Re: CHAT: Synesthesia and conlanging (was Re: The ConlangInstinct)

-----Original Message-----
From: Grandsire, C.A. <grandsir@...>
To: Multiple recipients of list CONLANG <CONLANG@...>
Date: =E9=E5=ED =F8=E1=E9=F2=E9, =E3=F6=EE=E1=F8 08, 1999 10:55
Subject: Re: CHAT: Synesthesia and conlanging (was Re: The ConlangInstinc=
t)


On 8 Dec, Christophe wrote:

>Don Blaheta wrote:
<snip>
>>and of course French is famous for all the final consonants
>> that have just disappeared from the spoken language (except in liaison=
,
>> and sometimes even then).  My best impression of French is run-togethe=
r;
>> I find it much harder in French to enunciate word-by-word as I might i=
n
>> English, because so many words just combine together with their
>> neighbours. :)
>>
>
>        That's a fair description I think. It's true that the most
distinctive
>feature of French is the phenomenon of liaison which is so widespread in
>the language. I can understand that foreigners find it hard to
>understand French because of that. Do someone know of any other language
>besides French that has liaison also very widespread in the language?
>
    IIRC, there was a term (still used?) in linguistics
called "sandhi", which referred to assimilating of
phonemes in spoken speech. Something like what
is written as "what are you going to do" actually
coming out of one's mouth as [wtS?g@:duw],
with the stress on [g@:]. Is this, more or less, what
recent postings about French mean by "liaison"?
    BTW, "sandhi" comes from Sanskrit. That lang was
written as pronounced (sort of an ancient phonetic,
as opposed to phonemic, orthography).
IIRC, sandhi referred to the differences between the
assimilated phonemes in the stream of speech and the
way the words would each sound in isolation.
    I remember that back in my student days when I was learning
Sanskrit, trying to back-analyze and tease out the original
words in a text by following sandhi rules, without a native
speaker's intuition, was a real chore!

Dan Sulani
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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.