Re: [conculture] Re: The things one finds

Barry Garcia wrote:

> conculture@onelist.com writes:
> >It's an unlikely change, but I don't think that it's impossible.  What
> >are the rules for changing /n/ to /m/?  If it's just in the cluster
> >/nd/, then it would be a form of dissimilation, which is somewhat rare,
> >but, hey, isn't that what conlanging's all about?  :-)
>
> I'm fiddling around with the rules. I was thinking that /n/ from Tagalog
> becomes /m/ and then /m/ becomes /n/ but somehow i dont think that is too
> natural (for two letters to switch like that :).
(I'm kinda jumping into the middle of this, so please take the following in
that light)

On the contrary, it's perfectly natural.  The only thing is, you have to
be able to come up with the proper conditioning environment to do
that.   So, for example, you could say that phonemic/phonetic merger
occurs from Tagalog to your language, but then you could say that
before dental or alveolar consonants, that /m/ becomes [n] as an
allophonic variant.  That's a perfectly believable soundchange.

> I did however keep the changes consistent with sounds that are produced
> from the same area of the mouth. Another question is, is it natural for
> say /g/  to become /k/ and then /k/ to become /g/?
Again, it all depends on the conditioning environment.

> Here's examples of the sound changes i have been doing so far:
>
> Maganda - nakamta
> Dagat - takad
> Lalake - lalage
Are these capitalized letters phoneticly different sounds, or are
they merely proper names?

> anak - amag
> pangalan - bangalam
Is <ng> here the velar nasal?  If so, then it's okay.  Otherwise,
why didn't that <n> become <m>?

>
> so, what do you think?
Well, it looks a little strange;  do you have a rule that stipulates a
devoicing of all stop consonants when syllable initial?  That would
explain the /k/s and /t/s in <nakamta> and in <takad> (though with
that last, you have to assume that syllable final stops undergo exaclty
the opposite rule, which is somewhat counterintuitive).

In general, I'd say it's a good start, but it'd probably send historical
linguists through a few hoops trying to figure out what motivated an
intervocalic *devoicing* in <nakamta>.

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
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