Re: oh no, not Tech phonology again

On Wed, 23 Feb 2000, Daniel A. Wier wrote:

> Well I had to do it.  This is my latest revision of the corpus of Tech
> consonants and vowels, using a cheap and dirty phonetic representation...
>
> Stops/Affricates
> ----------------
> Fricatives/Nasals
> -----------------
> Laterals/Vibrants/Semivowels
> Vowels are a bit simpler.  Though there are up to twelve vowel sounds:
> There, that'll do it for now...
Danny,

This is very nice work, but I have to say I'm a little concerned by the
obvious inadequacy of this phonemic inventory!  Quite frankly, I can't see
how you expect to construct a sufficient stock of words with this woefully
simple set of sounds.  I heartily encourage you to add, say, tonality --
perhaps a combination of level and contoured tones across your basic
five register of pitch.  This could expand your vowel palette by ten to
fifty-odd times (depending on how robust you want to make it), and at
least allow a _minimal_ amount of variety in Tech sounds.  Otherwise, it's
just not very realistic-feeling.


Concerned,

(and both joking and awed, of course)

Kenji