Re: An arabo-romance conlang?

Sorry, I dropped out quite unexpectedly! I see lots of interesting
messages in this thread, and I'll give an all-in-one reply to some.
(Thus, again, beating the records for mesage length).

On Fri, 2 Feb 2001 15:25:19 -0600, Eric Christopherson <raccoon@...>
wrote:

>On Fri, Feb 02, 2001 at 12:17:01PM -0500, Vasiliy Chernov wrote:
>> On Thu, 1 Feb 2001 15:50:45 -0600, Eric Christopherson
<raccoon@...>
>> wrote:
>> >Ok, but the gist of my question was whether [O:] and [E:] from *awa and
>> *aja
>> >are still separate in Arabic. I was under the impression that although
>> there
>> >are allophones such as those from /a:/, they're conditioned by factors
>> other
>> >than morphology.
>>
>> Yes.
>
>Hmm. I suppose they would be different phonemes, then...
Sorry, my reply was to the second sentence: today fronted/backed varieties
of [a:] are allophones conditioned by adjacent consonants (and formerly,
they could also depend on the vowels in adjacent syllables; IIRC this
phenomenon is termed _imlal_ and is discussed in certain medieval
treatises on versification, since it affected rhyming).

But I can't say for all styles of traditional scanding. Brockelmann
mentions e.g. [i:] pronounced as [ü:] by some when it results from
certain contractions involving radical _w_. Dunno any details, but it's
clear that the current system is rather recent in origin.

On Wed, 14 Feb 2001 16:39:42 +0100, Christophe Grandsire
<christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:

>Can you sum up all this with a comprehensive table of the phonology of 1st
>century Arabic (before the sound changes) for both consonnants and vowels?
It
>would help me get a full image of what it was and how to mix it with Latin
>phonology (I already have a few ideas, especially for the vowels).
Consonants (use fixed-width fonts, pls.):

f (or p?)  t   t_l (or s_l?)  s               t_S   k   X         H   h
b          d   (d_l ??)       z               d_Z   g   R         3   '
(p' ?)     t'  t'_l (or s'_l) t'_s (or s' ?)  t'_S  k'
w          r   l                              j

Modern correspondences:

f          t    S             s                T    k    X         H  h
b          d                  z                D    d_Z  R (ghain) 3  '
(?)        t.   d.            s.               z.   q
w          r    l

Vowels: a(:), i(:), u(:), aw, aj - total 8.

Here's another funny problem for Arabo-Romance: if there had been no
contractions yet, and further development in Arabic is to be imitated,
you'll need loads of combinations with intervocalic [j] and [w] to
proceed from. In Latin they are *much* less frequent, and there are many
restrictions. Perhaps you'll need some preliminary changes yielding more
glides. (I guess you'll agree that half of the fun with Arabic, and
other Semitic langs, is about the 'weak' roots which are very common).

On Thu, 15 Feb 2001 11:16:34 +0100, Christophe Grandsire
<christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:

>En réponse à Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...>:
>
>>
>> On Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:52:36 +0100, Christophe Grandsire
>> <christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:
>> I'd agree about the beauties - if I hadn't seen samples from late
>> (Syriac)
>> Aramaic writings (Serto/a and Estrangelo/a)...
>
>Well, I never saw them, so I stick to my preferences :) .
A sample:

http://www.worldscriptures.org/pages/syriacancient.html

Not too nice calligraphically, but may give you some idea of it. The
title line is the older variety, the rest - the newer one. I always
forget which of them is called Serto and which Estrangelo :( .

>What about Greek /pt/ and /ps/? Did they stay like that or become
>emphatic too?
Dunno about /p/ in general. Ethiopic and late Aramaic created a "borrowed
phoneme" for it: glottalized [p']. Arabic could do the same at first,
then merge it with either [f] or [b]. Hard to say, since most early
borrowings seem to be mediated by Aramaic which wasn't very consistent
here.

But note that Greeks themselves identified the first components in _ps_
and _ks_ with *aspirated* [p_h], [k_h].

