Re: Ce[i]n

--- daniel andreasson <daniel.andreasson@...>
wrote:

> Why thank you! Very flattering, although I must say
> that Tolkien has already done the work of inventing
> the vocab. I just happened to come up with the idea
> of combining it with the GMP (and Tolkien came up
> with a similar idea for Sindarin). Hopefully, the
> grammar will be even more interesting than
> Sindarin's grammar (the syntax at least).
  Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but there are a
lot of things that Tolkien hadn't finished (or that we
don't have access to - How do you say "tiger" in Cein,
for example?), so you will be creating some vocab. You
just have a leg up on the start of it!

> That sounds very interesting too! "Quee", very
> interesting.
  Or possibly Kyee, or pyeue, Some combination of Q
and P. Or maybe it'll just be the Celtic bridge. And
leave it at that.
  I worked out how this manifests last night. Because
irish fricativized intervocalic stops, and welsh
voiced them, I decided that front vowels cause
fricativization, and back vowels cause voicing. Q atar
'father' > A adar > adyr.
  Ooh, wait, I might not do that. It would cause all
kinds of weird rules in mutation after the article.
Ick. Maybe not....

> Though, I'd like some nasal mutation too. Perhaps I
> could
> make the sg. def.art. _in_ which would trigger nasal
> mutation:
   I'd suggest just using the nasal mutation with a
couple of prepositions and maybe a single possessive
pronoun. Otherwise you end up speaking out your nose.
Se 'in' before a plural noun, for example (<Q -ssen).
     se nghen 'in elves'

> cen [tSEn] 'elf'
> i nghen [I N_0En] 'the elf' (with def.art. _in_)
> i gen [I gEn] 'the elf' (with def.art. _i_)
> chen [xEn] 'elves'
> ir chen [Ir xEn] 'the elves'
>
> Two questions: (1) If I go with _in_, how would
> {ngh} be
> pronounced before [e] and [i]? {c} is [tS], so the
> nasal
> would be the equivalent. The closest I come is some
> sort
> of palatal nasal.
   That was my immediate thought /i njEn/. But,
analogy's evil hand may be revealed here too, and
everything pronounced the same, regardless of
palatization... Actually, this was a question for me.
Wouldn't you get the following pronunciations on your
examples above? :

  cen /tSEn/
  i nghen /i njEn/
  i gen /i dZEn/
  chen /SEn/ or /Cen/ with /C/ being Ich-laut, like
Quenya hyarma
  ir chen /ir SEn/ or /CEn/


> (2) How do I explain the spirant mutation of indef.
> plural?
> And do I need to explain why c -> ch becomes [x]
> even though
> it is an [E] afterwards and the original {c} is
> [tS]?
   Analogy. (it is the solution to every problem!) or
that the ch- after the article became standardized,
like the nasal mutation above, where the trigger
environment has been lost. Then when the article
wasn't needed, it was assumed that the spirant needed
to be there because it showed the plural.


  Good luck with the new job! I look forward to seeing
more Cein!

  Aidan

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