Re: Lïzxvööse Verbs I: ActiveTri-Consonantals

"SMITH,MARCUS ANTHONY" wrote:
>
> On Sun, 12 Aug 2001, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>
> > The lengthening here is very normal when there is loss of some
> > kind.   However, geminate consonants are basically defined by
> > a break in syllables lying between them.
>
> This is not true. There are languages in this world that have word final
> geminates, which hardly spans a syllable break. Pima does this eg, hott
> 'send' (in Papago this is hotsh). There is also the word hottk 'swift';
> And I have dim recollections of being told Estonian does as well, though
> I'm not so sure about this one. I would be rather surprised to see a word
> medial geminate that does not span a syllable boundary, but I suppose it
> is not completely impossible.
It's certainly the way I pronounced it when I was trying to figure out a
reasonable sound change for the abominable cluster [t4D], which I would
imagine doesn't appear in any language.

>   That means that (if I
> > understand your data aright) syllable breakdown would have to
> > be something like
> >
> >              tatrzcaa [tAttDA:]:            tAt.tDA:
> >              tatrzcö [tAttDo]:               tAt.tDo
> >              tatrzcözxa [tAttDoZA]:     tAt.tDo.ZA
>
> If [tD] sequences are not permissible onsets, then the proper
> syllabification will be: tAtt.dA:, tAtt.Do, and tatt.Do.ZA. Given what I
> just said above, this is a fair feature in a conlang, and I wouldn't bet a
> fortune that it would never occur in a natlang.
I suppose if I were to get really specific with my phonetics, it would
probably come out something like [tat.?DA:]. Lucky I didn't use the root
[t-t-t] (for "repeating"), huh?

--
Daniel Seriff
microtonal@sericap.com
http://members.tripod.com/microtonal

Honesty means never having to say "Please don't flush me down the toilet!"
                      - Bob the Dinosaur

Half of America believes homosexuality is wrong...the same percentage
believes that Socrates was a great Indian chief.

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