Re: phonetic

--- # 1 <salut_vous_autre@...> schrieb:
> This is a question concerning the phonetic use of
> [e]
>
> I often meet that problem in my conlangs
>
> Is the sound [e] really possible to say before a
> consonant at the end of a word?
Ee-yep. I manage it all the time with only minimal
difficulty, although I feel your pain; my L1's
American English, without a monophthongal [e] at all
:/.

> Is it only the fact that I don't speak a language
> wich such a combinaison of sounds might occur in
> that makes I can't say it? Only because I'm not used
> to it?
That's it. Since you don't speak a language that
allows [e] in closed syllables, favoring [E], you
naturally have trouble pronouncing them, just like I
had trouble holding pronouncing the front rounded
vowels and velar fricatives of German.

German, actually, is a language that allows [e] in
closed syllables, although it's more like a length
thing than a tenseness or height thing. Minimal pairs
between [e] and [E], including the long occurences of
these vowels:

[dEn] /denn/ 'then'
[den] /den/ 'the.masculine-singular.ACC'
["dE:m.lIC] /dämlich/ 'ladylike'
[de:nt] /dehnt/ 'extend.3sg'

There are many other pairs where the opposition
between [E] and [e] is maintained, although some
dialects don't keep such a distinction and not many
will even notice if you confuse them.

> I'd want to know because I always have that problem
> like now in Vbazi, I have the dual/paucal/plural
> suffixes that are only of one consonant but that I
> have to add at the end of words ending in /e/ (the
> only mid-close vowel) considering the fact that /E/
> is phonemicly different and can't be used as a
> substitute
Oh, no, it'd be fine. May be a little confusion in
everyday speech, though; you might want to make
allophones, like [&] for [E] in some environments or
something like that. Then again, the Swedish seem to
get along just fine with their freakishly high number
of vowels, so maybe there'll be no problem at all.

> I tought using something else like /@/ or the
> diphtong /e@/ for replacement since they are not
> used, but I'd like to keep my vocalic inventory
> closed so that's why I want to ask if that
> restriction is something real in the language world
> or if it is only a caracteristic of the languages I
> speak, or worse, If that restriction doesn't exist
> and is only a phonetic illusion I think being
> hearing to.
Here's how I handle it in my current conlang, Nem
(that's a _nasalized_ close-mid vowel, opposed to the
nasalized open-mid vowel, muhahahaa): the vowels [i]
(and the glide [j]) and [e] have an audibly
palatalizing effect on consonants, while vowels like
[1] and [E] do not. I can still hear the difference
between them just fine, but I choose to remove yet
another layer of ambiguity by forming strict vowel
harmony and allophony rules.

For example, [E] often appears as [&] in open
syllables, something more evident by the fact that I
use /ae/ in transcription to represent it, a little
idea I co-opted from the McCune-Reischauer
transcription of Korean. So:

/si/ [Si]
/seu/ [s1]
/se/ [Se]
/sae/ [s&]
/syae/ [S&]

I also have remnants of vowel harmony that limit the
appearance of these phonemes in a given word.
Proto-Nem had a Maasai-style ATR harmony, which
collapsed like so:

'tense vowels'
i -> i; e -> e; u -> u; o -> o

'lax vowels'
I -> 1; E -> E/&; U -> 1; O -> V

'neutral vowels'
a -> a

So, [E] and [e] normally can't appear in the same
word.

You could do something like this, with vowel harmony
and palatalization of consonants, if you really want
to not worry about pronouncing [e] in a closed syllable.


	

	
		
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