Re: Sathir Phonology (Question Included)

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, "David J. Peterson" <ThatBlueCat@A...>
wrote:
 > As promised, here's my new languages: Sathir.   I thought since
everyone else
 > had an ergative language, I should have one too.

Everyone?  I feel left out all of a sudden.  ;-)



 > Vowels: /a/ /E/ /i/ /O/ /u/
 > Stops: /p/ /t/ /k/ /p_h/ /t_h/ /k_h/ /p_w/ /t_w/ /k_w/
 > Fricatives: /s/ /h/ /S/
 > Nasals: /m/ /n/ /N/
 > Approximants: /l/ /4/ /j/

Nice inventory, especially with the three stop grades that
don't distinguish voice phonemically.  It's interesting
that labiovelarisation should be phonemic, but
palatalisation not...



 > Syllable Structure: V, VC, CV, CVC   (only /n/, /S/, /s/, /l/, /r/
and /h/
 > can be coda consonants; the following can occur in the vowel slot:
/a, e, i,
 > o, u, ia, ie, io, iu, ua, ue, uo, ui, au/.   Also, *C_wu, *ru, *lu
and *Si.
 > This'll be explained later.)
 >
 > Allphonic Rules:

These are pretty cool, and quite professional AFAICT.



 > My question is this:
 >
 > I like having a contrast between voiced stops and voiceless in between
 > vowels, but that leaves me with having to have geminate stops, which
should
 > be impossible, since coda [p, t, k] is not possible.

Would it not be possible to restrict the appearance of stop
codas to geminates rather than to rule them out totally?



 > This would leave me
 > with the possibility of positing a geminate phoneme, which would leave me
 > with something to do with it in initial position.   I'm not sure how to
 > resolve this.   Any ideas?

My Oro Mpaa has geminated and prenasalised consonants in
initial positions, but doesn't pronounce them as such unless
phrasal sandhi medialises them.  =)

Examples:

     |pein| [pen] "dead", |terepa pein| [,tSi4ipa'ben] "dead
         songbird"; but:
     |mpaa| ['baa] "speaking", |oro mpaa| [u4um'baa] "manner
         of speaking".
     |toc| [tuk] "eat", |mpao toc| [,bau'duk] "the dog eats";
         but:
     |ttou| [to] "man", |ama ttou| [,amat'to] "the man's
         mother".



-- Christian Thalmann