Re: Back to mutations again was Re: Mutations in General

En réponse à Peter Clark <peter-clark@...>:

>     Thanks for clearing up what you meant by "universal tendency"; I got
> bogged
> down on the "universal" part which tends to get equated with
> Greenburg's "universals," which aren't really universal at all (for the
> most
> part)
They should really have been called "universal tendencies" from the beginning,
since they are nothing but that: tendencies that exist in all languages, but
are more or less strong according to the idiolect of the person.

>     Now, here's the heart of the matter: is the tendency shown by both
> Welsh
> and Fula frequent enough to call it a "universal tendency"? Or are there
> some
> really wacky mutation systems out there (granted, mutation is wacky
> enough as
> it is...)? Where, for instance, /p/ does not mutate to /b/, /f/, /m/,
> or
> something similar, but to /t/, /S/, or /l/? If there is such a system,
> would it
> be proper to actually call it "mutation," since the underlying change
> is
> probably not phonetic? If not, what would it be called? What would be
> some ways
> in which it could develop?
Well, this is not really about a natlang, but is it a problem on this list if I
write an ObConlang post? ;))) (I don't do that so often anyway ;)))) )

Maggel, due to its Celtic influence, also has mutations. They are recognisable
by the fact that they are regularly marked. However, the way they are rendered
in speech is far from regular ;))) . The main mutation (and the only one so far
which can really be called this way, since it's the only one yet which I know
has a grammatical use) I call the h-mutation, since on writing it consists in
adding an h in front of the mutated consonant. Now, the result is anything but
consistent. Let's say that if the mutation system was consistent 1000 years
ago, and then evolved like mad, you'd have a pretty good idea of what it's
about ;))) . See for yourself:
- |m| [m] -> |hm| [v]
- |n| [n] -> |hn| [z]
- |g| [g], [k] -> |hg| [M\]
- |l| [l] -> |hl| [L\]
- |t| [T], [D] -> |ht| [C]
- |s| [s], [z] -> |hs| [4]
- |f| [f], [v] -> |hf| [w]
- |d| [d], [t] -> [hd| [G]
- |b| [b], [p] -> |hb| [D]
- |j| [Z], [S] -> |hj| [G]

Can you find crazier? :))) Of course, it's probably not the only mutation in
the language. The use of prefixed i and o to modify the value of the following
consonant must be remnants of a mutation system too (adding i basically swaps
the voice of the consonant: |is| [z], |if| [v], |ib| [p]. But there are of
course strange things happening, like |il| [r] and |im| [(m)p]! Adding o, on
the contrary, enforces the original "voicing" of the consonant: |os| [s], |of|
[f], |ob| [b], |ol| [l], |om| [m]). They are now mostly pure orthographic
conventions, but I'm pretty sure that sooner or later I'll find out some
grammatical phenomenon that uses those conventions to mark grammatical changes
(probably in the verb inflections) like h- prefixation is the main mark of the
construct state of nouns.

Smaller-scaled phenomena, like the unique use of prefixed s- (with very
different phonological results) to form nouns from the distributive adjectives
(something which is done quite differently for other adjectives), or its use
*inside* masculine nouns to mark the indefinite plural may be the mark of the
presence of other types of mutation. But they are usually phenomena of too
small a scale to be able to give any conclusion from them.

Hehe, this is all part of what makes Maggelity fun!!! :)))))

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

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