Re: THEORY/YAEPT: Re: Terkunan: rules for deriving nouns, verbs, adjectives

[Replyint to Tristan & Mark]
T. A. McLeay, On 02/11/2007 17:08:
> On Wed, 31 Oct 2007 08:31:31 -0400, "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
> said:
>> Could you elaborate on the pronunciations of those pairs?
OK. See below. Using CXS (<http://www.theiling.de/ipa/>) and standard British
phoneme symbolization (because it's standard, not because I like it).

[...]

>>   I'm not sure about "madder" the color, since I've never heard that
>> word before, but I suspect it would sound the same as the "angrier"
>> version.  Is there a parallel distinction between the herpetic and
>> arithmetic meanings of "adder" in those same dialects?
>
> If "madder" is monomorphemic, it'd be [m&d@] for me; whereas if it's
> bimorphemic (mad+er) then it's [m&:d@]. Likewise "gladden". But before
> -d the distinction is only available in four adjectives (bad, glad, mad
> and sad), and so "adder" only has one pronunciation.
True, I believe, for Australia & SE England (for those speakers who do have /a/
lengthening). But in, e.g. Ulster & (iirc) some East Coast US cities (e.g.
Baltimore? -- I'm relying on 20 year old memories here), the lengthening is
conditioned only phonologically and not lexically, so /a/ lengthens in _add_,
and hence _adder_ 'augmenter' = _sadder_ != _adder_ 'snake' = _ladder_.

> (However, I've never heard the words "madder"=brown or "gladden"=iris
> before, but the above are the obvious spelling pronunciations.)
I guess some conlangers will at least recall that Isildur was killed in the
Battle of the Gladden Fields?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disaster_of_the_Gladden_Fields>

> But, most of the examples And lists below confuse me. "Gladden" seems to
> be the only example of a sound change being aware of morphological
> boundaries; the rest are created using the same simple rules before and
> after the sound change has ceased to become active.
They're all instances of sound-change creating contrasts that are (synchronically)
sensitive to morphological juncture.

>> finger : singer [everywhere but NW England]
/ng/ = [Ng]
/ng+/ = [N]

>> madder (brown) : madder (more mad)
>> gladden (iris) : gladden (make glad) [various places]
In the Ulster/'Baltimore' variety, /a/ = [a:] before C+ (for certain Cs (lenis Cs?)).

In the Australia/SE England variety, it may be that the contrast is phonemicized,
e.g. /ad/ 'ad, add' vs /ma:d/ 'mad', with /a:/ phonotactically restricted to
"___ lenis-C +" environments. If so, it's pretty marginal. E.g. for me, in the
environment "__ g +", it is categorically always [a:] and not [a] (so e.g.
_dragger_ and _dagger_ don't rhyme).

>> pause : paws [demotic SE England]
_pause_ /pO:z/ [poz]
_paws_ /pO:+z/ [pOz]

The rule is that /O:/ = [O] before a morphological juncture and [o] elswhere.

>> hula : ruler [SE England]
_hula_ /hu:l@/ [hu\l6]
_ruler_ /ru:l+@] [rul6]

/u:/ = [u] before tautomorphemic /l/
/u:/ = [u\] elsewhere

>> holy : holey [SE England]
_holy_ /h@Uli/ [h6U\li]
_holey_ /h@Ul+i/ [hQUli]

/@U/ = [QU] before tautomorphemic /l/
/@U/ = [6U\] elsewhere

>> nose : knows [Leeds]
_nose_ /n@Uz/ [noz]
_knows_ /n@U+z/ [nQUz]

/@U/ = [QU] before a morphological juncture and [o] elswhere.

>> pride : pried [Northumbria]
_pride_ /praId/ [prEId]
_pried_ /praI+d/ [praId]

/aI/ = [aI] before a morphological juncture and [EI] elswhere (IIRC).

>> brood : brewed [Scotland, Ireland]
_brood_ /brud/ [bru\d]
_brewed_ /bru+d/ [bru\:d]

(I forget what the details of the rule are here. Beyond England I tend to get a bit hazy.)

--And.