Re: Phonology/orthography sketch

On Wed, 28 May 2008 15:06:58 +0200, Benct Philip Jonsson
<bpj@...> wrote:

>This is a phonology/orthography sketch for a
>lang which as yet lacks a name, a vocabulary and
>a grammar.
>
>## Vowels
>
>|    i   u       y       w       /i  y       i\(*)   u/
>|
>|    e           a       o       /E          a       O/
>
>(*) /i\/ has allophones [u\], occurring next to
>labial and labiouvular consonants and [@], which
>occurs when unstressed and as a free allophone
>when stressed.
>
>## Consonants
>
>|    p   t   c   k               /p  t   tS  k/
>|
>|    b   d   j   g               /b  d   dZ  g/
>|
>|    f   s   x   h   q           /f  s   S   x   X_w/
>|
>|    v   z   i   y   w           /v  z   j\  G   R_w/(**)
>|
>|    m   n   ni  ny  nw          /m  n   J   N   \N_w/
>|
>|        r l                        /r l/
>
>(*) The voiced ficatives have approximant
>allophones [v\ D j M\ w], occurring mainly between
>a vowel and a consonant.
>
>The main wickedness in the orthography lies in the
>fact that the letters _i w u y_ are used for both
>consonants and vowels. Generally speaking these
>letters are consonants when standing next to
>another vowel letter and vowels elsewhere. The
>main source of ambiguity is when two of these
>letters occur next to each other: potentially
>there are two different words spelled _iy_, one
>pronounced [ji\] or [j@] and the other [iG]. It
>could be argued that what distinguishes them
>phonemically is stress placement, the one being
>/i'i\/ and the other /'ii\/, so that every
>instance of [j\ G R_w] or [j M\ w] is an
>unstressed juxtavocalic allophone of a vowel
>phoneme, and the ambiguity lies in the failure of
>the writing system to mark stress. Incidentally
>the two words _iy_ would be disambiguated if a
>suffix beginning in a voiceless consonant would
>follow, being then written e.g. _iytas_
>//i'i\tas// vs. _ihtas_ //'ii\tas// due to
>devoicing assimilation of voiced fricatives before
>a voiceless consonant.
shouldn't ihtas be ['ixtas]? since above you said: 'h' = [x]

and why 'ny' and not 'ng' for [N]?

and is there a [w] and how is that spelt?

for the rest it's very nice playing! same kind I often do during boring
meetings ;-)

Ingmar


>
>Incidentally the writing system can distinguish
>between word-final /J N N\_w/ and /ni ni\ nu/,
>since the latter are written _n'i n'y n'w_, but
>this device is not extended to distinguish e.g.
>_i'y_ /ji\/ from _iy_ /iG/. The spelling _i'y_ may
>occur to write two vowels with an hiatus between
>them rather than a consonant followed by a vowel
>-- which incidentally would imply that the
>phonemic distinction between high vowels and
>voiced fricatives is not merely one of stress vs.
>lack of stress, although it may still be so on the
>morphophonemic level.
>
>Phonetically there exists [H] or [j\_w] as
>allophones of /j/ next to a rounded vowel or
>/w/, and of /w/ next to /i/. The writing system
>writes this allophonic sound with _u_ in spite
>of its occurrence being wholly conditioned by
>adjacent sounds: a word spelled _uintou_ could
>only be /wintoj/; a spelling _wintoi_ could not
>be a distinct word, but only an unusual,
>although phonemically more 'correct', spelling of
>the same word. Similarly _au_ or _eu_ could
>never occur without a following conditioning _i
>u w o_; a spelling _euor_ would always represent
>/ejor/ and might be derived from a word _ei_.
>Similarly _euir_ would be /ewir/, possibly
>derived from an _ew_.
>
>Thus this writing system both makes a rather deep
>phonemic analysis WRT high vowels and voiced
>fricatives and is blatantly subphonemic WRT [H].
>
>Any comments?
>
>/BP 8^)>
>--
>Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~
>  "C'est en vain que nos Josués littéraires crient
>  à la langue de s'arrêter; les langues ni le soleil
>  ne s'arrêtent plus. Le jour où elles se *fixent*,
>  c'est qu'elles meurent."           (Victor Hugo)

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