Re: Euphonic phonology (Was: 'Nor' in the World's Languages)

On Wed, Aug 09, 2006 at 04:28:08PM -0000, caeruleancentaur wrote:
[...]
> When I first began the phonology of Senjecas, I wanted the PIE roots
> to sound like Hawaiian.  So I first had to get rid of consonant
> clusters & diphthongs.  Every vowel is a syllable.  There are no
> geminate consonants.
Cool, that sounds similar to Tatari Faran.


> Then I remembered the final -n in Japanese & thought that that would
> sound nice.  This led me ultimately to using any non-plosive in the
> syllable final position.
Cool. Tatari Faran is more restricted in word-medial positions, in that
the only allowed clusters begin with /m/ or /n/. Other than that, syllable
structure is CVCV... . In word-final position, only unvoiced consonants
are allowed, and /k/ is substituted by /?/.


> Because of the mystic meaning of the number 6 in Senjecan mythology,
> I reduced the phoneme count to a multiple of 6.  There are 24
> consonants (actually 12 pairs of a voiced & voiceless).
Nice. I did a similar thing in Ebisédian, which had a much fuller
inventory of phonemes than the minimalistic Tatari Faran. In Ebisédian,
the numbers 3 and 5 are very prevalent. There are 6 rows of consonants
in Ebisédian, grouped roughly according to point of articulation
(although not exactly). Each row has 6 members, except for two of the
rows which have 5 and 4, respectively. There are also 9 vowels, arranged
in a 3x3 grid.


> These consonants are formed in the front of the mouth (labial, dental,
> alveolar & palatal).  No velars, glottals, etc., that sound harsh to
> me.
Interesting. Many people consider labial sounds harsh, but to my ears,
labials are actually quite pleasing.

Tatari Faran does have a lot of velars and glottals. Glottal stop is
phonemic and occurs frequently.


> I didn't want to have any sounds that I couldn't pronounce, but my
> sense of the exotic needed to be met.  The paired consonants did
> that.  In the labial row I have /p\/ & /B/.  In the dental row I
> have /T_d/ & /D_d/ (not interdentals).  The sonorant column
> contains /m_0/, /l_d_0/, /4_0/, & /j_0/.  I can pronounce all of
> these, but they don't occur in my L1.
Cool. None of the languages I'm fluent in have phonemic glottal stop, so
that was quite an adventure when I introduced that in Tatari Faran. TF
also has the unusual lack of any lateral consonants, and an alternation
between /d/ and /4/.


> The 6 vowels are straightforward: /i/, /e/, /a/, /O/, /o/ & /u/.
Yay! Somebody else has a /O/ vs. /o/ distinction. :-)


> Consonant clusters of more than 2 consonants are not permitted in any
> position.
Ditto for TF.


> If there is a conflict with a final consonant & an initial
> consonant, an epenthetic /E/ is inserted.  E.g., *mus sââta, I
> stand, becomes musë sââta.
Hmm. TF has rules of euphony, but none of them introduce epithentic
vowels. TF's solution to "uneuphonic" clusters is to mutate the
consonants.


> I also decided on pitch accent rather than stress accent.  I haven't
> quite got the hang of that yet.
TF uses pitch accent, too. I guess this isn't too big a deal for me,
'cos my L1 is tonal, so pitch contours are quite natural for me. In
fact, I still frequently conflate high pitch with stress.


> I am also going to use a bit of vowel harmony, but don't have that
> worked out yet.
Cool. I haven't dared to tread there yet.


T

--
"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" -- Calvin & Hobbes