Re: Analyzing Phonology

At 12:59 PM -0800 1/20/03, Arthaey Angosii wrote:
>When I started Asha'ille, I didn't know anything about linguistics and so I
>didn't think about phonological constraints at all.  I don't want to start
>from scratch because one, it would be too much work, and two, it'd be
>depressing to scrap a language a like so much!
>
>So, to start towards a more natlang-like conlang by having some sort of
>defined phonology, I'd like to analyze my existing words and see what
>patterns emerge.  I really really really don't want to do this by hand.
As a phonologist, you don't know how it pains me to hear you say this! What a
golden opportunity! In my own projects, I've always started with some idea of
what the phonology is going to be and then constructed words which conform to
that idea -- I've never been able to just start making words to see what turned
up. I feel in my heart of hearts that should someone work this way, the
resulting phonology would be completely natural and idiosyncratic -- a true
reflection in speech sounds of a person's esthetic. You stand on the brink of
this amazing discovery; I urge you to reconsider your distaste of phonology and
find out what you have. I think that the process would be illuminating. I'd be
happy to help if you had questions.

>I
>don't know if Shoebox is capable of this task, although it can filter words
>based on criteria such as "nasal at end of word" (with "nasal" characters
>defined by me").  But that won't help me out for patterns I haven't already
>thought to search for, and is tedious besides.
>
>What I really want is some program that will go through and tell me what
>patterns it finds.  Does such a thing exist?  If not, then I'd appreciate
>any advice on how I should design a program myself to do the job.  Thanks!
I really don't think that you will be able to find a software package that will
do what you are asking. And even if you were able to get a program together
that could find the kinds of patterns you're looking for, there will be others
that it will miss, and you, having placed your trust in the machine, will never
know it. That would be unfortunate.

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga                                               Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"It is important not to let one's aesthetics interfere with the appreciation of
fact." - Stephen Anderson

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