Re: Dublex/Katanda hybrid

From: "Javier BF" <uaxuctum@...>
> >Consonants and vowels are pronounced like their IPA equivalents
> >unless indicated otherwise.  They appear freely in the
> >three basic morph types as shown except /q/ may not start
> >a morpheme. In diphthongs, /i/ and /u/ become glides; vowel
> >pairs such as /ae/ are rendered as two syllables with any
> >glottal consonant.
>
> And why not as a "ae" diphthong, such as that of Latin?
Instead of diphthong /ai/ ?  Or in addition to diphthong /ai/ ?
You agree that these are a bit too similar for one-syllable
vowels, no?  What about /ia/ vs. /ea/ ?

> I've never liked the idea of confusing full vowels
> with glides
I am not sure that I like the idea of making the full vowels
and glides distinct phonemes.  In the system I outlined,
you can unambiguously render certain vowel pairs as two
syllables or as diphthongs, however you prefer. The reason
for allowing glides is simply to make speech a little more
concise, and to regularize the rules in anticipation of how
a real speech community might start to render them anyway.

> , even though that's what my own language
> does to a hard-to-believe extent--Spanish "sinalefa"
> creates "monstrous" vowel glides such "oao", "ieia"
> "uoai", "ieiou", etc. which you should master how
> to pronounce if you want your speech to sound like
> Spanish; :-) we, native speakers, pronounce them every
> minute without even noticing they're there, just like
> English speakers pronounce amazing consonant clusters
> without even noticing it (think of "staRTS STRongly",
> "ploNKeD Down", "caN'T TRy", "woulDN'T CLaim"...).
That's true, but as a conlanger *I* certainly notice them :-)

> >An unwritten buffering schwa occurs
> >between words that would otherwise yield a geminate
>
> I've always wondered why in English-language lists
> there's kind of a general consensus about geminates
> being "difficult". I don't think any Finnish or Italian
> speaker would see anything difficult in them at all.
> And neither English speakers themselves seem to have
> problems with geminates when they remain unaware of
> being pronouncing them, such as in "night train" or
> "whole land", which don't sound the same as
> "night rain" and "whole and".
English uses a variety of highly subtle and very parochial
methods to make these morphemic segmentations and others.
It's not just a question of gemination. John Cowan has
cited a few of these methods in the other post.

> >or an overly difficult consonant cluster.
>
> Which consonant clusters are supposed to be "overtly
> difficult"? Is "kn-" difficult? Certainly not for
> Germans and Slavic people, but certainly yes for an
> English speaker. Is "st-" difficult? Certainly not
> for an English speaker, but certainly yes for a
> Spanish speaker. Is "pl-" difficult? Certainly not
> for any of the above mentioned people, but certainly
> yes for a Japanese. Etc...
>
> Cheers,
> Javier
I left "overly difficult" undefined purposely.  A speaker
may insert a schwa into *any* cluster that is difficult for him
or her.  You'll notice that consonant clusters are at most
two consonants, and occur only at word boundaries.
With schwa insertion, the syllable structure can become
purely CV -- a welcome relief, I am sure, to many folks
around the world.

Interestingly, IIRC, your system is entirely CVC.  If you
would kindly forgive me for not re-reading the entire thread
on Futurese, could you repost your system's rules for
disambiguating such pairs as /lap dog/ and /lab dog/ ?
I am curious as to your methods.  Thanks in advance.

Regards,
---   Mike