Re: Hiatus in Artlangs

On Fri, Nov 10, 2000 at 11:42:20AM -0800, LeoMoser(Acadon@Acadon.com) wrote:
> The issue of how sequences of vowels are
> pronounced in Conlangs has been IMO little
> addressed. Many artlang feature quite a few
> such sequences. Some do not specify how
> they are to be pronounced.
My conlang allows at most three adjacent vowels. There are no diphthongs,
and all vowel sequences are pronounced with hiatus (intervening glottal
stop, even).

[snip]
> Would these be safer to define as three syllables?
> What differing effects would the results have in
> an artlang? Would it be easier to sing in one
> form or another? Would poetry be easier in
> one form or another?
All those words, if they existed in my conlang, would all be pronounced as
three syllables.

> Combinations of -oa- -eo- etc. face the danger
> that English speakers insert a semivowel, making
> such things as -owa- and -eyo-. This is, to a
> degree, another issue.
[snip]

Hmm, talking about semi-vowels... my conlang has the notion of a "smooth
vowel", marked with a (`) prefix. A smooth vowel is roughly a semivowel
with the same quality as the unsmoothed vowel. For example:
        <y>     ->      /y/ (Kirsch)
        <`y>    ->      /j<rnd>y/
        <i>     ->      /i/
        <`i>    ->      /j/

Now, the problem is, *all* 9 vowels can be "smoothed". But what are the
IPA sounds for them?? The 9 vowels are (for those who can't be bothered to
look it up in my webpage ;-) ):

        <u> /u/         <w> /u"/        <y> /y/
        <o> /o/         <3> /V"/        <i> /i/
        <0> /A/ or /O/  <a> /a/         <e> /&/ or /E/

I've no idea how IPA would represent <`0>, for example. Any hints from the
phonologists out there? ;-)


T

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