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Re: OT: What makes a good conlang? (was Re: Super OT: Re: CHAT: JRRT)

From:H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>
Date:Thursday, March 11, 2004, 19:17
On Wed, Mar 10, 2004 at 07:38:48PM -0500, Roger Mills wrote:
> This has been an extremely interesting thread, though for various reasons I > haven't put in my 2cents..... Anyhow, with ref. to Ebisedi---- > > Teoh wrote:
[...]
> > Well, Ebisédian's system seems in retrospect obviously contrived: > > G x N g k k_h > > D T n d t t_h > > Z S dZ tS tS_h > > z s l r` > > B P m b p p_h > > > > And also: > > h H w > > > > plus other "smooth" onsets (I'm still unsure how to represent these in > > IPA). > > OK-- the point of this reply. Your Sound system looks odd only in the way > it is presented. If you put it into the more conventional format, it > becomes quite ...._usual_--- > > p t tS k (or p t c k ) > ph th tSh kh (ph th ch kh) > b d dZ g (b d j g) > m n N > P T S x > B D Z G > w l r > s h > z H
OK, sure. :-)
> probably the only real oddity, in typological terms, is the lack of a > palatal glide [j]; also I'm not sure what "H" represents, but from a later > comment, I gather it's a voiced counterpart of /h/...........
I'm not sure if I'm using the right symbol for it, but it's the labiopalatal approximant. Also, I should add that [j] indeed exists; I missed it 'cos it only occurs as [ji], and [ji] is considered to be in the same class as [Hy], [wu], and other "smooth" onsets.
> and I'm not sure where to put the "onsets" either-- isn't there a contrast > in initial position between [?] and [smooth i.e. 0?]
Well, they get variously realized, e.g., smooth i is [ji], smooth u is [wu], etc.. For open vowels, I'm not sure of the exact IPA representation; I was under the impression smooth a was something like [a_^a], but it might be some kind of uvular approximant (or something like that). Or perhaps the velar approximant [M\]. T -- If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one? -- Abraham Lincoln