Answer to Rob, plus a few other things about this language.

At 09:34 13/01/00 +0100, you wrote:
>PHONOLOGY AND MORPHOLOGY:
><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<snip>
>
>>CL= -> C_vL= L= voices the preceding consonnant, except if it is ' or h.
>
>How about saying that the h is voiceless and gets voiced according to
>the rule? Or breathy or something. I note a difference between the
>Dutch and English way to pronounce /h/. English sounds 'voicelesser'
>to me. Maybe you could introduce it to your lang.
>
        I thought of that. I saw in an IPA chart that /h/ had a voiced
counterpart, and I thought of using it. But I also already had the rule
that in CLV or CLL= syllables, hL became l_O, and I didn't feel like having
h voiced by L= whereas it unvoiced L. It didn't seem right to me. As I
wanted to keep the unvoiced L, I had little choice. Also, it seems right to
me because this way, both glottal consonnants behaved the same with
syllabic liquids, so the system seemed consistent to me. But I will think
of it again.

><snip>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>NOTE: All those changes are very complex, as when a new syllable is
>phonetically created when a word barrier disappears, this new syllable
>endures also all the possible changes that were already explained. It means
>simply that in this language, actual segments are generally very dependent
>on the environment, and that word frontiers don't limit the influence of
>segments over others. Also, it means that the writing does not represent in
>an easy way the actual pronunciation, as for example something like "ta
>'ilce " is pronounced [t_Sl=k]. Tell me what you think of that.
>Personnally, I like this feature, as it looks a little like the way people
>hear a language they don't know: they cannot seperate the sounds which seem
>mangled together as a single string.
><<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>
>I like it too.
>I think there will be a lot of homonyms. E.g.: "ta'ilce "
>{BTW, where does the [i] come from?} -> [tSI=k]
>but "telce"-> [tSI=k],  "telca"-> [tSI=k].
>Could be difficult for the speakers?
>
        You didn't use the rules correctly :) (Basilius was right, the I presented
them was far too confused). I wrote "ta 'ilce ", with the space being a
word frontier, because I wanted to show a behaviour of liaison and
assimilation between two words. "'ilce " alone would be pronounced [jl=k]
(the i is the way I write the L vowel which is generally pronounced as the
semi-vowel [j], but also as the unvoiced one [j_O] or the syllabic one [i].
"'il" is a syllable of CLL= deep structure). The rules of the change
between the deep structure "ta 'ilce" (/ta 'jl=ke/) and the surface
pronounciation [t_Sl=k] is as follows:
ta 'jl=ke -> ta jl=ke (the glottal stop disappear in front of a L)
-> t jl=k (the final simple vowel of a word disappears, except if this word
is followed by a word beginning with a consonnant, which is not the case
here as the glottal stop disappeared)
-> tjl=k (the word frontier disappears in pronounciation when a surface
consonnant is followed by a L or a V)
->t_Sl=k (the j palatalises the preceeding t)
->d_Zl=g (I forgot this one in my post: L voices the consonnants near it
whenever possible)

        So the real pronounciation of "ta 'ilce" is [d_Zl=g]. "ta'ilce" in one
word would be pronounced [tajl=g]. "telce" and "telca" in one word would be
homophones, pronounced [telg] (with this time a non-syllabic l, the first
syllable is CVL), except when followed by a word beginning with a
consonnant, in which case the last vowel would be pronounced. I told you it
was pretty complex :) . But I like it :) . If you find a way to organize it
in a more consistent way, your help is welcome.

>>>>>>>>>>>>
>GRAMMATICAL SKETCH:
>
>Class 1: beings with strong will: individual humans, souls, high spirits
>(derivation: personnification of words of other classes, sometimes an added
>meaning of nobility).
><snip>
><<<<<<<<<<<<<
>
>I like this class system, even though you think it is too straightforward.
>
        Thank you. If nobody can help me, I think I will keep it that way, and put
the inconsistence in some words that 'should' pertain to one class but in
fact are in another class, for one reason or another (or no reason, or at
least there used to be a reason and now it disappeared).

        I use the fact I answered to Rob to add a few things I forgot to tell
about in the first sketch, that's to say the tonal system.

TONAL SYSTEM:

        Yes, it is my first language with tones! They are not that complicated as
there are only two levels of tone and four tones: high, low, rising and
falling. They are never written in the native script, and in the latin
transcription I will write them only when speaking of tone is relevant. I
will write them using:
- nothing for the low tone,
- a pipe | after the syllable for high tone,
- a slash / after the syllable for rising tone,
- a backslash \ after the syllable for falling tone.
In handwriting I write them with diacritics but as tone can be found on
syllables without vowel (syllables with syllabic L), I couldn't use them
for the mail.

        Each syllable has only one tone (CVV syllables have one tone only,
whatever the nature of VV, geminate - long - or diphtong). There is a
general constraint that says that two following tones must have the point
of contact at the same height (it means that sequences like low-rising or
rising-falling are possible, but not sequences like low-high or
rising-rising). This constraint, like most constraints in this language,
doesn't take care of the word frontiers, so when a word ending in low tone
meets a word beginning in high tone, there must be a change in one tone, as
a phenomenon of liaison. As tone is linked also to the other phenomena of
liaison, partially lexical and partially grammatical, it's a very
complicated feature. I will present it to you with the other grammatical
features.
        For instance, if my example was "ta 'il|ce\ " (that's to say "ta" with low
tone and "'ilce" with high and falling tone), the result would be
[d_Zl=g/], that's to say with rising tone (low-high became rising with the
fusion of the two syllables, and the falling tone disappeared with the last
vowel). I'm not sure of it however. Maybe the disappearance of the falling
tone would make the high tone falling, and then the low-falling would
become low. What do you think of it?

        OK, that's enough, tell me what you think of all this :) .

                                                        Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"Reality is just another point of view."

homepage : http://rainbow.conlang.org