Re: Phonetics Question

   Date:         Mon, 4 Jan 1999 20:18:33 -0500
   From: Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>

   Btw, the affricatives /dZ/, /tS/, and /ts/ are considered single sounds
   in Rokbeigalmki, but /dz/ is not - it's pronounces as "one and a half"
   syllables with what i think is an ultrashort shwa between the /d/ and the
   /z/.  That's also why there are individual letters for the first three,
   but /d(@)z/ is written with two letters.

If I can be nostalgic for a moment.

The first conlang-related thing I remember trying to do, when I was
about 13, was an adaptation of Tengwar to Esperanto. (Don't laugh). I
had figured out the general phonetic concepts of place of articulation
and binary feature from Tolkien's description, and had made a grid for
the Espo consonants. I decided that Zamenhof had made a mistake by not
making <dz> into a single letter.

Many years later, I had a long and involved discussion on the Espo
list about the real and philosofical differences between <ts> and <c>.
I think the upshot was that <dz> in Esperanto is not supposed to be an
affricative, unlike <c>, <c^> and <g^>. Same situation as in
Rokbeigalmi.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)