Can realism be retro-fitted? (Benct Philip Jonsson, Feb 5 '07, 15:31)

I was in a hurry before and forgot to point out that of course different
dialects can go through slightly different chain shifts and then converge on
the same 'target' system -- except that phonological change doesn't have any
targets. E.g. /i\/ can arise from either u > u\ > i\ or o > 8 > u\ > i\ or an
older @ > i\ when a new @ arises from some source, be it merging short vowels
or /o/ or /e/ escaping from a chain shift, since there is no law that the proto
system need to be some nicely symmetric five or seven vowel system! :-) I see
no reason why i\ can't arise from something like i( > I > I\ > i\ or even a
chain shift e > i > i\. Of course a sound like i\ can easily arise from several
sources in one dialect as illustrated by the *u-*i merger in Welsh, where *u
must have passed through i\ BTW. The pattern how short vowels merge with
'corresponding' longs or as schwa may also differ between dialects or according
to context. I scarequoted 'corresponding' because an [I] may m!
 erge with either [e] or [i], and similarly for [U].

As for the arising of length if there was none earlier there are also different
possibilities. Monophthongization and/or loss of intervocalic consonants is
attractive, especially if you want to combine it with tonogenesis, but
lengthening under stress and/or in open syllables is also common, perhaps with
subsequent loss of unstressed short vowels to create new closed syllables with
long vowels. Possibilities are many.
/BP
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--- Forwarded Message ---
Date: 2007-02-05 08:24:39.0
From: Conlang Mailing List
URL: http://archives.conlang.info/jho/thirthia/wuelwhukuan.html
Subject: Re: Can realism be retro-fitted? (Benct Philip Jonsson, Feb 5 '07, 15:31)
---

Herman Miller skrev:
> Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
>> I see now that you may also start from an earlier
>> seven-vowel system:
>>
>>     *i                       *u
>>
>>         *e               *o
>>
>>             *E       *O
>>
>>                 *a
>>
>> with a following somewhat skewed chain-shift:
>>
>> *e > *E
>> *E > & > a
>> *a > Q > O
>> *O > o > @
>> *o > u
>> *u > i\
>>
>> o > @ happens when there are only three heights in
>> the front vowels, to remove one height in the back,
>> assuming that /E/ /O/ are really mean mid.
>>
>> As you see there are several possibilities! :-)
>
> Yes, I think this sort of development might fit better with what I have
> in mind. But of course I could come up with many alternatives (and
> probably will, before I settle on something).
>
>
>
I'm reviving this thread because two other examples
illustrating ways in which a Tirelat-like vowel system could
be derived occurred to me today.

The first example is Meyer-Lübkes admittedly super-short
illustration of the vowel correspondances in Latin loan
words in Welsh -- he says they are essentially identical to
the changes in inherited words, but probably this is only
the basic pattern, with complications in the details:
notably there is nothing on what happens to original
diphthongs (of which there was only _au_ left in Imperial
Latin, but IIANM there were more of them in Celtic). I
incorporate info on modern Welsh pronunciation from
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_alphabet>. I also use
| and ( to mark long and short original vowels, because of
the sometimes annoying lack of an explicit shortness
marker in CXS:

- i| > i
- i( > y /i\, @/
- e| > oe /Oi/, wy /Ui/
- e( > e
- u| > i
- u( > w /u/
- o| > u /u\/ > /i\/
- o( > o
- a| > aw /au/, ô /o:/
- a( > a

I remember you saying that _ai_ is the most common Tirelat
diphthong. It should not be too hard to derive it from _e|_:
the Welsh developments are similar to the French _e| > ei >
oi > oe/ui > we > wE > wa_, which shou
...