Re: Sound change rules for erosion

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003, Amanda Babcock wrote:

> It may have been noticed before that my actual results were not as
> advertised.  I was exempting word-final short vowels.  I've revoked that
> exemption, giving the daughter lang a mix of words ending in vowels and
> consonants, with the added benefit of mysterious vowels that pop back up
> in the event of infixes (tragically, this makes suffixes for some words
> more straightforward, darnit - but I expect great things when I bring
> in prefixes!).  New results below.
>
> kiwo    noun suffix in/under
> wuta    noun suffix on/touching
> sipa    noun suffix near
>
> lo      verb infix "on"; makes transitive
> ki      verb infix causative; makes transitive
> ke      verb infix "to" (as in go to); makes transitive
> ru      verb infix "with, bringing"
> wi      verb infix inceptive
> pe      verb infix completive
>
> pamawape --> pámawpé    woman
>   pamawapekiwo --> pámawpékiwo  in/under the woman
>   pamawapewuta --> pámawpéwuta  on/touching the woman
>   pamawapesipa --> pámawpésipa  near the woman
> kowapo --> kówap       child
>   kowapokiwo --> kówapkíwo      in/under the child
>   kowapowuta --> kówapwúta      on/touching the child
>   kowaposipa --> kówapsípa      near the child
> taloki --> tálok       house
>   talokikiwo --> tálokkíwo      "in/under the house"
>   talokiwuta --> tálokwúta      "on/touching the house"
>   talokisipa --> táloksípa      "near the house"
>
> serumu --> sérum       sit (intrans)
>   serulomu --> sérulmú  sit on (trans)
>   serukimu --> sérukmú  seat someone (trans)
>   serurumu --> sérurmú  sit holding (trans)
> lelipe --> lélip       go (intrans)
>   lelikepe --> lélikpé  go to
>   lelirupe --> lélirpé  bring, carry, take
>   lelikipe --> lélikpé  make go, send
>   lelilope --> lélilpé  go on, ride
> teluhehu --> téluhhú    burn (intrans)
>   teluhekihu --> téluhkíhu      burn (trans)
>   teluhewihu --> téluhwíhu      catch fire
>   teluhepehu --> téluhpéhu      burn up
>
> Any more suggestions for how to make it sound deep, naturalistic in a
> Germanic way, and have more phonemes and fewer syllables?
Well, obviously to make it sound Germanic, you want it to have similar
phonetics to Germanic languages.

The Proto-Germanic sounds system was something like this:
a
        &:
e       e: (of quite rare occurance)
i       i:
        o:
u       u:

ai      au
ei      eu

The stops are the usual suspects, but */p/ is quite rare (think of how
many good germanic English words there are with /p/), and the voiced stops
had fricative allophones. Each stop had an unvoiced fricative equivalent,
as well as */s/ and */z/ (which eventually became /r/ in the surviving
germanic languages). I think your English intuition should give you a
rough idea of what makes a goodly germanic consonant cluster. I think
you're also a bit l-happy.

So try changing lelipe -> gli:f (lel -> ll -> dl -> gl, sounds reasonable
but I don't know if it's attested); teluhehu -> klu:heu; pamawape ->
fa:mauf... there, sounding more Germanic already :) Though it takes a
totally different angle of attack, and it needs the strees to be moved
off the first syllable sometimes.

--
Tristan

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