Re: language of the Mandai: phonology

Quoting Tom Little <tom@...>:

> At 04:50 PM 8/13/2002, you wrote:
> >Quoting Tom Little <tom@...>:
> > > Stress usually, though
> > > not always, depends on the vowel, a receiving the strongest stress,
> > > followed by u, i, o and ù, with e receiving the weakest stress.
> >
> >What about the placement of stress?
>
> I probably didn't express myself well. The relative "weights" of the
> different vowels effectively determine the placement of stress...
Ah, I understood this to mean the level of stress that a
vowel is given, rather than which vowels are given *primary*
and secondary stress, etc.

Given that you make no claim that speakers of Mandai are physiologically
like people in this world, I see nothing wrong with this.  However, in
*this* world, stress seems very strongly to correlate with relative
syllable weight, such that closed syllables and syllables with long
vowels are prosodically more prominent than open syllables with short
vowels.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier
Dept. of Linguistics  "Nihil magis praestandum est quam ne pecorum ritu
University of Chicago sequamur antecedentium gregem, pergentes non qua
1010 E. 59th Street   eundum est, sed qua itur." -- Seneca
Chicago, IL 60637

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