Re: Tasratal: phonology

On Sat, 20 Oct 2001 17:55:52 -0700, Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...> wrote:

>Note: According to this list of ASCII IPA schemes (http://www.cs.brown.edu/
>~dpb/ascii-ipa.html) SAMPA represents barred-lowercase-i as <l>, which
>only seems confusing (at least if you already have [l], which is also
><l>).  So for now I'll use the Kirschenbaum <i">.
>
>(At least, I hope that's the vowel I want.  I'm thinking of the Turkish
>dotless-i, and I'm almost positive it's barred-i, but I could be wrong.)
>
>Tasratal is a conlang whose origins lie in an earlier possible-version of
>Czevraqis (...back when I spelled it Chevraqis).  The concepts were fun,
>but n the end I decided it was a bit too extreme for the culture that I
>wanted to connect it to.  It was, however, very tempting just to use
>Czevraqen phonology on this.  :-p
>
>I'm bowing to majority and using SAMPA.
>
>Consonants:
>[p]       [t]       [k]
>[P]  [f]  [s]  [S]  [x]
>     [pf] [ts] [tS]
>          [r]
>          [l]
>[m]       [n]       [N]
>
>Notes on romanization:
>[P] is written as <ff>
>[f] is written as <f>
>[S] is written as <x>
>[x] is written as <xx>
>[tS] is written as <tx>  (I have some book that says Basque does this, so
>I don't feel too bad about it...OC that's assuming the book is accurate.)
>[N] is written as <g>
>
>So the romanized chart would look like this:
>
>p     t     k
>ff f  s  x  xx
>   pf ts tx
>      r
>      l
>m     n     g
>
>(Yeah, I know it's kinda screwy, but I wanted it to be symmetrical and
>quasilogical.  If anyone has suggestions for improvement I'd love to hear
>them.)
OK, you asked!
First I note that {b, c, d, h, j, q, v, w, z} are available for use.

The 1st possible change is to use {w} (or {v}) for [P] instead of {ff}, and
{h} for [x] instead of {xx}. This will eliminate the possibility of words
with {xxx} in them -- I don't think Joe would want you to send out and xxx
emails (except maybe to him). Less importantly, you could also use {c} for
[tS] instead of {tx} and {z} for [ts] instead of {ts}. This produces:
.p     t     k
.w  f  s  x  h
.   pf z  c
.      r
.      l
.m     n     g

A 2nd possibility is as follows:
.p     t     k
.w  f  z  s  x
.   pf tz ts
.      r
.      l
.m     n     g

Jeff

>Vowels:
>[i]        [u]
>[e]  [i"]  [o]
>      [a]
>
>[i"] is barred-i unless I find out the Turkish dotless i is some other
>vowel, in which case I'll change it to whatever it is.  :-p
>
>Romanization is pretty much as expected except [i"] is written as <y>.
>(Why waste a perfectly good grapheme...)
>
>Phonotactics (I hope that's the right word, it's been a while):
>Syllable structure is basically (C)V(C).
>
>Exception(s): The language likes to treat [pf], [ts] and [tS] as
>"consonants."  However, they only occur initially or finally in a word.
>(Mainly to prevent consonant traffic jams.  I refuse to create a conlang I
>can't at least *almost* pronounce...)
>
>I'll post a grammar sketch later, but I find it difficult to think about
>grammar without some *words* to hang ideas from.  Call it a weakness.
>
>Yoon Ha Lee
>requiescat@cityofveils.com
>
>A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems.--Paul Erdos

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