Re: Introduction to Altaii

Quoting Roger Mills <romilly@...>:

> Andreas Johansson (on his website) wrote:
>
> >The diphthongs are _ei ai oy uy_. The language is quite tolerant of
> hiatic
> combinations-- the chief exception being that i and y cannot stand
> after
> another vowel.  Where this would occur the first vowel is lost if it
> is
> i,y,e or a -- if it is o or u, a diphthong oy or uy results instead.>
>
> As I read this, the sequences /i,e,y,a/ + /i~y/ > /i y /.
> And /u,o/ + /i~y/ > /uy, oy/ (assuming that in case of  /oi, ui/ you
> have
> rounding assimilation > /oy, uy/.
>
> So where do _ei, ai_ come from?   Something omitted here???  And doesn't
> the
> name _Altaii_ violate this rule (or does the morpheme boundary between
> the
> two i's block it)?
These rules apply when inflection or derivation create illegal hiatic
combinations. It does not apply to "underlaying" diphthongs, which comes in
the flavours /ei, ai, oy, uy/.

_Altaii_ is from _Altaia_ +_-i(n)_ - the final /a/ is suppressed according to
the above rule, and the _-ai-_ part, being a monophonemic "underlaying"
diphthong, is not subject to the same rule as are the phonemes /i y e a/.

> If, as I assume, ei ai derive < /e,a/ + /i~y/ (with loss of rounding in
> case
> of /ey, ay/,  then in fact the only non-permitted vowel sequences
> involve
> the two high front vowels /i y/ (??) Thus, "delete the first vowel"
> gives
> ii, yi > i, and iy yy > y.  Or have I missed something?
Yep! :-) See above. I guess there's room for describing it somewhat more
clearly. And you're right you get ii, yi>i, yi, yy>y. In the Introduction,
examples of the former two are seen in the sg~pl pairs _medy_~_medi_ and
_izi_~izi_.

> (BTW, since the vowels /i e a u o/ are given their "classic" values,
> I'm
> assuming /y/ = [high, front, rounded] -- Whatever it represents, maybe
> you
> ought to mention that.)
Actually, it does say that _y_ is [y]. Under phonology, fourth paragraph
beneath the consonant chart: "The vowels are the classical five i e a o u,
plus y [y]".

                                                    Andreas