Re: ¿Naro cel ei nau cepoa sia? ['naru,gil enQ,gibua'Za]

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Dirk Elzinga <Dirk_Elzinga@B...> wrote:
 > Christian:
 >
 > I like your efforts to include "non-trivial" phonology in your
conlang; it has a vaguely Numic feel to it.

Thanks.



 > 1.  The transcription scheme you provide seems needlessly
 > complex; I would suggest that you stick to X-SAMPA (or your
 > favorite ASCII-IPA scheme) for a discussion of the phonology.

Initially, I was going to write down every word in native,
phonemic *and* phonetic transcription.  Then I noticed that
the phonemic version was obsolete, since the native version
*is* phonemic.

Discussing the phonetic realizations of the phonemes (the
large table) in an X-SAMPA notation alone would definitely
be possible, but then I'd have to add a chapter to match up
the native script with the X-SAMPA phonemic notation, which
IMHO is a bit clumsy, seeing how phonemic the native script
is.  The main factor of non-triviality in the native trans-
cription is the use of |e o| for /i u/ and |i u| for /j w/.

As for the sandhi, those rules are already described in terms
of phonemes rather than letters: "When one word ends on a
vowel and the following one begins with a cluster (-V C-) or
vice versa (-C V-), then...".



 > 2.  Be very clear and specific about the kinds of
 > alternations that segments enter into. I found reference to
 > Palatalization before you explained what triggers it or what
 > the effects were.

Noted.  I'll change that.



 > Also, in your chart of clusters, you organize them as [initial
 > - medial - final] without explaining the significance of these
 > terms. It may be possible for the reader to make a guess at what
 > you mean, but the reader's guess could be wrong.

Yes, it seems I'm assuming a certain level of linguistic
knowledge from the reader...  but who else would put up with
such a language?   ;-)

I'll make that clearer.  What I meant was WORD-initial (-medial,
final), with phrasal sandhi sometimes fusing two words, causing
word-initial and word-final clusters to become medial.



 > Only later in
 > the section on phrasal sandhi do you explain more (but still not
 > as much as I'd like to see!).

The definition of a phrase will come in the chapter about words.

Basically, a predicate phrase consists of the subject, all of its
appositions, and its verb.  There is a phrasal break between a
verb and its object, though the object may in turn be the subject
of another finite verb...  Oro Mpaa supports serial verbs.

Example (parentheses show phrasal grouping):

|Oncra mpao palem.|  ['uNgram,bau'balim]
(Fur dog be_soft)
"The dog's fur is soft."

|Ttou tovea mpao.|  [,to'duvia 'bau]
(Man kick) (dog)
"The man kicks the dog."

|Ttou tovea mpao iop.|  [,to'duvia ,bau'jup]
(Man kick) (dog run)
"The man kicks the dog, which in turn runs."

|Ttou ppou mpao ee sono.| [,top'po 'bau,ii 'sunu]
(Man give) (dog go_to) (child)
"The man gives the dog to the child."

In the first case, the "dog" is an apposition of "fur", so it's
part of the predicate phrase.  In the other cases, it's the object
of the verb, so it's not phrasally coupled to the preceding verb.
However, in the last two examples, it is the subject of a verb of
its own.  In the very last example, you can see how serial verbs
are often used where IE langs would use cases or prepositions.



 >  3.  Nasalization: are there examples of tautomorphemic clusters
 > of N + C that are not pronounced at the same place of
 > articulation? If not, then Nasalization can't be considered a
 > strictly phrasal phenomenon, but the extention to the phrase of a
 > generalization which operates between any two syllables. The
 > other sandhi alternations seem to have this character as well.

This is a bit above my linguistic understanding.  As far as I can
tell, you're wondering whether the assimilation of nasals is really
a phrasal rather than an ubiquitous phenomenon.  The answer is yes,
it only happens within phrases.  Example:

|Amma ien golom rae|  [,amma'jen ,Nulum'brai]
(Mother wash) (nose girl)
"The mother washes the girl's nose"

The |ien| and |golom| are in different phrases, thus the nasals
don't assimilate.


Phew!  Thank you for your very insightful comments.



-- Christian Thalmann

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