Re: Uusisuom (phonemic????)

Ray,

Thanks for explaining that to me.

Doubled consonants are pronounced as in Finnish. For example, 'kekko' (clock
or time) - you would 'hold on' to the middle 'kk' section for longer than if
there was only one 'k' in the middle of the word.

Regards,
Daniel
daniel44@btinternet.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Raymond Brown" <ray.brown@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 7:11 AM
Subject: Re: Uusisuom (phonemic????)


> At 2:37 pm +0100 3/4/01, Daniel44 wrote:
> >What does 'phonemic' mean exactly?
> >
>
> It's probably helpful to contrast phonetics with phonemics.  Phonetics
> deals with all the many, varied sounds (phones) made by humans, especially
> in speech.  The phonetics of a language will be an inventory of all the
> sounds recorded in that language which will inevitably vary - often quite
> considerably - from dialect to dialect and even between speakers of the
> same dialect.
>
> Phonemics deals with all the _contrasting sounds_ which make up the sound
> system of a particular language, which will be far fewer than the actual
> range of sounds and will often be the same for many (sometimes all )
> dialects.
>
> Sounds which contrast in some languages, i.e. are different _phonemes_ in
> those languages, may not contrast in another and simply be regarded as
> variations of a single phoneme.  For example, in English initial,
voiceless
> plosives (or stops), i.e. /p/, /t/ and /k/ are aspirated, i.e.
phonetically
> [p_h], [t_h] and [k_h], so, for example _tick_ is pronounced [t_hIk].  But
> if these plosive come after /s/ they lose their aspiration, so, e.g.
> _stick_ is [stIk].  Now, most English speakers regard the sound of /t/ in
> _tick_ and _stick_ as being the same sound.  In English the difference
> between aspiration & non-aspiration is not contrastive (there is no
English
> words [tIk] & [st_hIk] - indeed, most would find these diffcult to
> pronounce); the two different phones are said to be _allophones_ of the
> single phoneme /t/.
>
> But in some languages, e.g. Ancient Greek, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Scots
> Gaelic, Zulu, Xhosa, aspirated and non-aspitated voiceless plosives are
> constrastive; /th/ and /t/ are two different phonemes  E.g. in Mandarin:
> dai4 [tai] = to take, to lead  (4 denotes a falling tone)
> tai4 [thai ] = too, also
>
> Note: / / are used to enclose phonemes; [ ] are used to enclose phones.
>
> Single letters are shown by enclosing them between < > - but as these may
> be misinterpreted if reading mail through a browser, many (including
> myself) prefer to use { }.
>
> Now as far we can see in Uusisuom, there seems to be a contrast between
> {uu} and {u}, i.e. they are two different phonemes.  We have been assuming
> that the first is a long sound /u:/ and the second is shorter /u/.  In
some
> languages vowel length is phonemic (e.g. classical Latin, Hungarian,
> Finnish, ancient Greek, Japanese), but in others it is not (e.g. modern
> Greek, Italian, Spanish).  In Uusisuom it appears to be phonemic but it
> appears that some vowels, e.g. {y} = /U/ cannot be lengthened.  We are not
> clear about the complete vowel system of Uusisuom.
>
> A gemminate consonant is one which is actually pronounced double.  In
> English we often write double consonants, but we never pronounce them
> doubled (or geminate) - except in odd words like _pen-knife_ and many even
> use a single /n/ there.
>
> But in Italian and Finnish, if a consonant is written twice, it is
> pronounced as it is written, i.e. one holds onto the consonant for twice
> the normal time, it is lengthened or _geminated_.  Italian _fato_ /fato/
> (fate, destiny) is not said the same way as _fatto_ /fatto/ (act, deed,
> fact).  The _tt_ constrasts with _t_ - they are two different phonemes.
>
> We have noticed that Uusisuom often has doubled consonants.  We have
> assumed, since we have not been told differently, that they are not
> irregular spellings (as they would be in English) but that are being used
> as in Finnish or Italian, i.e. the denote geminate consonants which have
> phonemic status in Uusisuom.
>
> I hope this helps understand what is meant by phonemic, and also helps to
> pin-point one or two features of Uusisuom we are not certain about so that
> you can either confirm that we've got things right or put us right if we
> haven't.
>
> Ray.
>
>
>
>
> =========================================
> A mind which thinks at its own expense
> will always interfere with language.
>                    [J.G. Hamann 1760]
> =========================================
>

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