Re: NEW LANG: Telek

At 4/25/00 10:50 AM -0600, you wrote:

>Glides as well? Some might see this as being unusual in the same
>way as a geminate glottal stop (though not to the same degree).
Glides probably have a different pronunciation when geminate.  We'll see.

>> /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.  For
>> example, _tele_ is the verb stem for "speak" but it can be used as _tere_
>> to show clumsiness of speech such as stuttering, grasping for words, etc.
>> So _keteele_ (phonological lengthening, see section on pitch-accent)  "he
>> speaks" but _keteere_ "he speaks (haltingly/stuttering/in an irritating
>> manner)"  Using /r/ in a person's name is highly insulting, and therefore
>> is a common feature in conversations between "tough" young males, usually
>> in their teens through late 20's.  Some words that are inheirently impolite
>> may only occur with /r/, and because of this there are near minimal pairs
>> suggestive that /l/ and /r/ are separate phonemes: _birtytum_ "clumsy
>> person, oaf" vs. _bilty_ "type of fish" (I don't know what kind yet, but
>> people eat them).  (These words are in no way related).
>
>Very nice! How productive is this?
It is very productive.  I suspect some people may even pronounce _birtytym_
(fix my own mistake) as _biltytym_ to be a bit more affectionate, as when
mildly chiding a boy/girlfriend.

>> 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:
>>
>> 1. The peak is either the ultimate or penultimate syllable, whichever is
>> heavier, if tied, on the ultimate.
>> 2. The peak must be heavy.
>> 3. If both syllables are light, the vowel of the penult lengthens and
>> becomes the peak.
>> 4. The peak may not be on the initial syllable, disyllabic words peak on
>> the final syllable.
>
>Doesn't rule 3 contradict rule 1?
Stated this way, yes it probably does.  I should rearrange the order of the
rules: 3 before 1.  Actually, I was thinking about this intuitively as: peak
must be heavy, do not lengthen word final vowel, put peak as close to the end
of the word as possible.  Rather OT-ish.

>> Phonotactics
>>
>> The syllable template is (C1)V(C2).  Within a root and derivational
>> morphology, syllables divide as CV.CV.  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.  Inflectional morphemes divide into
>> syllables at the boundary, so it is possible to have CV.VC or VC.VC.
>
>This looks like Lexical Phonology; if so, it seems odd that in
>the first stratum (stem + derivational morphology) you avoid
>hiatus by deleting the vowel closest to the stem (could this
>also be a stem vowel?); I would have expected the other vowel to
>delete.
I'm not familiar with Lexical Phonology.

I probably should have phrased this better -- I'm not used to others
reading my
explanations for Telek :).  It is certainly the stem vowel that deletes.  The
idea here (and perhaps this is unnatural, but I thought otherwise) is that
since there is less material in the affix, deleting material from the stem
makes it easier to recover the meaning of the word.  For example, if I were to
delete from the affix, the hypothetical suffixes -ik and -ak would both reduce
to -k; but by deleting from the stem, they remain distinct.

>> C1 may be any consonant word initially, but is mildly restricted after
>> another consonant: the glottals ' and h may not occur after C.  When this
>> happens, the glottal disappears, and the preceding C geminates.
>
>Are coda consonants moraic? If so, I would expect that this is
>result of preserving syllable weight in the leftmost syllable.
>If not, I would have expected the glottal to disappear
>altogether. Interesting ...
The glottal stop and h don't have a place of articulation in the mouth, so
they
disappear, but the time slot is still present, so the preceding consonant
spreads to fill it.  (Autosegmental thinking.)

>> C2 may be any consonant word finally, but is severely restricted before
>> another consonant.  Before another C, C2 must be unaspirated or assimilated
>> to a following homorganic stop, e.g., ts > ds, td > dd, dt > tt, tk > dk.
>> Note that this is not a restriction on codas, because this does not hold
>> word finally, or in codas followed by a vowel, a situation found at the
>> inflection-stem boundary.
>
>It just seems wrong not to think of this as a coda-condition,
>but I can't think of any really convincing arguments. I'd like
>to see some evidence that there really is a syllable boundary
>between a C and a following V; I believe such things happen, but
>there is always compelling evidence for it.
If it were a coda condition, I don't know how I would explain the lack of
neutralization word finally.  The only evidence I have for the syllable
boundary between C and V is that when asked to say _etanoom_ "our heads"
slowly, native speakers say et-a-noom.

The only way to be sure would be to have a monosyllabic, transitive verb.  If
there were a transitive verb _a_, we could use _namina_ "I am X-ing you" to
check the location of the peak.  It would be naMINA is the syllable boundary
corresponds with the morpheme boundary, naMIINA otherwise.  Unfortunately,
there are no monosyllabic transitive verbs, so this cannot be tested.  (In
fact, the only monosyllabic verb is the copula _ee_ . but it only appears with
suffixes or a single prefix).

Marcus