Re: B-Sh has subject pronouns!

En réponse à Roberto Suarez Soto <ask4it@...>:

>
>         - /a/ is the "a" of "cat", while /A/ is the "a" of "father"
>           (i.e., more like "spanish a"). Am /Ai/ wrong? ;-)
>
Well, as long as you use phonemic transcription, you may call the "a"
of "cat" /z/ and the "a" of father /b/. But if you want to use a transcription
close to the actual pronuntiation of the words, then the "a" of "cat" is the
IPA ae-ligature, in X-SAMPA /{/, but most people here (me included) prefer to
use /&/ for it (in X-SAMPA it's used for the OE-ligature, but it's such a rare
occurence here that I don't see the problem. Basically I swap /&/ and /{/
simply). As for the 'a' of 'father', I agree that it's /A/ (at least in RP).

>
>         - "ontish" is a composed form of "ot" + "nish" ("death"). "ot"
>           is a particle that, applied to a noun, means "the action of
>           bring or apply <noun>". It's "ontish" and not "otnish"
> because,
>           IIRC, there's a usual change in languages that involves
> "moving"
>           consonants to make the word easier to pronounce. I know it
> has
>           a name, but I don't remember it O:-)
Metathesis.

 I thought this could be
> a
>           good place to apply this change.
>
It's indeed quite a naturalistic change (funny enough, IIRC some Quenya roots
have this kind of metathesis too. Many words ending in -nC- could be argued to
have had the order -Cn- in Common Eldarin).

Christophe.

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