Re: `Akupa, was: 5 phonemes

--- Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...> wrote:

> No, I wasn't satisfied with Miituu. Danny was right saying that
> 'true'
> geminates could be counted as phonemes. And the other complications
> with syllabication can be suggestive of something like deep-level
> glottal stop.
Your task is daunting.  I couldn't come up with anything that detailed.
 Maybe it's because I've studied Farsi and a little Arabic, but I see
syllables as being C, CV or CVC -- V and VC just begin with a "null
consonant", which could be the glottal stop (lenited to a mere hiatus),
or a voiced or voiceless [h].  All utterances must have a beginning and
an end.

And syllabries do have V and/or VC representations.  Just add one to
the number of consonants.

Gemination need not double the number of consonants, if you treat a
geminate CC as being XC, where X is a "dummy consonant" that
assimilates to the following consonant.

Examples are Japanese, which indicates geminate consonants with a
smaller hiragana/katakana symbol representing /tu/ [ts], followed by
the CV (not V) character where C is doubled.  Arabic also does the same
with the definite article _?al_ preceding the following consonants: /t/
/T/ /d/ /D/ /r/ /z/ /s/ /S/ /s~/ /d~/ /t~/ /D~/ /n/.  The article is
still written in full, but a _shaddah_ written above the first
consonant.

So a "deep" phonlogy needs only to use an existing consonant, which
automatically has to cause gemination, or just add a wildcard phoneme
which has no value of its own but causes gemination.  (Or better yet,
use the glottal stop without a following vowel, since you don't have
preglottalized or implosive consonants.)

> So I designed `Akupa <maapllpa> (not Mwakupu, as I erroneously stated
> earlier). Historically, this is the same tribal name as Miituu
> <mekprrp>. The phonetic correspondences between the two dialects are
> quite straightforward ;)
>
> Akupa (mor)phonology is much simpler since it doesn't allow for
> 'deep' closed syllables. Otherwise it resembles Miituu very much.
>
> Is it flawless this time?
This is conlang; there are no "flaws" ;)

DaW.

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