>For initial consonnant clusters, I will use an epenthetic vowel [i] <...>
My point was primarily that perhaps you'll *lack* some clusters :)
(medially).

>If they are three-consonnant clusters (I know only
>two: scr and str) <...>
s + p/t/c + r/l  ([stl] rare: _stlatarius_ and a couple of other weird
words).

>What is the stress pattern of Arabic by the way?
Same rule as for Latin (the word being taken in its 'context' form).
With some variation between local traditions concerning the impact of
sentence-final modifications of the word etc. No reservation for 'muta
cum liquida' - all clusters lengthen the syllable.

>> (Besides, I'd love [Ng] as an additional source for [3], very frequent
>> in Arabic).
>
>Well, that's a strange sound change! How did it happen? (interested look)
No, I don't think it's been ever attested in the Semitic langs ;)

But I do believe [N] > [3] would be probable. I think the closest thing
to identify with a (post-)velar resonant is an unclearly pronounced [3],
for an early Semitic lang speaker. And did you notice that [3] is one
of the most frequent consonants in all positions in Arabic? I just thought
you may like a (Eurocentrically) weird change like that. Just imagine
some _*ego plango_ > 'a: Sa:3(u) %D (the last two chars being a smiley...)

On Fri, 16 Feb 2001 19:05:19 +0000, kam@CARROT.CLARA.NET wrote:
(clipping the brilliant outline of the Proto-Semitic consonant inventory -
which I mostly agree with except for the uvulars)

>Are you saying that Arab. /q/ got more like /k/ as time went on?
I think it did. AFAIK in extant Ethiosemitic langs it's still [k']. Its
'backing' isn't too strange considering the articulation of dental
emphatics in modern Arabic (which IMO is secondary).

>>> modern [z.] ('emphatic' z).
>Probably still [D.] in Classical Arab. ???
... and even [T.] in certain Bedouine dialects (IIRC)

On Sun, 25 Feb 2001 02:34:21 +0100, Christophe Grandsire
<christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:

>En réponse à kam@CARROT.CLARA.NET:
>
>Ok, let me now make a (late) summary of Proto-Semitic phonology as I see it
>(this is an attempt to put in one all the information given to me by
Vasiliy
>and Keith, and may not be correct, but at least it's an attempt :) ):
>
>CONSONNANT INVENTORY:
>
>stops, affricates and laterals:
>p  t  ts  tS  tl  k     ?
>b  d  dz  dZ  dl  g
>   t' ts' tS' tl' k'
>
>fricatives:
>   s          sl  x  H  h
>                  G  3
>              sl'
>
>continuents:
>w  r      j   l
>m  n
>
>I chose to put the maximal inventory here, so that if there's a big mistake
I
>would have to substract phonemes rather than add them.
Then it's OK; indeed Arabic has no trace of some distinctions (s : ts,
sl : tl, l : dl, sl' : tl'), but you can always merge these sounds
*later* ;)

>Now, for what this inventory would be for 1st century Arabic, here's my
guess:
>- /p/ already changed to /f/,
>- /sl/, /sl'/ and /tl/, /tl'/ already merged (as /tl/ and /tl'/? that would
be
>nice to reinterprete clusters), probably /dl/ already changed to /l/,
>- affricates still alive and well, as well as /k'/ (good for merging with
Latin
>clusters, especially because of the Latin tendency to palatalise clusters
of
>the form tiV).
>
>This would give this inventory:
>
>   t  ts  tS  tl  k     ?
>b  d  dz  dZ      g
>   t' ts' tS' tl' k'
>
>f  s              x  H  h
>                  G  3
>
>w  r      j   l
>m  n
>
>a  i  u
>a: i: u:
>aw aj
>
>Well, this is probably a mess, but it was worth the try.
Not at all. Some *phonetic* details are questionable (dz, tl, etc.), but
the inventory is OK with me. And indeed, the exact quality of x, G
(uvular/velar) isn't so important. (I guess G is fricative?)


Basilius

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