Re: A random bit of Telona

Christian Thalmann wrote:
>>>
The phonology looks interesting at any rate, with those
approximants...  got a webpage about it?
[...]
I'm not sure I can do [P] in a fluent context myself.
BTW, if you want to streamline your phonetic notation,
you can use [c] for the palatal stop and [5] for the
velarized L.  These are integral parts of the X-SAMPA
notation.  Unless, of course, you distinguish [t_j]
from a purely palatal stop somehow...
<<<

No webpage yet.  I've just discovered that I know someone with
Acrobat, though, so I may be putting up a .pdf or two soon.  But I can
state the inventory quickly, as you're interested: /p t c k f T s x P
D l h m n 4/.  Thanks for [5] - I hadn't noticed that.  It's an
allophone of /l/, occurring before rounded vowels.

Funny you should mention /c/, as I've been wavering between [c] and
[t_j] as my favourite pronunciation of that phoneme (the stops are
voiced intervocalically, BTW).  I do indeed distinguish the two, or I
fondly imagine that I do anyway :)  I make a primary apico-alveolar
articulation for [t_j] with a secondary raising of the front of the
tongue towards the palate, while for [c] the front-palatal
articulation is the point of interruption of airflow, and the tip of
the tongue rests behind the lower incisors.

I'm aware that in Czech, the phonetically 'palatalised' t' and d' are
basically lamino-alveolar (according to Ladefoged and Maddieson), but
that's not the articulation I'm thinking of for Telona /c/.  I'd be
interested to know how these compare with the Hungarian <ty gy>, which
are said to be pure palatal stops.  Any phoneticians out there care to
comment?

Actually my very favourite realisation of /c/ is as a laterally
released stop with as little following fricative as I can manage.  I
did post to the group last week, asking whether anyone knew how to
represent this in X-SAMPA, but I didn't get any definitive answer.

>>>
Obrenje:
Takel bwele.  Cinee kellae tocce.
[ta'kEl bwe:l  si'ne: k@l'la: tOss#]
NEG:look:3e  eye:d  "heart":d  look:GND  must:0

Note:  |Cine| refers to the emotional part of the mind,
        not to the hollow muscle that drives vascular
        circulation.  Being accomplished in medicine,
        the muscle (|sampe|) carries no other figurative
        connotations than vital importance (|sampe| can
        be used in the sense of "salient point").
<<<

I didn't say in the interlinear, but actually Telona 'loda' means
something pretty similar.  It refers to the 'guts' (the thoracic and
abdominal viscera) as their owner perceives them, that is, as the
place in which 'gut feelings' are felt (and also what comes out when
one suffers major thoracic or abdominal trauma :) ).  Nice that we had
the same idea here!  Similarly, Telona has 'rene' for 'the eyes as an
area of the face', and 'vupe' for 'the eye as a sense organ'.

I can feel an anadew coming on ...

>>>
Oro Mpaa:
[...]
        |Cala| "serve" is used idiomatically for "in
        order to, for, for the purpose of".  |Elco| is a
        verb meaning "expect ... to ..., oblige" when
        used transitively, but more commonly being used
        impersonally in the construction {elco A verb B},
        literally "(something) obliges A verbs B",
        meaning "A ought to verb B".  Oro Mpaa has lots
        of those idiomatic serial verb constructions.
<<<

I like that a lot.  I keep trying to put serial-verb-like
constructions into Telona, but they just won't fit yet.  Great way of
introducing idiomatic constructions that don't look like you just made
them up. :)

Jonathan.

[reply to jonathan underscore knibb at hotmail dot com]
--
'O dear white children casual as birds,
Playing among the ruined languages...'
Auden/Britten, 'Hymn to St. Cecilia'