Re: New Try from a New Guy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christian Thalmann" <cinga@...>

> --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Michael David Martin <mdmartin@i...>
wrote:
>
> Looks workable.
>
> Do /s/ and /T/ have [z] and [D] as allophones, or are they
> always [s] and [T]?
    I  was planning not to have [z] or [D]

>
>  > Letter     SAMPA
>  > i          I
>  > ih         i
>  > u          u
>  > uh         3
>
> That feels a tad inconsistent...  in the first pair, you're
> using the modifier "h" to make a lax /I/ into a tense /i/,while
> in the second pair the "h" makes a tense /u/ into a lax /3/.
> You might wanna settle for a single function of "h".
    You're right, and I did wonder about this. Unfortunately I can't think
of a better transcription that still looks reasonable. (Except using double
vowels, but I kind of don't like the way that looks.)

>
> To simplify things, you could use English conventions for the
> vowel phonemes, e.g. "i" for /I/ and "ee" for /i/...  unless,
> of course, you want the language to look deliberately non-English
> when written in the Latin alphabet (have you considered giving
> the language a native script yet?).
    At first I was going to use 'ee' and other English standards, but I got
some advice against that, and I also have to admit that I never really liked
the way it looked.

    I've done some experimenting with a script for the language, but nothing
final yet.

>  > 2. But if I write /3/ how does someone
>  > else know that [@], [3], [6] and [V] are all included?
>
> If you're just going for a general unarticulated central sound,
> I'd suggest to use /@/ to represent it.  [@\], [3], [3\], [6]
> etc are basically just "flavored" versions of the schwa [@].
> I don't think any language distinguishes between those
> phonemically (although Portuguese has two separate unstressed
> central sounds: [1] and [6]).
    Others have also suggested I use /@/. I suppose I could do that, I'm
just wondering, if I'm considering them allophones, why it would matter
which one I used to represent the phoneme?

----------------------------------------
Michael David Martin, Master Mason
Temecula/Catalina Island Lodge #524
Free & Accepted Masons of California