Thanks to Aidan for letting me put my resolution to the test.
At 3:50 PM -0500 03/14/02, Aidan Grey wrote:
> Follows is a discussion of phonological patterns in Adain (formerly known
>as Sephas). And in case you wonder, no, it is not an anagram of my name! It
>derives from _adan_ 'people' and the adjectival/language suffix -in.
>
>Basic phonology:
You mean "inventory", right?
>Length:
> vowels (both simple and diphthong) are long or short. The distinction
>is represented orthographically by geminate consonants or clusters
>following a short vowel in stressed syllables. Unstressed syllables are
>always short.
Okay. You realize that this orthographic decision will leave you
without a clear way of representing long consonants (you mention the
possibility of long consonants later on).
>Orthography:
> Consonants are mostly as above, with the following exceptions: /N/ as n
>(allophonic). /w/ as u. /f/ and /v/ occassionally appear in transliteration
>as ph or bh.
> Vowels get more interesting. Here is a chart that explains, with the
>orthographic representation along the left edge (hopefully the formatting
>will remain):
>
> Short Long
>a @ a
>e E e
>i I i
>o o ow
>u U u
>au C aw
>eu U ew
>ai E aj
>ei I ej
>oe U oj
>ae & /aj/ or /ej/ (dialectal variation)
>ao E ew
>y @ @ (or wedge /^/ ?)
>
>A couple minimal pairs:
> son /sown/ vs. sonn /son/
> taov /tewv/ vs. taovra /tevr@/
So long /ew/ is matched with both /U/ and /E/ orthographically? I
also wonder why you choose to use <ao> for short /E/ and long /ew/ ...
>here's the part I'd like the most comments on (is it realistic? Do I make
>sense? anything else?)
It seems that there might be some extra-linguistic history behind
some of the orthographic decisions you've made. Fill us in.
>Words normally retain the characteristic length of their stressed vowel
>throughout declension or conjugation. In the case of a long vowel or
>diphthong preceding a cluster (due to derivational or inflectional
>processes), this should result in a short vowel (and sometimes it does.
>However, in general, the long vowel transforms into a diphthong, preserving
>length visually if not entirely phonemically. For example, the verb
>_ser_ /ser/ 'flow' becomes _saerra_ /s&rr@/ in the future conjunct (in
>-ra). This transformation turns front vowels and j-diphthongs (except oe)
>into ae and all others into ao.
I think I understand what you are doing, but I don't understand why.
Why is it important that syllables preserve the appearance of length
if they are not in fact long? Is this another extra-linguistic
orthographical decision? I'd also like to see more examples of the
"transformations" you mention.
>Syllable structure:
> (cluster or consonant +) vowel or diphthong (+ continuant)
> two vowels consecutively are not allowed, and are separated by a glide
>or /v/
>
> Permitted initial clusters
> stop + liquid
> unvoiced fricative + liquid
> s + unvoiced stop or liquid
> stop, l, or h + y
>
> Permitted medial clusters
> nasal + stop
> nasal + liquid and liquid + nasal (permitted clusters depends on
>relation to tonic syllable, which I haven't yet fully analysed)
> ht
> liquid + fricative or sibilant (with l+h>lh, r+h>rh)
> unvoiced stop + s (< voiced stop + s, all unv. stops + s > fricatives)
> h + nasal or liquid (with h+l or r > lh, rh)
>
> no final clusters allowed (only gemination). No clusters of more than 2
>phonemes allowed.
So if a syllable ending in a consonant precedes a syllable beginning
with a cluster, won't this produce a cluster of three phonemes? If
not, what are the rules of cluster simplification?
Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu
Man deth swa he byth thonne he mot swa he wile.
'A man does as he is when he can do what he wants.'
- Old English Proverb