A Self-segregating morphology (was: Guinea pigs invited)

--- Larry Sulky <larrysulky@...> wrote:

> Early Konya (my previous effort) featured only one
> distinguishing
> vowel per root; all vowels other than the first one
> were reduced, and
> spelled simply as "a". (But it still had a CV
> syllable structure, so
> no consonant cluster patterns to help with
> deciphering.)
>
> Unfortunately, this phonotactic scheme gave the
> language a rather
> 'flat', unmusical sound.
>
> --larry
>
How about this for a self-segregating morphology with
a non-flat sound: (self-segregating at the word
boundry, but not at the root+root boundry withi8n a
word.)

First vowel determines the length of the word in
syllables. Remaining vowels can be anything.

If you hear "ki" then you know that's the complete
word because "i" is the vowel of a one-syllable word
like "ki", "mi", "xi", etc. ("xi" pronounced like
English "she")

If you hear "ka" then you know to expect a second
syllable, e.g.: "kanu", or "kapo" because "a" is the
initial vowel of a two syllable word: "hali", "baxo",
"daku", etc.

If you hear "ke" then expect two more syllables, (e.g.
"kedoxi", "kenatu"). or with other consonants:
"yenitu", "hezula", etc.

If you hear "ko" (or "go" or "mo"...) expect three
more syllables: "kotanemu", "gomaxusi", "mogadixu".

If you hear "ku" ("hu", "tu", "pu" ...) expect four
more syllables: "kunamaxito", hulapanuxi",
"guwanakoso", etc.

To cover very long words, when the first and second
syllable both have the same vowel expect the word to
be double the normal length:

"komotegulimaxusu", or "kakadaso".

Vowels are irrelevant to the identity of the word, so
when words are compounded the first vowel is changed
to match the new word length: "galo" + "haki" =
"golohaki"; "ki" + "kedaso" = "kokedaso", OR
"kakadaso".

With a few other rules about which vowels may follow
which consonants in which contexts it would not even
be necessary to write the vowels down at all. Thus
"mgdx" could only be "Mogadixu", or possibly
"magadixu". But such a subtle difference wouldn't be
important to the meaning of the word. While not
visually self-segregating when written without vowels,
it would still be audibly self-segregating.

With perhaps a few dozen "standard" vowel sequence
patterns, possibly choosen based on intial consonant,
the language could have a very melodic and varied
cadence. For example, suppose that two-syllable words
beginning in "k" use the pattern "au", four-syllable
words beginning with "d" always used the pattern
"oaiu" while four-syllable words beginning with "n"
always used the pattern "aaui". Thus "g dxtk kn ntpt"
could only possibly be "gi doxatiku kanu nataputi",
which is not at all flat and monotonous, yet remains
audibly self-segregating and completely determined
even without writing down the vowels.

--gary

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