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Re: Discuss the features?

From:David Peterson <digitalscream@...>
Date:Wednesday, May 8, 2002, 8:37
In a message dated 05/7/02 11:12:56 PM, ray.brown@FREEUK.COM writes:

<< >Do people discuss their OWN conlangs
>any more? >>
Well, since someone brought it up again, I'm going to repost my post that I posted long ago about how I came up with a historical justification of the Zhyler vowel harmony system. I don't know anything about how vowel harmony systems (particularly underspecified vowels) come into being, so I actually posted it to see if my theory was plausible. Maybe no one knows anything about the historical development of vowel harmony systems...? You'd certainly be in the same boat I'm in. Well, here goes: Round 2. This e-mail is long and involved. Fairly warned be ye says I! Awhile back, Jesse Banks remarked that he tried to do some reconstructions on my underspecified vowels in Zhyler, but couldn't come up with anything cohesive. I replied that you'd have to look at the surrounding consonants to tell, but then realized that I hadn't paid attention to such a thing myself. So, I took a look at it, and tried to reconstruct some proto forms, and ended up constructing proto forms which gave rise to my vowel harmony such that I didn't have to change anything. This is the solution I came up with: [First, this is the way the vowel harmony looks now, synchronically. Don't be surprised if it looks familiar; I've posted it before. This is just for easy reference. Also, as with last time, [a] shall be considered a low, back, unrounded vowel, as the correct symbol [A] will be doing other work. Oh, the capital letters (save /M/) will stand for different underspecified vowels. Oh, this is also best viewed with a mono-space font, like Courier.] A.) Vowel Harmony: The following are underspecified vowels, and the forms they take in which environments. They'll be listed in the order that they'll be listed in the dictionary. Also, underspecified vowels always look to the previous vowel to gain their specification. Now, here they are: i.) /A/ > [a] / V(CC)_, V=back > [e] / V(CC)_, V=front ii.) /B/ > [M] / V(CC)_, V=high > [a] / V(CC)_, V=-high iii.) /F/ > [i] / V(CC)_, V=high > [e] / V(CC)_, V=-high iv.) /E/ > [e] / V(CC)_, V=front, unround > [9] / V(CC)_, V=front, round > [a] / V(CC)_, V=back, unround > [o] / V(CC)_, V=back, round v.) /I/ > [i] / V(CC)_, V=front, unround > [y] / V(CC)_, V=front, round > [M] / V(CC)_, V=back, unround > [u] / V(CC)_, V=back, round vi.) /J/ > [u] / V(CC)_, V=high, round > [M] / V(CC)_, V=high, unround > [o] / V(CC)_, V=-high, round > [a] / V(CC)_, V=-high, unround vii.) /R/ > [i] / V(CC)_, V=high, unround > [y] / V(CC)_, V=high, round > [e] / V(CC)_, V=-high, unround > [9] / V(CC)_, V=-high, round viii.)/Y > [y] / V(CC)_, V=high > [9] / V(CC)_, V=-high ix.) /W/ > [M] / V(CC)_, V=back > [i] / V(CC)_, V=front x.) /N/ > [M] / V(CC)_, V=high, unround > [y] / V(CC)_, V=high, round > [a] / V(CC)_, V=-high, unround > [9] / V(CC)_, V=-high, round xi.) /Q/ > [u] / V(CC)_, V=high > [o] / V(CC)_, V=-high xii.) /U/ > [u] / V(CC)_, V=back > [y] / V(CC)_, V=front xiii.) /X/ > [o] / V(CC)_, V=-high, round > [e] / V(CC)_, V=-high, unround > [i] / V(CC)_, V=high, unround > [u] / V(CC)_, V=high, round xiv.) /O/ > [o] / V(CC)_, V=back > [9] / V(CC)_, V=front [Now here's my proposed method of reconstruction. Bear in mind, I haven't ever seen a reconstruction for any language that shows vowel harmony; I used intuition to surmise how it could come about.] 7.) History: Modern Zhyler derives from Ancient Zhyler. The most interesting part is the vowel change and development of vowel harmony. Here's a rundown: i.) Ancient Zhyler had the following vowel phonemes: /a, e, i, o, u, @, i-, u-/. It also had no vowel harmony, but fixed suffixes with single vowels. ii.) Ancient Zhyler underwent a process to replace the vowels /@, i-, u-/. At the same time, though, the vowel quality of the vowels in suffixes began to change depending on what vowels came before them. Thus, underspecified vowels were produced. For the three oddball vowels, though, two sets of vowels were produced: Three stable phonemes, and separate sets of underspecified vowels for the suffixes they appeared in. iii.) So, it came to be that /@/>/9/, /i-/>/M/ and /u-/>/y/ in the phoneme department. iv.) Meanwhile, in the underspecified vowels department, different things were going down. Here's what happened: a.) /a/ > /B/ / C[+velar]_ > /A/ / elsewhere b.) /o/ > /O/ / C[+labial]_ > /Q/ / elsewhere c.) /e/ > /R/ / C[+liquid]_ > /E/ / C[+palatal]_ > /F/ / elsewhere d.) /@/ > /E/ / C[+palatal]_ > /X/ / elsewhere e.) /u/ > /U/ / C[+labial, -lab.velar]_ > /W/ / C[+lab.velar]_ > /J/ / C[+palatal]_ > /Q/ / elsewhere f.) /i/ > /W/ / C[+lab.velar]_ > /J/ / C[+palatal]_ > /Y/ / C[+labial, -lab.velar]_ > /R/ / C[+liquid]_ > /I/ / elsewhere g.) /i-/ > /J/ / C[+palatal]_ > /N/ / elsewhere h.) /u-/ > /J/ / C[+palatal]_ > /N/ / elsewhere So, there it is. Possible? Is this what happens in real vowel harmony languages? I rather like it, personally. -David "fawiT, Gug&g, tSagZil-a-Gariz, waj min DidZejsat wazid..." "Soft, driven, slow and mad, like some new language..." -Jim Morrison