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Re: thanks and name

From:Dirk Elzinga <dirk_elzinga@...>
Date:Wednesday, March 20, 2002, 22:07
At 10:29 PM -0500 03/19/02, Aidan Grey wrote:
> Just a quick note to say (in front of everyone!): > > Thanks A LOT to Peter Clark and Dirk Elzinga (BTW, I'm a fan of Tepa)
Thanks.
>for helping me hammer our phonology for my new lang, which is named >Taalannin. Pronounced /'tO.l@n.nIn/ > > Fun derivational notes on the name: > > Taalannin < tal 'tree' + 'ra 'speak' + -en 'agent nominal, -er' + -in >'stative verb/adjectival suffix' > Which is used nominatively to mean something like "that of the >Tree-speakers". > > The 'r' of ra assimilates to the l of tal. > The 'aa' arises from vocalisation of the l in tal due to heavy syllable >rules. Heavy syllables are open syllables (except in monosyllables), so >closing liquids and n cause compensatory lengthening, which then develops >into a new vowel. /al/ > /a:/ > aa /O/. Other closing consonants have >different effects. A closing m, for instance, would be vocalized to a u, >and cause a diphthong to develop. > The 'e' of -en elides after a vowel. > The 'n' of -en doubles to close a previous light (unstressed) syllable.
So that would be: underlying form: /tal-ra-en-in/ r-assimilation: tallaenin l-vocalization: taalaenin e-elision: taalanin gemination: taalannin surface form: ["tO.l@n.nIn] Got it.
>Vaelennin, vil 'sacred tree' + all the rest as >above. But then I'd have that other common name-initial, /v/. Actually, >since I'm just kind of chatting here and people probably have stopped >reading by now,
:-) Not all of us; I'm having a slow day.
>I still need to figure out how I get that 'ae'. I think >it's just an orthographic weirdness which was devised by the >transliterating scholar Har Sceilien. I think it develops something like this: > > /il/ > /i:/ >/ej/ but written ae to indicate an original vowel of the >frontish variety.
This <ae> to /ej/ mapping is odd given the phonological develoment. You would think the orthography would be more conservative than the spoken language, so I would have expected something like Viilennin.
> How do you folks name your languages, and what do they mean?
Tepa (X-SAMPA ["t1Ba]) is the Tepa word for 'speak', 'speech'. Not very original. The fictional backstory of the discovery of Tepa has provided me with a much more satisfactory name, though -- Miapimoquitch (X-SAMPA for the English pronunciation is [mi%j{pi"moUk_wItS]). It's Southern Paiute (a real language!) for 'little Hopi' (X-SAMPA for the Southern Paiute pronunciation would be [mi"?app1_0%mOkk_wItS_h]). I now refer to the language as Tepa/Miapimoquitch, but perhaps in a few weeks I'll start using just Miapimoquitch. Dirk -- Dirk Elzinga Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu Man deth swa he byth thonne he mot swa he wile. 'A man does as he is when he can do what he wants.' - Old English Proverb