Re: Kjaginic: 8 points of articulation

mutt -s "Re: [CONLANG] Kjaginic: 8 points of articulation" CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu <
> Ämne: Re: [CONLANG] Kjaginic: 8 points of
> articulation Från: Herman Miller
> <hmiller@...> Datum: Sun, 28 Sep 2008
> 16:41:57 -0400 Till: CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu
>
> Alex Fink wrote:
>> On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:20:39 -0400, Herman
>> Miller <hmiller@...> wrote:
>>
>>> I still need to figure out how the possible
>>> points of articulation can be assigned to
>>> these shapes. There could be some flexibility
>>> depending on language, but one possibility
>>> would be something like this:
>>>
>>>| column 1: bilabial, labiodental
>>>| column 2: dental
>>>| column 3: alveolar
>>>| column 4: post-alveolar, retroflex
>>>| column 5: palatal
>>>| column 6: velar
>>>| column 7: uvular, pharyngeal
>>>| column 8: epiglottal, glottal
>>
>> Hm. Of those POAs, you've split up one of the
>> two pairs (bilabial and labiodental being the
>> other) I think of as most similar, namely
>> pharyngeal
>> vs. epiglottal. AIUI epiglottals are most of
>>     the things we used to think were pharygeals
>>     before epiglottals were widely known of; in
>>     any case, they're similar. Dental and
>>     alveolar are pretty similar too. Ah well, I
>>     suppose you have a /T/.
>>
>> Alex
It seems to me like Kjaginic is best regarded as
similar to the Tengwar: a basic grid of symbols
where the columns can be assigned to PsOA and the
rows to MsOA according to the needs of the
language to be written! In Tengwar practice this
mostly means that column three of four varies
between palatal and velar and column four between
velars and labiovelars, that one row varies
between plain and prenasalized voiced stops,
another between voiced fricatives and voiceless
prenasalized stops, and that the labials and
coronals of two other rows sometimes are used for
geminate nasals and simple nasals rather than for
nasals and semivowels, but Tolkien stated that in
the original theory the rows and columns could be
freely assigned to MsOA and PsOA according to the
needs of the language to be transcribed.

Interestingly fan usage has resurrected the rows
for aspirated stops which Tolkien mentioned as
being preserved as mere variants of the fricative
rows but did not include in his table for use as
affricates in languages like German!

I've been thinking that languages like Tamil and
Malayalam which have up to many PsOA but few MsOA
(could be assigned to tengwar the other way
around, with the four columns as MsOA and the six
rows as PsOA.

/BP

Herman Miller wrote:
> I guess all three of pharyngeal, epiglottal, and
> glottal could share column 8, since I'm not
> likely to contrast these. Post-alveolar and
> retroflex are sharing column 4 since these are
> allophones in Tirelat. The main concern is that
> some Tirelat dialects have 5 contrasting POA for
> fricatives: labiodental, dental, alveolar, post-
> alveolar (or retroflex), and velar (or palatal).
> Since Kjaginic doesn't have forms for
> affricates, I'm using the symbols for stops;
> some dialects have bilabial stops, dental stops,
> alveolar affricates, retroflex affricates, and
> velar stops. On the other hand, the languages
> I'm concerned with rarely have palatal/velar
> contrasts. So something like this might be an
> alternative assignment:
>
> | column 1: bilabial
> | column 2: labiodental
> | column 3: dental
> | column 4: alveolar
> | column 5: post-alveolar, retroflex
> | column 6: palatal, velar
> | column 7: uvular
> | column 8: pharyngeal, epiglottal, glottal
>
> The problem with this is that bilabial vs.
> labiodental contrasts are unlikely to be needed.
> Besides, there is a Tirelat dialect that
> contrasts labial-palatal, palatal, and labial-
> velar approximants /H j w/, which could be
> approximated with the bilabial, palatal and
> velar symbols.
>
> Combining the dentals and alveolars in column 2
> would leave a column for pharyngeal + epiglottal
> separate from the others.
>
> | column 1: bilabial, labiodental
> | column 2: dental, alveolar
> | column 3: post-alveolar, retroflex
> | column 4: palatal
> | column 5: velar
> | column 6: uvular
> | column 7: pharyngeal, epiglottal
> | column 8: glottal
>
> But it's more likely that I'll need a
> dental/alveolar contrast than a three-way
> palatal/velar/uvular set. And there's also
> linguolabial to consider. So maybe something
> like this, where velar can go in column 5 or 6
> depending on whether a palatal/velar or
> velar/uvular contrast is needed, and dental
> sounds can go into either column 2 or 3.
>
> | column 1: bilabial, labiodental
> | column 2: linguolabial, dental
> | column 3: dental, alveolar
> | column 4: post-alveolar, retroflex
> | column 5: palatal, velar
> | column 6: velar, uvular
> | column 7: pharyngeal, epiglottal
> | column 8: glottal
>

Reply