Re: NEW LANG: Telek

At 4/22/00 11:03 AM -0300, you wrote:

>>Consonants:
>>Aspirated Stop: p, t, k
>>Unaspirated: b, d, g, ' (' = glottal stop)
>
>Then is it the same as Pinyin and Navaho transliteration?
><p t k> = /p_h t_h k_h/ and <b d g> = /p t k/?
Exactly.

>>/l/ and /r/ are in a sound symbolism relationship.  /l/ is typically found,
>>but /r/ may be used to show negative connotations of all sorts.
>
>I like this feature, though I don't know of any natlang which does such
>a thing. Counterexamples welcome. (Plus the alveolar flap is so sweet a
>sound, how could you make it negative?! :)
I got the idea from Tlingit which used to alternate between [s] and [sh],
though the process is no longer fully productive.  It still works in
classifiers and there are some fossilized remnants of the feature.  For
example, in some stories about Raven (their Trickster), the word for foot
(sorry, can't remember it) is used with [sh] to imply that he is
"club-footed".  Also, the "classifier" (they don't classify anything) used
with
"love" is [si-] but when used with "hate" it is pronounced [shi-].

>>Pitch-accent:
>>
>>Words start at a low pitch, and gradually raise until reaching the peak
>>syllable.  Pitch remains high on every remaining syllable (usually only
>>one).  Determining the peak is done by the following rules:
>
>My suggestion on this and the rest of the phonology is, if you're going
>to present it to people, use examples along with the formal rules. It
>may be a test for the language, besides helping us get a first impression
>of the rule in practice.
Sorry about that.  I tend to think rather abstractly and forget to come
down to
Earth.

Let me make all this clearer.

High pitch will be shown with capital letters.
1. The peak is either the ultimate or penultimate syllable, whichever is
heavier, if tied, on the ultimate.

soteLEK "his speech"
kewiFAANA "s/he runs"
kenajLID "he cooks"

2. The peak must be heavy.
3. If both syllables are light, the vowel of the penult lengthens and becomes
the peak.

waNAADA "deer"
wanaDOONI "faun" (wanada "deer" + -oni diminutive suffix)

I usually don't write the lengthened vowels because it is completely
predictable.  Orthographically, these two words are _wanada_ and _wanadoni_.

4. The peak may not be on the initial syllable, disyllabic words peak on the
final syllable.

bilTYY "type of fish"

Final peak even though the first syllable is heavy.

Syllabification:
The syllable template is (C1)V(C2).  Within a root and derivational
morphology,
syllables divide as CV.CV and VC.CV

so.te.lek "his speech (act of speeching, not an oration)"
bil.ty "type of fish"

The sequence CV1.V2C is impossible, and in such situations, the vowel closest
to the stem deletes: CV1.C in the case of prefixes, CV2C in suffixes.

so.ngo.pa "He is there" (from so 3sO + ngo locative + apa "exist (animate
subject)")
wa.na.do.ni "faun" (from wanada "deer" + -oni diminutive suffix)

Inflectional morphemes divide into syllables at the boundary, so it is
possible
to have CV.VC or VC.VC.

so.apa! "He exists!" (a kid insisting that Santa Clause is real??) (from so
3sO+ apa)
ke.it.ax.naj.lid "He cooks for us" (ke 3sA + it 1pO + ax benefactive + najlid
"prepare food")

Does that clarify things?

Marcus