Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Con-scripts

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Wednesday, June 20, 2001, 4:41
Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> I've seen the "syllabary" fallacy in a couple books.
Of course, it was intended to have the appearance of a syllabry. Some styles of writing in the Kassí script combine multi-character syllables into one unit, that is, _tai_, which consists of two characters, _ta_ and _i_ (taklú and ilíibi are their names), can be written with _i_ being written below _ta_. _Kuai_, which consists of _ku_, _a_, and _i_ would be written as _ku_ above a ligature of _a_ and _i_. Historically, this very phenomenon produced the CLV syllables (ligatures of Cë and LV - ë represents the CK phoneme /@/) and the coda diacritics (from small versions of Cë written underneath other characters). Today, T'i is written as _ta_ with a small mark, derived from the _i_ character, above it. 'i indicates secondary palatization, generally derived from _ai_ (ai/au becomes i/u in certain environments). Ti, Di, Si, Zi, and Ki are pronounced [tS(i)], [dZ(i)], [S(i)], [Z(i)], and [C(i)], while T'i, D'i, and K'i are [ts(i)], [dz(i)], and [ki]/[kj]. [tS], [dZ], and [C] are, presumably, phonemes now, since they can no longer be simply derived from /tj/, /dj/, and /kj/, yet, /tS/ and /dZ/ behave as a consonant-y sequence, namely, they cannot be followed by a glide or l (because onsets can only consist of (C)(y,w,l), and */tjw/ would be clearly illegal), nor can they be geminated, except before /i/, stops can only be geminated between vowels, thus, [attSi] could be analyzed as /atti/, while the illegal *[attSa] would be /attja/, and no geminate stop may be followed by a glide (actually, within a morpheme, no geminate period may be followed by a glide or liquid, e.g., /affja/ is legal, but only in cases of compounds or incorporation, where the first f is in a different morpheme than the second). /C/ is a bit different, as it can function as a coda, like other fricatives. The common ending -uki, for instance, is pronounced [oC:], using the allophone [o], which is /u/ in closed syllables (thus, it cannot simply be analyzed as [o.Ci_0]), BUT, with the length of a full syllable, as if it really were simply [Ci_0]. Incidentally, this is not a peculiarity of that ending, it applies anywhere where {Vki} occurs word-finally or preceding a voiceless consonant followed by a vowel or l or a glide (that is, where an illegal consonant cluster would not occur, _íkifkla_ would be [iCefkl_0a], but _íkikla_ would be [eC:kl_0a]). This is a phenomenon which I discovered in my own pronunciation of Uatakassí, not a conscious phonetic decision. -- Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon A nation without a language is a nation without a heart - Welsh proverb ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42