Re: apostrophes in transliteration (stress in Tokana)

And Rosta wrote:

> Matt:
> > So here's the solution I've adopted:  In cases where the suffixed
> > pronoun forms a close syntactic unit with its host (typically,
> > when the host is a predicate and the suffixed pronoun is [part
> > of] an argument of that predicate), I will write them together as
> > a single word, without any breaks.  In cases where the suffixed
> > pronoun is merely forming a prosodic unit with its host, but does
> > not bear a direct syntactic relation to it, I will separate them
> > by an apostrophe.  Thus, the sentence above will be written as
> > follows:
> >
> >   Ma uthmena ihai't halma.
> >
> > How does that sound?
>
> Fine to an anglophone, since it seems closely analogous to English
> _'s_. OTOH, _a(n)_ and _the_ are written as separate words, whereas
> I guess Tokana would write them together with the following word.
Proclitics in Tokana are felt to be separate words, and are written as
such.  I'm not sure why, but it may have to do with the fact that they have
variable attachment.  For example, monosyllabic subject pronouns typically
cliticise to the following verb, but in some cases an adverb can intervene
between the pronoun and the verb, in which case the pronoun will cliticise
to the adverb.


> BTW, if some clitics don't trigger stress shift, why write them as
> part of the preceding word at all, rather than as separate orthographic
> words?
I guess because (a) native speakers [i.e., me] feel that enclitics form a
tight unit with the preceding word, and (b) encliticisation triggers
certain sound changes which are otherwise confined to word-level domains.
For example, adding a possessive enclitic to a noun ending in a nasal
triggers nasal assimilation:

  konom  "hammer"  [ko.'nom]
  kononko  "your hammer"  [ko.'noN.ko]

Also, failure to add an enclitic causes the allative suffix "-ni" to lower
and become "-ne" word-finally:

  totsat  "table"  [to.'tsat]
  totsatne  "towards a table"  [to.'tsa?.nE]
  totsatnima  "towards my table"  [to.'tsa?.ni.ma]

(Note that the enclitics which *fail* to trigger these kind of changes are
the ones that I'm separating from the preceding word by an apostrophe.  I
guess I need to posit level 1 clitics and level 2 clitics, where the latter
are more tightly bound to their host that the former.)

Matt.