Re: Hiksilipsi Consonant Phonology

On Thu, 6 Sep 2001 20:31:17 -0600, Jesse Bangs <jaspax@...> wrote:

>Hey, y'all.  I've been working on this for a while, and I decided to come
>out with what I have of the phonology for now.  Any comments and/or
>suggestions are welcome.
Interesting -- this has some resemblence to something I've been working on
for a while (a couple somethings, actually).

>Hiksilipsi contains three grades of phonemes: a radical grade, a y-grade,
>and a w-grade.  The y- and w- grade phonemes are formed by adding a y [j]
>or w [w] glide to the radical phonemes, but there are several mutations
>that occur when these grades are formed.  To begin, the radical phonemes
>are (written with the orthographic symbols, with the IPA next to it where
>different.  Thanks to YHL for giving me the idea to spell [?] as {q}):
>
>        p        t         k        q [?]
>        f [P]   s                   h
>        ps                 ks
>        m        n        ñ [N]
>        mp                ñk [Nk]
>
>The nasals and nasal occlusives do not participate in the mutation
>scheme, so I'll leave them out of the next charts.
No ny?

>When combined with the y-glide, the phonemes take the following forms.
>Throughout this chart {y} represents [j]:
>        py        ty [tç]          qy [?j]
>        fy [Pj]  sy                hy [ç]
>        phy [pç]
>
>Thus, the most salient changes are /ty/ > [tç], /hy/ > [ç], and /psy/ >
>[pç]
>
>The w-grade phonemes are:
>                tw        kw        qw [?w]
>        hw   sw                     hw [w_0]
>                           khw [kw_0]
>
>The only really important changes are /fw/ > [w_0], /hw/ > [w_0], and
>/ksw/ > [kw_0].
>
>You'll notice that there are no velars with y-glides or labials with
>w-glides.  This is because there is an active dissimilation in
>Hiksilipsi: when /y/ is preceded by /k ks ñ ñk/ it becomes /w/ and
>affects the preceding sound as /w/.  Likewise, when /w/ is preceded by /p
>ps m mp/ it becomes /y/ and affects the preceding consonant as /y/.  The
>only exception to this rule is /f/.  Underlying /fw/ does exist, because
>very early in the language there was a rule that changed [P] to [h] when
>followed by a rounded sound.  Thus, /fw/ merges with /hw/, as shown
>above.
The change of y to w seems odd to me (I would have /k/ + /y/ > /ky/ and /p/
+ /w/ > /p/), but the f change seems very likely as far as articulation is
concerned.

>There are a couple of odd things about this system.  Everything's pretty
>regular underlyingly, but the surface forms are really weird.  There is
>no plain [w], but there is a [w_0].  There are the clusters [?j] and
>[?w], which I've never seen in a real language.  Then /psy/ and /ksw/
>mutate to assimilate the /s/, but plain /sy/ and /sw/ are unchanged.
I also have [?j] and [?w] and no [j] or [w] outside of clusters -- there
must be something going around.

Jeff

>Do these things seem reasonable to everyone?  Or is it hopelessly weird?
>
>Jesse S. Bangs     Pelíran