Daniel Andreasson wrote:
> Hello fellow conlangers!
>
> I have a question (my first ever, yey! :)
>
> In my conlang Rinya, the plural is marked by changing the vowel(s) inside the
> word. The question is: What is the normal way of doing this? Or is there a
> 'normal' way at all?
>
> Of course I could just make a pattern up, but if all existing languages that
> have this feature do it the same way, it would be interesting to know.
One of the theories is that vowel shift is product of vowel harmony... is like
some old plural ending -i in words like /fot/ or /tand/ produced a plural like
/f0ti/ and /t&ndi/. Then the pliral ending
disaperared but the vowel shift reminded: /f0t/ and /t&nd/. Further change could have
changed the singular into /fut/. This is a case of back to front shift that is
found in Germanic languages (not
productive indeed).
> Do the vowels change from back to front or from open/low to close/high? And if
> the latter, what happens if the word is for instance 'cin'? Would that be
> 'can' in the plural and go back to open/low again?
Well. I think, if there is a raising shift, that a word like /kin/ in singular would
either be the same in the plural or change in the singular... into /ken/ or
/kIn/.
> Or does it have something to do with the preceding consonant?
> And what about diphthongs like 'ae' and 'oe'?
>
> As you can see, I have no clue at all. Please help! :)
>
> Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.
>
> / Daniel Andreasson
>
> PS. What is the standard way of saying; high/low or open/close?
For me high/low would meand /i/ versus /E/ or /e/ versus /&/. open/close would
mean /E/ versus /e/... just if there is a need of marking.
--
Carlos Eugenio Thompson Pinzsn
ITEC-Telecom, Colombia
cthompso@alpha.telecom-co.net
http://alpha.telecom-co.net/~cthompso/