Re: Work in progress - Phonology

Nik Taylor ghItlh:

: Nasubi!  (Hello in my conlang)
:
: Welcome to the list.

Thankyou kindly :)

: John-Emmanuel wrote:
: > Seeing as I have a 3 month break between semesters (yay!)
:
: THREE months?  Where do you go to school?

Australia ;)

: > So I have started at the beginning, and the beginning is the phonology.
Why
: > have I posted it to this list?  Well, seeing as you all seem like nice
ppl,
: > I'm sure you wouldn't mind giving me
comments/critiques/suggestions/etc....
:
: Not at all.  Just show us whatever you have.  :-)
: > Bilabial Nasal:  m', m
: >             Stop:  p, b
:
: What is the distinction between p and b?  Is it voiceless and voiced?

Yes.  This is just plain IPA notation (sortof :)

: Are the voiceless stops aspirated?

No.  But I'm sure some of my speakers will be lazy enough to aspirate them.
And most English speakers will probably butcher it too ;)

: > Labiodental Fricative:  f, v
: > Dental Fricative:  T, D
: > Alveolar Nasal:  n', n
: >             Stop:  t, d
: >             Fricative:  s
: >             Approximant:  r', r
: >             Lateral:  l', l
: > Palato-alveolar Fricative:  s

Ummm.... that should be s.  As in SHoe.

: How do you distinguish between alveolar and palato-alveolar then?  Also,
: is there any reason why those two plus velar nasal and fricative do not
: distinguish voice?

Yes.  The velar nasal is comparatively rare, and as such, voice is not
distinguished with that phoneme.
And the speakers absolutely DETEST the voiced palato-alveolar and velar
fricatives (for some strange reason....), they just do not exist in the
language.

: > We can romanize this by letting a post-h indicate devoicing, and
applying
: > hyphens when there are abiguities, e.g.  mh indicates a voiceless m, but
m-h
: > indicates a voiced m followed by h.
:
: Can /h/ come at the end of a syllable?  If not, then perhaps you could
: use _hm_ for voiceless /m/, that way there'd be no chance of confusion.

No.  Not that I know of anyway ;)  And even if it did, you can still type
m-h, as in *pem-h (there is no such word of course.)
And I was thinking of the other way, but since I had th and dh.....

: > (I put this in only because I think the apostrophes and capitals look
ugly
: > :)
:
: What's wrong with apostrophe?  :-)  But I do agree about capitals.

The totally wreck the ambience ;)

: > I am not sure which dipthongs are possible yet, perhaps some
suggestions?
:
: All a matter of preference, of course, but I prefer to only allow vowel
: plus i/u in my conlangs as diphthongs, with both elements having the
: same backness value.  Since you distinguish between rounded and
: unrounded in the front vowels, perhaps y could be used after front
: rounded vowels.

Hmmm.... very good idea....
I think I'll look into that....

: > And though it goes without saying, my favourite genre is Fantasy, and my
: > favourite Fantasy author is Tolkien.
:
: Doesn't go without saying at all.  :-)  I rarely read fantasy, for
: example.  I prefer sci fi.

Philistine ;)
I used to like SF more too, and Asimov was easily my fave, but once I read
all of his, the others didn't quite come up to par.

John.

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