  I
think i made it like that for the rhythm, actually.....there's an
unmarked pause in the middle there: BEsalas (pause) a las HOras que
PAsan.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "i'm blue, [bad@'bi bad@'baj], if i was green i would die..."