Re: Con-scripts

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.

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