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Re: THEORY: Tepa prosody [was: Estonian Quantity]

From:And Rosta <a.rosta@...>
Date:Sunday, November 11, 2001, 20:17
[excuse the massive quoting]

Dirk:
> Hey. > > What follows is best viewed in a monowidth font. It's also rather long. > > At 3:50 AM +0000 11/09/01, And Rosta wrote: > >Doergkh: > >> F F > >> / \ / \ > >> F m F m > >> | | | | > >> s | s | > >> /|\ | /|\ | ... > >> / m m | / m m | > >> | \|/ | | \|/ | > >> s a [saa:] l a k e [lak:ke] > >> > >> That is, a foot consisting of a monosyllabic bimoraic trochee with an > >> adjoined mora. This conception of the foot and its role in stem > >> gradation has (indirectly) inspired some changes in Tepa prosody, > > > though I don't have overlong segments. > > > >What are the changes to Tepa prosody it has inspired? > > I'm glad you asked. The changes in Tepa prosody are the result of the > introduction of exhaustive foot parsing and the restriction of some > phonological processes to foot-medial position. > > The exhaustivity requirement of Tepa foot parsing means that all > syllables within a Tepa stem must belong to a prosodic foot; that is, > syllables may not adjoin directly to the prosodic word (this > restriction doesn't apply to clitics). There are three kinds of legal > foot shapes in Tepa: > > 1) the canonical moraic trochee > > foot F F > | / \ > syllable s s s > /|\ /| /| > mora / m m / m / m > | | | | | | | > segment c v x c v c v > > (x = vowel or consonant) > > 2) the trochee with resolution > > F > / \ > s s > /| /|\ > / m / m m > | | | | | > c v c v x > > 3) the augmented foot > > F > / \ > F \ > / \ \ > s s s > /| /| /| > / m / m / m > | | | | | | > c v c v c v
What role does the syllable node play? Is it simply there to host onsets in representations, or are some phonological phenomena sensitive to syllables? Apparently so -- e,g, the rule for unbound phase.
> Insuring that a CV string is exhaustively parsed into licit feet > requires several kinds of adjustment: 1) suffixation of _-ka_ (this > is morphologically restricted), 2) final-vowel lengthening, 3) > light-syllable adjunction.
Is (1) a variety of (3)?
> In Early Tepa, bound phase was marked by a final long vowel. In > Modern Tepa, unbound phase is marked by an initial heavy syllable > (moraic trochee).
"Early" and "Modern" in the extrafictional history? Or in the internally-reconstructed intrafictional history?
> This heavy syllable is usually the result of > geminating the medial consonant, but may also be from a lengthened > vowel (voiceless fricatives and glides don't geminate). This prosodic > marker is accompanied by suffixation of _-ka_ in case parsing the > initial heavy syllable would leave behind a light syllable; _-ka_ > suffixation thus fills out a prosodic foot: > > tukana 'thrush:BOUND'
= [tuGa naa] (2 feet) or [tuGana] (1 foot)?
> tukkana 'thrush:UNBOUND'
= [tuk kana] (2 feet)
> pite 'see:BOUND'
[piDe] (1 foot)
> pitteka 'see:UNBOUND'
[pit teGa] (2 feet) Are the geminates phonetically long? Or are they normal-length segments that resist lenition due to being ambisyllabic?
> Secondly, the renewed emphasis on the prosodic foot has restricted > application of gradation, now properly seen as lenition. In Early > Tepa, voiceless stops alternated with voiced fricatives > intervocalically; in the modern language, lenition only applies > within the foot; it may not occur across foot boundaries (somewhat > like American English flapping): > > tapatapa [taBataBa] 'black widow:DIST' > pitepite [piD1piD1] 'see:DIST' > tipukankan [tiBukaNgan] 'sage hen:DIST' > > In these forms, distributive number is marked by suffixal > reduplication of the final moraic trochee. The resulting form only > shows lenition between vowels when those vowels belong to the same > foot: > > F F > / \ / \ > s s s s > /| /| /| /| > / m / m / m / m > | | | | | | | | > t a p a t a p a = [taBataBa] > > F F F > / \ | | > s s s s > /| /| /|\ /|\ > / m / m / m m / m m > | | | | | | | | | | > t i p u k a n k a n = [tiBukaNgan] > > (In the form [tiBukaNgan] 'sage hen', the voicing of /k/ to [g] is > not the result of lenition, but is due instead to a separate process > of post-nasal voicing; post-nasal voicing is not restricted to > foot-medial position.) > > When a form has an odd number of light syllables, one of two things > may happen: 1) the final vowel may lengthen, coercing a final moraic > trochee; or 2) the final light syllable may be adjoined to the > preceding foot to create a foot consisting of three light syllables. > Both options are illustrated with the form _hipite_ 'moon': > > F > / \ > F F F \ > / \ | / \ \ > s s s s s s > /| /| /|\ /| /| /| > / m / m / m m / m / m / m > | | | | | |/ | | | | | | > h i p i t e = [hiBit1:] h i p i t e = [hiBiD1] > > In the first form, the final long vowel creates a monosyllabic moraic > trochee. There are two feet, thus lenition will not apply to /t/, > since it is not between vowels belonging to the same foot. In the > second form, the final light syllable is simply adjoined to an > existing foot to form a single augmented foot; since the /t/ is > between vowels belonging to the same foot, it is lenited. > > As far as I can tell, both realizations are in free variation.
It's very satisfying to see Tepa evolving, and to see its soul, its tepanicity, evolving. There is something about the [hiBit1:] ~ [hiBiD1] alternation that feels to me in my guts deeply Right. OTOH, my guts haven't quite apprehended the gemination pattern. /hitte/ feels like an augmented foot, which is right, but /hittete/ would be two feet, and it feels to me like a kind of stress clash between adjacent syllables, and I feel I want to parse it as necessarily containing augmented foot /hitte/.
> >Where is up-to-date info on Tepa? It must be six or seven years since > >I last read the full description of Tepa. > > Right now it's on my hard drive; Jeffrey Hennings has some stuff on > his Langmaker.com pages, but for some reason the inflectional > morphology of nouns and verbs never made it there. I'm still working > out some changes to the derivational morphology. Once they are done, > I'm planning on writing up the phonology and morphology and posting > it here. I'm still thinking about where to get web space; I don't get > any from BYU for personal pages. I'll probably have to go with a free > service.
We ought to have some collective space at conlang.org or suchlike, a default place for assembling conlang materials and links. --And.

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Dirk Elzinga <dirk_elzinga@...>