Re: Chemehuevi orthography (was: Re: non-English WEB sites)

Dirk Elzinga wrote:

(A lot of interesting material here, which I've snipped)

> This inventory is pretty straightforwardly represented by the following
> orthography:
>
> p     t     ts     (tc)     k     kw     '
> v     r                     g     gw
>              s                            h
> m        n                  ng
> m'       n'                 ng'
>                      y              w
>                      y'             w'
>
> i     ü     u          ii     üü     uu
>              o                        oo
>        a                       aa
>
> Three comments on the choice of symbols.
>
> i.  My original proposal had <q> for [N] and <q'> for [N?]. These were
> rejected in favor of <ng> and <ng'>. Fine with me; it is an odd mapping.
The only problem I can foresee:  can /N/ and /G/ occur as a cluster? (such
that "ng" could be ambiguous?)  If the language is CVCVCV... (as it appears
from exs.) then there's no problem.

And how about indicating /?/ with something that shows up a little more
clearly in typescript?  Maybe "q" here?

> All word medial vowels which were
> once voiceless are now fully voiced, and all word final voiceless
> vowels are now deleted, though they appear upon suffixation. Here's an
> example:
>
> [aipats]   'boy'
> [aipatsin] 'my boy'
>
> The _i_ of /aipatsi/ only emerges when a suffix like /-n/ is attached.
> We know that _i_ belongs to the noun stem since the quality of the
> vowel preceding the possessive suffix varies unpredictably with the
> stem; so for [aipats] the vowel is [i], for [naro?] 'shirt' the vowel
> is [o] ([naro?on] 'my shirt'), for [paGap] 'shoe' the vowel is [1]
> ([paGap1n] 'my shoe'), etc.
Does the -n suffix have an underlying final V too?
Interesting.  Like you, I think I opt for not indicating them in writing (of
course, in a dictionary you'd list something like "aipats(i), pagap(ü)").
Then too, your consultants may have other ideas.........
>
> This vowel deletion becomes particularly interesting when the
> accusative suffix is involved. The accusative suffix has the form -(j)a
How do you know it's -(j)a, if the /a/ never appears? Comparative evidence?
Or--

> [aipats]  'boy.NOM' (from /aipatsi/)
> [aipatsi] 'boy.ACC' (from /aipatsi-a/)
What happens if the -n possessive sfx is added to an acc. form???
Can you give an ex. of an a-final word?  Would it be:
 *kapit* '....', kapitan 'my ....',  kapitay ?? '....(acc)'
and what for 'my .... (acc.)' ???

> 2.  Content words which are phonetically monosyllabic must have a long
> vowel. Because of word-final vowel deletion, this vowel may alternate
> with a short vowel when suffixes are attached. Here's an example:
>
> [t1:mp]   'money, rock'
> [t1mpin]  'my money, my rock'
>
> [t1:mp]   'mouth'
> [t1:mpan] 'my mouth'
>
> The orthographic problem here is whether to represent this predictable
> vowel lengthening in the orthography or not. ....
> tüümp  'money, rock; mouth'
>
> or not
>
> tümp  'money, rock'
> tüümp 'mouth'.
>
> I'm leaning towards the second representation, ....
Me too. No need to indicate something predictable.

but again, I'll let the
> elders decide.
>
The problem of lost final V occus in an Indonesian lang. of my acquaintance.
The first researcher chose not to indicate them in citation forms, but then
had to include the definite or other context form, where they
reappear,e.g.--
"hah" 'pig', "hahkje" def. (/hahi+ke/, regular metathesis; he was Dutch,
hence "j" = [j]).
"sus" to weave "sustwahar" 'weave thatch" (/susu+tahar/)

But only CVC(V) roots and final /i,u/ were involved, not the whole vowel
inventory as in Chemehuevi.  (Final underlying /a/ was deleted in some not
all cases; I forget offhand how he handled that)

More recently, an American in the field proposed writing such words with a
final "y, w", which would not otherwise occur in CVC_# position.  IIRC the
speakers/writers didn't go along with the idea, perhaps because they'd
already learned to use the Dutch-devised system.

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