Re: Yemls Phonology (long)
| From: | Jeff Jones <jeffsjones@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, June 7, 2001, 3:39 |
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On Wed, 6 Jun 2001 14:45:32 +0200, Christophe Grandsire
<christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:
>En réponse à Jeff Jones <jeffsjones@...>:
>
>[snip]
>>
>> 1.3.1. Syllabary
[snip]
>
>He he, there was a discussion not long ago about how to use the Latin
>alphabet as a syllabary. Seems that you found a way :).
Yes. It was that discussion which inspired the phonology.
>[snip]
>>
>> 1.4.2. Diphthongization
>>
>> Phonetically, the V (i.e. null consonant) syllables combine with the
>> vowel of the preceding syllable to produce diphthongs. In careful
>> speech, this is limited to syllables within the same word. The
>> following table gives the approximate phonetic values for these
>> combinations. The columns are for the V syllables and the rows give the
>> vowel phoneme of the preceding syllable.
>>
>> | {e} {E} {O} {o}
>> -----+-------------------------
>> /I/ | [i:] [j&:] [jA:] [ju:]
>> /E/ | [EI] [&:] [&O] [EU]
>> /O/ | [OI] [AE] [A:] [OU]
>> /U/ | [wi:] [w&:] [wA:] [u:]
>>
>> 1.4.3. Consonant Mapping
>>
>> The following table gives the phonetic values for the consonant
>> phonemes. If an entry has 2 forms, the first is the usual value, and
>> the second is an assimilatory value. Consonants in the third group have
>> variants conditioned by the following vowel, while those in the first
>> group don't vary significantly between front and back versions. Of
>> particular note are the consonants in the second group, which are
>> "historically" conditioned; the values are now distinct enough so that
>> the vowel itself need distinguish low vs. high.
>>
>> | front back
>> -----+---------------------
>> /b/ | [b], [p] [b], [p]
>> /f/ | [f], [v] [f], [v]
>> /m/ | [m] [m]
>> /l/ | [l] [l]
>> -----+---------------------
>> /t/ | [tSH] [tH]
>> /d/ | [dZ] [d]
>> /s/ | [S] [s]
>> /z/ | [Z] [z]
>> -----+---------------------
>> /n/ | [N] [n]
>> /k/ | [cH] [kH]
>> /g/ | [y] [g], [q]
>> /x/ | [C] [K], [G]
>>
>
>I like it. My conlang Tj'a-ts'a~n has a phoneme /s/ which can have up to
>four different pronunciations [s], [z], [S] or [Z] depending on whether
>the next vowel is front unrounded or back rounded, and whether the
>preceeding consonnant (if any) is voiceless or voiced/voiced nasalised.
>But I didn't dare go as far as you :) .
Thanks, Christophe. I don't think I went too far with the phonetic
variation here. Someday I'll have to post my Rubaga phonology. I think
you'd like it -- it has at least 9 ways to pronounce the letter 'g'.
>[snip]
>
[snip]
>>
>> 1.4.6. Default Stress
>>
>> Word-stems of 1 syllable are stressed only if suffixed or lengthened.
>> Word-stems of 2 syllables are stressed on the penult. Word-stems of 3
>> or more syllables may be stressed on the antepenult if the vowel of the
>> penult can be dropped, otherwise the penult is stressed.
>
>So if I take all those rules, the name of the language Yemls should really
>be phonemically /nEImU'lIsU/, pronounced [NEImU'lIs]. Or did you
>capitalize the first letter only because of English rules, and it should
>be yemls: /nIImU'lIsU/, pronounced [Ni:mU'lIs]? Did I understand
>correctly? If so, I find it nice that a word people would naturally tend
>to pronounce /jEml=z/ has in fact such a different pronunciation :).
That is correct (although I'm considering adding an apostrophe to move the
stress to the beginning). It was a lucky coincidence that the sound I
wanted happened to follow English capitalization rules (and more
importantly, *Windows* capitalization rules).
Jeff
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