Re: Terkunan > Trekunan?

2008/5/6 Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>:

>  Now, I am thinking about doing more shifts to 'r', namely
>  to define that r+consonant is not tolerated by phonology,
>  some time after the l>r shifts, so a resolving strategy
>  has to be invented. My current idea is to let metathesis
>  with the previous vowel happend when stop + r is the
>  result or r becomes word-initial:
>
>|     gardin     > gradin         'garden'
>|     eternitat  > etrenitat      'eternity'
>|     Gran Karle > Gran Kral      'Charlemagne'
>|     parle      > pral           'to talk'
>|     portu      > protu          'habour'
>|     karkin     > krakin         'lime'
>|     arbul      > rabul          'tree'
>|     urtime     > rutime         'last, ultimate'
>|     ornali     > ronali         'ordinary'
>
>  This happens in Sardinian (and in the Sardinian dialect
>  of Catalan).
I say go for it!

>  In all other cases, rC could be resolved by echoing the
>  previous vowel. This is no problem if the echoed vowel is
>  not stressed:
>
>|     mer'kat > mere'kat 'market'
>|	   vur'kan > vuru'kan 'volcano'
>
>  In other cases, stress, which is currently totally
>  regular, might trigger a problem:
>
>     'serve > ?se'reve 'to serve'
I say what's wrong with non-stop + r? Especially in a lang
which has many other freak initial clusters. You might
insert stops or turn v > b to get more conformant clusters:
_mbrekat, brukan, screve/streve_. FERVERE could certainly
become _freve_ as _fr_ would occur otherwise anyway.

>  In these cases, we might need another resolving strategy
>  (e.g., drop of 'r' or 'v' in the above case). I do not
>  want to introduce (unstressed) schwas.
What about having rC > Cr in such cases: _mekrat, vukran,
sevre/sebre_. This might even be the preferred strategy, or
CVRC > CrVC *or* > CVCR in cases where both are possible.

>  Maybe rC is only forbidden in unstressed syllables
That doesn't strike me as realistic, nor as cool (parse that
sentence, all who dare! Both senses intended!)

>  : of the above examples,
>  'portu', 'parle', 'Karle' would remain unchanged in this
>  case, and maybe 'eternitat', too, because it is a
>  compound 'etern'+'itat'.
No no, _protu, prale, Krale, etrenitat_ are *way* too cool.
BTW wouldn't _protu, prale, Krale_ lose their final vowels?

>  This is a bit like Modern Dutch's 'kerruk' for 'kerk' and
>  'melluk' for 'melk' and 'errug' for 'erg'
So pedestrian (and happening in young females' Swedish ATM:
_ett, tuvå, turé; kulara, starruka färrejer_). This kind
of drawl isn't half as appealing as metathesis, IMHO.
T*kunan has a 'snappiness' which you shouldn't give up.

>  (only a schwa is inserted here, and the l is involved
>  too, which might also be thinkable in Terkunan). Words
>  with lC in Terkunan include:
>
>     kalde 'warm' Alman 'German'
Why not _krad(e), Laman/Amlan_?

>
>  I had experimented with l > r here already, but decided
>  that it only happens before stop or voiceless consonants
>  (IIRC).
>
>  Another problem is that I don't what to rename Terkunan
>  to Trekunan, so I might need some exceptions, or simply
>  define that Modern Terkunan does not have such a
>  constraint in r.
Or that the metathesis precedes syncope in *TERRACONA.

>  There are some open questions, e.g. what to do in
>  compounds:
>
>    vir 'true' + tat > ?viritat / ?virtat (currently:
>    virtat) mfril 'inferior' + tat > ?? (currently:
>    mfriltat) sul 'alone' + mentu > ?? (currently:
>    sulmentu)
I would definitely treat old compounds (which existed
already in Latin) the same as non-compounds. 'inferior' +
tat is a special kind of problem. I'd expect _mfritrat_ or
_mfrilitat_, though a "syncope is special" rule would result
in _mfriltat_.

>  The endings are actually -itat and -amentu, but -i-/-a-
>  is (currently) dropped after vowel, r, and l.
>
>
>  So does this add a nice touch to the language?
Yes!

>  Does this look plausible?
Yes. An exception for stressed syllables only is not very
plausible however. Metathesis and epenthesis are both
plausible but epenthesis is far less nice!

 I like many of the examples above, but I
>  would like to hear your opinion, so what do you think?
Go go go!

>  And how do you think to resolve the open issues?
Definitely a rule which makes exception for cases of
syncope, i.e. metathesis precedes syncope. This might leave
late additions like _Karle, Alman_ untouched too (_Alman_
would be left alone anyway, since it is < _Aleman_).
_Kral_ might be a jocular form of _Karle_, like a
comedic character or something.

>   **Henrik
>
/Bendetx, author of the Romance freaklang which would be
parodied as "ayauhauhayau"! :-)

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