Re: Analyzing Phonology

In a message dated 1/22/2003 1:16:34 PM Pacific Standard Time,
jcowan@REUTERSHEALTH.COM writes:


> > I tried this & it caused all sorts of conniptions. Simplifying the
> > phonological details, the rules of Livagian make the first syllable
> > tonic. But I also decreed that any glossolalic forms I produced in
> > my quest for Livagian words would be kosher Livagian. And the
> > european in me produced forms with noninitial and/or multiple tonics.
>
> Well, as I have been saying, English is a penultimate-stress-default
> language,
> and the more alien the vocable, the more likely it is to get penultimate
> stress.
> So it's not surprising.
 Is it just me, or do I read "accent is on the penultimate syllable" more
than anything else when coming across descriptions of languages? This even
applies to conlangs.
 The way Kankonian's been evolving, it's seemed to turn out like Spanish,
where the last letters of the word determine which syllable the accent goes
on.

  I find it quite hard to remember that xuxuxi is an>
> initial-stress language, and find the stress moving down the word all the
> time.
>
 Is it? Damn. I've been calling it "hoo-HOO-hee." But at least that's not as
bad as before I read the pronunciation guides, before which I pronounced the
name something like "shoo-SHOO-shee". (I've used the letter "x" for /S/ in
transcribing Hapoish as well as the unambiguous language project with both
"i" and "iy" I mentioned the other day.)


> --
> "May the hair on your toes never fall out!"     John Cowan
>         --Thorin Oakenshield (to Bilbo)         jcowan@reutershealth.com
>
 Oakenshield? Didn't he do the song "Starry-eyed Surprise"?