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Re: CHAT: Unconventional pronoun systemsshow us yours!

From:Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Date:Wednesday, September 1, 2004, 11:07
Quoting Steven Williams <feurieaux@...>:

> --- Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> schrieb: > > * Jump for cover as people tell me how much my > > phonaesthetic tastes suck * > > Well, de gustibus non disputandum, or somesuch. I, for > one, like it; it's a cute word. > > Where does the accent (if any) go in [me;dy]? And am I > right to assume that the /;/ is an extra-short mark? > If so, you're a brave man, toying with _three_ levels > of vowel length!
I _think_ is is my fifth message for today ... let's see if it gets thru. The _semi_colon, appropriately, denotes half-length - [e;] is between [e] and [e:] in length. Notice I use square brackets - the length difference is subphonemic. In phonemic transcription we'd have simply /medy/. Stress is on the first syllable, and the half-length is a side-effect of the stress - stressed vowels are somewhat drawn out compared to unstressed ones. Actually, I think I used a full colon to indicate this lengthening on the webpage. The Altaii stress system is actually very easy; in polysyllabic words, if the last syllable contains a diphthong, stress goes on said last syllable, otherwise it goes on the second-to-last syllable. Monosyllabic words, naturally, always get the stress on the last syllable! :)

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Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...>