Re: brz reloaded!

Because of darned GMAIL my reply got sent to Patrick & not to the list.
Anyway, I have had one or two more thoughts so I'll sort of reply to my
reply to Patrick  :)

R A Brown wrote:
> Patrick Littell wrote:
>
>> On 9/29/05, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:> It seems to
>>
>>> me that apart from on add short interjection here and there,
>>> it is overwhelmingly Jörg and me corresponding on this thread. Maybe, at
>>> this stage it could be brought to an end on the list.
>
> [snip]
>
>> Oh, I had been following with interest; I had simply been too busy to
>> participate. Here is what I had been thinking the whole time:
>
> OK.
>
>> (1) Instead of borrowing the Plan B self-segmentation, which I find a
>> little unwieldy -- neat, but inhuman --
>
> I was not entirely sold on it.
I assume by inhuman Patrick means it is not a feature that is ever
likely to appear in human natlangs. But that per_se does not rule it out
for a loglang, as I understand it (and certainly not for an engelang).

But it is, as I wrote, something I shall be looking at again.

>> use your vowel-deduction
>> system!  After all, that is the interesting part of this language.  If
>> you were, say, to eliminate one of the vowels, you wouldn't need any
>> further system.
>
> Ah, a 'zero vowel', or may _virama_ ?
Yes, I have thought further. Fairly obviously 00 must signify the 'zero
vowel'. Then, it seems to me, one would have 01 = /u/, 10 = /i/ and 11 =
/a/.

Now in brz, following Jörg's revision, we have:
g = [ku, kO]
k = [ki, kE]

If I adopt Patrick's suggestion, we would have:
g = [ku, ka]
k = [ki, k]

The two axes, back-front & high-low, have gone. Does [k] fit in with a
syllabary? Have I now got an abugida?

Also it seems to me that it might be better to have:
g = [ka, k]
k = [ki, ku]

Umm....

>> So we take a vowel system i,a,u; if two consecutive
>> consonants don't give us one of these, it's a word boundary.
Morpheme boundary, I think, is what we want.

>> (Jörg
>> may also find interesting the resulting CVCVCVC structure of words,
>> which will allow additional segmentation fun.)
>
> There's also the question how the 'zero consonant' is pronounced when
> final in such a string.
Yep - I still haven't had any bright ideas about that.

>> This leverages the cool part of the language for another use, and lets
>> you begin words with any consonant you want.
>
> This is true,
In fact, it is not entirely true. It does constrain what consonant
symbol begins the word following the final 'boundary consonant' of the
preceding morpheme.

> tho there are some advantages maybe in knowing in advance
> how long a morpheme will be. I'll have to experiment - but it is an
> interesting idea.
Also even in brz one can still begin with _any_ consonant letter; it is
just that the initial letter constrains the length of the phoneme.

>> (2) Have the vowel quality of the... letter? phoneme?... er... what
>
> [snip]
>
>> Or something like that; you get the idea.  Something along the lines
>> of the Gaelic broad/narrow distinction, taken one step further.
>
> Yes, I had thought along similar lines at one time. I'll have another
> think, and try out some ideas.
>
>> (3) If a three-vowel system isn't enough, each /a/ can anticipate the
>> vowel of the next syllable, giving us /e/ (< */ai/) and /o/ (< */au/).
>>  Or, it could give us /ai/ and /au/, and the /i/ and /u/ could
>> anticipate an /a/ to give us the /e/ and /o/.
>
> Yes - but I am happy with three vowels. If it's good enough for
> Classical Arabic, I can live with it. Besides quite a few of my earlier
> experiments with "Roman letter syllabaries" have used just these three
> vowels.
>
>> Anyway, that's my two cents,
>
> Thanks - some interesting ideas. I don't know what Jörg will make of
> them. But I think he and I will be developing 'brz' in our own ways.
>
> Meantime, I really need to discipline myself and get in with giving
> Piashi a proper vocabulary!
>
--
Ray
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