Re: Merian H-4: Grammar and Phonology.

En réponse à "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...>:

>
> Joe, one word about natural languages.  Usually, when languages
> acquire a distinction, they apply that distinction to a whole
> class of sounds.  So, for example, if you get affrication on
> /p/ to get /p_f/, you'll also find affricates /t_T/ or /t_s/
> and /k_x/. So, let's look at your system:
>
>   p     t d       c      k g
>   f v             x
>                                 h
>                          (q)
>   m                 n
>
> This is a little anomalous in several ways. It's not weird for
> a language to have a voiceless /p/ without a voiced /b/ (in
> fact, that's the more unmarked system)
Actually, it's the contrary. It's more natural for a language to have /b/
without /p/ then the contrary. It's also more natural for a language to
have /k/ without /g/. In fact, Classical Arabic is an example of that, having
the following set of stops: b t d k (no p nor g).

>
> It's not strange that you would have [A] for /a/ and
> [Q] for /o/, but it is a little odd that you would have
> two *rounded* front vowels with no unrounded counterparts --
> the former generally imply the presence of the latter.
>
In fact, I know of no language that has front rounded vowels without the
corresponding front unrounded ones. On the other hand, languages with back
unrounded vowels lacking the corresponding back rounded ones are frequent (take
simply Japanese, which has /M/ - high back unrounded - without its rounded
variant /u/).

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.