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

>Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:
>Anyway, do others also have such a hard time finding personally
>pleasing phonologies?  I find it awefully difficult.
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.

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.

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).  These
consonants are formed in the front of the mouth (labial, dental,
alveolar & palatal).  No velars, glottals, etc., that sound harsh to
me.

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.

The 6 vowels are straightforward: /i/, /e/, /a/, /O/, /o/ & /u/.

Consonant clusters of more than 2 consonants are not permitted in
any position.

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.

I also decided on pitch accent rather than stress accent.  I haven't
quite got the hang of that yet.

I am also going to use a bit of vowel harmony, but don't have that
worked out yet.

Charlie

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