Re: Zetowvu / Ezotwuv (new conlang)

From: "Andreas Johansson" <and_yo@...>
> Tristan wrote:
> >On Mon, 2003-02-24 at 21:43, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > > Jrg Rhiemeier (I think he's back onlist now) has made an ASCII-IPA
> > > scheme called "CPA", which's the best, mnemonically speaking, I've
> > > seen. I dunno if its available anyplace on the 'net right now, tho'.
> >
> >To say that 'which's' seems odd in that context would be an
> >understatement. I'm not sure what the rules are about contractions, but
> >that seems totally against them.
>
> It does?  What, specifically, makes it odd in the above context? In what
> contexts would you expect it?
My guess is it's simply a standard English syllable constraint.  You can't end a
syllable in /Ss/ (or indeed, any two sibilants, I think).  When it appears
morphologically, it's solved by epenthesis: in plurals, a schwa is inserted and
it's spelled <-es>; in possessives, it still has a schwa but remains <'s> (which
is the only spelling of the possessive).

But I think the restraint against /Ss/ prevents "which is" from ever contracting
at all.

    *Muke!
--
http://www.frath.net/

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