Re: sabyuka : consonants, orthography, and a few things more

Nik Taylor wrote :


>Neat.  So, is tl a lateral affricate?
Yes, that's it. I actually wanted to seperate "true" consonants,
including pure affricates, and consonants with a sonantic release, just
as /tl/ and /kw/. I think that functionally, sonantic affricates would
replace lacking voiced plosives.

>> /t/ --> |t|
>> /ts/ --> |tz|
>> /tS/ --> |c|
>> /dZ/ --> |j|
>> /j/ --> |y|
>> Notes :
>>   - /ts/ is really problematic to me, because I want my system to be
>> first aesthetic, /ts/ might be in every position, especially final. I
>> had thought of |ç| and |z|, but I finally decided for |tz| : please
tell
>> me if you have any better idea :)
>
>Is there any reason why {ts} won't work?  That would be my choice, if
>there's nothing to rule it out.
I actually thought of |ts, tz, z, c, ç, acute c|. /-ts-/ would be the
fouth person marker, so that aorist would be, with different
orthographies :
- teqac
- teqaç
- teqaz
- teqats
- teqatz
That would be : 'he/she/it (who is out of view) 'is talkative'.


I had chosen |tz| for purely arbitrary esthetical reasons. I reject for
sure |c, ç|, and I now hesitate. But I take in account your suggestion,
as well as And's one for using |z|.


>Another possibility might be {c} = /ts/ {ch} = /tS/.
>
>Incidentally, I use ç in an alternate romanization of my conlang to
>indicate /C/ (voiceless palatal fricative).  It's good that you decided
>against it, since characters outside of 7-bit ASCII can get mangled by
>some mail readers.
Ok, I should take in account that problem I had not in mind.

>Also, I'd use {j} for /j/ (to free up {y}, see below) and maybe {dz}
for
>/dZ/.  Using {j} for /j/ does make it difficult to come up with an
>intuitive transcription of /dZ/.
For some obscure arbitrary reasons again, I am not keen on using |dz|
for /dZ/ : if I had to free |y|, then I would prefer |jh| as /dZ/, or
even |g| that does not exist in sabyuka.

>Of course, if there's no contrast between /i/ and /j/, you can simply
>use {i} for /j/ and {j} can stay as {dZ}
You figure out a point that made me crazy for a very long time.  To be
honest, I must confess that I still don't know. I'll think about it too
;).


>> /u/ --> |u|
>> /o/ --> |o|
>> /ou/ --> |ô|
>I would've chosen {ei} and {ou} for /ei/ and /ou/, and {y} for /@/ with
>{ay} or (more esthetic, IMO) {aa} for /a@/.  Anything outside of 7-bit
>ASCII is in danger of getting mangled.  Welsh uses {y} in that way,
>incidentally, as do at least a few conlangs.

So, I will avoid circumflex for diphtongs. So |ei| will be /ei/ and |ou|
will be /ou/. I'll have to solve the case of /a@/.


>Another possibility, if there's no danger of ambiguity, is /@/ = {a}
/a/
>= {ah} /a@/ = {aa}.  If vowel sequences don't occur, and /h/ can't
occur
>syllable-finally, then that would work, or you could just use the
>apostrophe to disambiguate.
The problem here is that /h/ will be a very common coda.


Thank you for those meaty comments.


Regards,

Julien

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