Re: Auto-Segmenting Engelang (was REQUEST: Engelang?)

Patrick Littell scripsit:

> 5.) This one's odd, but kinda interesting. Instead of requiring that some
> phonemes are only in roots and others only in affixes, have counter-harmony
> of the sort that Julia & I were discussing regarding Itzaj. For an example,
> require that
> -- Roots contain either only front vowels or only back vowels.
> -- All derivational suffixes are harmonic with the root. (Front for front
> roots, back for back roots.)
> -- Every word has a single-syllable inflectional suffix that is
> *counter-harmonic* with the root. (Back for front roots, front for back
> roots.) This is at the very boundary of naturalism, of course, but harmonic
> suffixes are common and counter-harmonic ones attested.
My language xuxuxi used a close variant of this scheme for its multisyllabic
content words.  All syllables after the first were harmonic with it, whereas
the last syllable was antiharmonic, according to the following rules:

first          other          last           harmony type
=====          =====          ====           ============
a              e or o         i or u         low
e or i         a, e, or i     o or u         front
o or u         a, o, or u     e or i         back

--
posting via web interface