Re: Rotokas (was: California Cheeseburger)

Quoting Racsko Tamas <tracsko@...>:

> On 24 Jun 2004 Andreas Johansson <andjo@FR..> wrote:
>
> > >   I think it is about the meaning of markedness.
> > ?
> > How did markedness enter the picture?
>
>   You wrote "since that's what's being explicitly indicated", that
> is >>what's being orthographically marked<< in my recognition.
> According to this argumentation, orthographical markedness would
> mean the primary phological distinction. I am not sure about the
> validity of this syllogism.
I certainly did not claim that what is indicated orthographically is
_necessarily_ the primary phonological distinction (English "man" and "mane"
would consistute a counterexample); indeed, I'm of the opinion that in at least
my 'lect of Swedish, vowel length is the phonemically significant contrast.

I'd nonetheless believe that orthographies _tendentially_ indicates phonemic
distinctions rather than subphonemic ones; if you were collecting evidence for
and against the various interpretations of Swedish length contrasts, I'd list
the orthography as supporting the phonemic consonant length theory.

> > What gives you that impression? From what I've read, we originally
> > had a four-way distinction VC - V:C - VC: - V:C:
>
>   Does this "we" refer to the Swedish or to the common ancestor of
> the Northern Germanic languages?
I believe the collapse was underway as the languages split. BP Jonsson is
probably the person to ask, on this list.

> Do you know what was the actual
> situation in the time of the adoptation of the Latin spelling?
No. Note, however, that the spelling was quite variable up to the 18th C, and
long vowels were not infrequently indicated by doubling the vowel letter in the
preceeding centuries; [i:] was also often written as 'ij'. By the 18th C, the
V:C~VC: system will have been firmly in place.

> And
> what about the closely related Danish? (I really would like to know
> these answers in order I could see the problem more clearly.)
I'm not knowledgeable about the situation in Danish and Norwegian. Again, if BP
is following this, I'd love his input. I have seen double vowels indicating
length in Danish 19th C texts (and I'm not refering to 'aa'=/o/, but things like
|Huus| for modern |hus| "house" (the capital initial on nouns were dropped
post-WWII; you get to guess why)).

> > All I know of the subject suggests that consonant length was around
> > when the orthographical conventions in question were adopted.
>
>   Do you know the source of the adopted orthographical conventions?
Not really. German will have played a role, no doubt. Danish had a big influence
in late medieval times.

>   And I recall -- maybe I am wrong -- that all this problem arose
> from the common(?) Germanic development, that every long vowels
> were shortened in closed syllables and every (stressed) short
> vowels were lengthened in open ones. That is why the marking of the
> open-closed state of the syllables can be re-interpreted as the
> marking of the vowel length. This solution was facilated by the
> fact that Latin orthography does not indicate vowel length, and the
> first non-Latin "orthographers" simply applied Latin rules to their
> native language.
>   From this point of view, Swedish true long consonants seems to be
> secondary even if it was already developed in the time of the
> adoption of the Latin orthography.
I don't know enough of comparative germanicistics to comment.

[snip]
> > My Duden, however, gives [ko:t] as the only pronunciation.
>
>   I looked up the headword "Kode" (and not "Code"), and you?
> However, maybe fugiunt tempora, fugiunt mores :))
At "Kode", only a reference to "Code" is given. At "Code" only the
pronunciation [ko:t] is given. This is Duden Deutsches Universalwörterbuch, 4th
edition, 2001.

> > [ko:d@] is clearly a spelling pronunciation. And [ko:t], spelt
> > "Kode", still represents a partial adaptation; it's not kept in the
> > English form _code_, nor is it fully assimilated to *_Kod_.
>
>   I don not see the partial adaptation, I see only a small
> confusion of two different lexemes "Kode" [ko:d@] and "Code" [ko:t]
> plus their unadapted from "Code" [k@Ud]. You did not show evedences
> of individuals who write "Kode" and pronounces [ko:t] or [k@Ud]: it
> would be the only test of the partial adaptation.
I don't know anyone who says [ko:t] and spells "Kode", but I hope you trust my
word that my information theory professor says [k@Ud] and spells "Kode". His
assistant oscillates 'tween "Code" and "Kode", and so do I.

                                                            Andreas

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