Re: Droppin' Ds

On Tue, 19 Sep 2000, Barry Garcia wrote:

>Howdy all. I have been figuring out some interesting (to me at least)
>sound changes from Vulgar Latin, into a brand new con-romancelang. Because
>I have been so busy with school, i've only been able to think about the
>sound changes.
>
>One of the changes I like is the dissappearance of d in certain places.
>
>What I have so far for it is (i'm using Spanish words here to illustrate
>my point):
>
>- Initially, and in certain consonant clusters, d remains:  diablo >
>diablo. comiendo > comiendo
>
>- between vowels and finally, d gets dropped; comprando > comprao,
>libertad > libertá. In the first example for this rule, the a and o
>combine to form a diphthong, /au/. The second, the accent over the final a
>keeps the stress in the last syllable.  (a book I have says that
I always liked that one, and reminds me of Andalusian especially.

>
>A few more:
>
>- Medially, before i and e, c is pronounced as /ts/. Initially, it's /s/
>(but I have been thinking of /tS/). To represent this, I thought i'd use c
>cedilla ( ç ) for that sound..
>
>- Initially, au remains, but in other positions it becomes /o/. Not sure
>how natural that is.
Probably not natural, but sounds neat! - Lo audio, ella?

>
>- f stays as it is, like most of the other Romance languages: facere >
>facere > façer.
>
>- when in VL, there was an initial s + consonant, as in Spanish, an e is
>put in front of it, but, the s is dropped: strictu > estreço > etreço (c
>cedilla represents the /ts/ sound the way I am doing this)
Are esses droppt elsewhere? I remember a Puertoriquense in one of
my intermediate Spanish classes did an oral report on how his
family celebrated Crihmeh (Christmas). With the commercial American
aspect and Santa Clause; and the more Hispanic aspect of Church
going and religious feasts.

Also reminds me of a joke told by a Puerto Rican teacher: "Puerto
Ricans don't really talk faster than other Spanish speakers, even
if they seem to; they just drop esses, dees and final vowels; and
every other remaining consonant. So they can say the same thing in
half the time!"

>
>- ct becomes /ts/, represented by c cedilla again: nocte > noçe, strictu >
>etreço
>
>>From thinking about examples as I tweaked the rules a bit, it sounded to
>me in my mind as if there's elements of all the different romance-langs in
>it, sound wise.
>
I think it will be a pleasant sounding language, thus far, even
though I never liked the /ts/ sound. Let's hear more soon!

Padraic.