Re: Introducing Mashish

On Tue, Dec 03, 2002 at 06:54:32AM -0800, Heather Rice wrote:
[snip]
> Vowel Harmony:  there is vowel harmony between
> different vowels.  Some vowels (a,e,i) cannot occur in
> a sequence, so they are alternated thus:  a-i, e-u,
> i-a.  So "banana" could not be pronounced this way,
> rather it should be "banina".
Interesting feature. I think I should adopt a similar constraint in
Ebisedian. Right now everything's just too unconstrained.

> syllable structure is almost excusively CV, and short
> vowels are not pronounced at the end of a word.  If
> there is a short vowel ending a word, it causes that
> entire last syllable to not be pronounced.  So
> "Kulok`u" is pronounced "Kulo", but "Kulok-" is
> considered to be the noun's root.
Interesting. So the written word is different from the spoken word?

[snip]
> Tone.  In Mashish tone doesn't mean pitch of voice,
> but rather strength of word.  Its sort of like a
> definite article, but much more.  (I got this idea
> from work.  A doctor had just done brain surgery and
> he was waiting for the patient to wake up and "wiggle
> his toes" to make sure that all the proper nerves were
> working and all and anyway, the patient wasn't awake
> yet, but tossing around sort of restless like, and the
> doctor was trying to hold his arm still so the monitor
> could take his blood pressure and while holding his
> hand, the doctor commented that he had "good tone"
> meaning muscle strenth.)  So, adding tone to a word
> adds strength of meaning.  It distinguishes the
> difference between "I am a cook."  (Really, I'm a
> student, but I cook my own meals.) and "I am a cook."
> (I'm a professional chef.)
[snip]

Very interesting idea. Is this purely emphatic (as in, emphasizing a
sentence) or is it part of a noun (the "stronger" word actually means
"professional chef" as opposed to "I know how to cook")?


T

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