Re: Too bizarre?

On Wednesday, November 12, 2003, at 12:47 AM, Estel Telcontar wrote:

> Ray Brown ha tera a
> [snip]
>
>> I'm not sure how I'd handle 3-consonant lexical morphemes at present.
>
> One possibility might be...
> Say you have 3 syllables ABC,
> Let the consonants A and B determine the vowels of the first two
> syllables, and let the vowels B and C determine the vowel of the final
> syllable...
>
> Or, something like:
> Let consonants A and B determine the first vowel, B and C determine the
> second vowel, and consonants A and C determine the last vowel
That second idea is really exotic   :)

I've played around with something like your first suggestion.  But we
have the problem of vowel harmony.

As I've said, for many years now in all the transmogrifications of
'briefscript' / BrSc etc. one thing has remained constant: the single
consonant morphemes are suffixes or clitics whose vocalization is
determined by vowel harmony, i.e. by the lexical morpheme to which they
are attached.  In fact, even the final vowel of the lexical morphemes
have been do determined.

The most obvious thing to do with three-consonant words would be to
have first vowel determined by A & B, and the second in a similar way
by B & C.  This would give such results as (without the final vowel):
1  bgz  {p00k00s} /pOkOs-/    back vowel harmony
2  pgz  {p10k00s} /pukOs-/    back vowel harmony
3  bkz  {p01k10s} /pEkus-/    harmony??
4  pkz  {p11k10s} /pikus-/    harmony??
5  bgs  {p00k01s} /pOkEs-/    harmony??
6  pgs  {p10k01s} /pukEs-/    harmony??
7  bks  {p01k11s} /pEkis-/    front vowel harmony
8  pks  {p11k11s} /pikis-/    front vowel harmony

Now, if we abandon the notion of vowel harmony, we are left with the
problem of how to vocalize single consonant morphemes.

It will be noticed in the above that the middle consonant is being used
twice:
in the AB combo it determines whether the first vowel i front or back;
in the BC combo it determines whether the second vowel is high or low.

As front/back contrast is important for vowel harmony, maybe the middle
consonant should determine the front/back position of _both_ vowels, i.e.
the 'bits' are read backwards in the BC combo. (I wouldn't explain the
vocalization in terms of binary digits - it's just what set off the
present train of thought).   That would give us
3  /pEkEs-/
4  /pikEs-/
5  /pOkus-/
6  /pukus-/

This also has another elegance.  There are not 8, but 16 possible combos
of p-k-s if the language has 4 vowels; but there are only 8 possible
arrangements of b/p + g/k + z/s!   If, however, vowel harmony is
enforced, there are only 8 permissible combos of p-k-s and the modification
suggested maps all 8 arrangements of b/p + g/k + z/s to these eight.

In this solution we would have:
- the height of the first syllable determined by first vowel;
- the vowel harmony of all syllables is determined by second vowel;
- the height of the second and, of course, third syllable is
determined by the third consonant

As vowel harmony affects not only the vowels of the lexical morpheme
but also all suffixes/enclitcs, I wonder whether the first rather than
the second consonant should determine this; this would mean the second
consonant determined the height of vowels in first & second syllables,
and all subsequent consonants would determine vowel height only.

Another problem is stress/pitch accentuation and segregation of
morphemes.  But I think that does not directly affect the way of
using a purely consonantal script might also determine the vocalization.

A final thought (for now):
A consonantal script should mean that BrScB is using the Roman letters as
an abjad; but the vocalization of abjads is surely shown by diacritics.
that consonant symbols can indicate vocalization suggests an abugida.
But what i'm suggesting doesn't seem to fit either catgory properly  :)

Ray
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