Re: Transcription exercise

On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 21:46:18 +0200, Benct Philip Jonsson
<bpjonsson@...> wrote:

>Paul Roser skrev:
>> On Sat, 16 Sep 2006 12:31:44 +0200, Benct Philip Jonsson
>> <bpjonsson@...> wrote:
>>
>>> So let's see what Sohlob makes of these.  Pronunciation is rather
>>> easily calculated from the romanization See
>>> <http://wiki.frath.net/Sohlob_romanization>. The Heleb dialect
>>> would be able to distinguish front rounded vowels as as well as
>>> velar _ll_ from palatal _l_.  The given forms are Classical Sohlob
>>> unless otherwise indicated.
>>
>> Does Heleb also have voiceless lateral fricatives,
>
>Yes it does; all the Sohlob dialects except Linjeb, which
>is descended from Kijeb but different enough not to be called
>a dialect of Sohlob, do.
>
>> and if so, does it distinguish velar(ized) <HLL> from palatal <HL> ?
>
>It should, shouldn't it?  I must confess it just didn't occur
>to me that there could also be lateral fricatives at different
>PsOA, simply because IPA doesn't provide symbols for any, but
>upon introspection I find that I'm perfectly able to pronounce
>all of [x_l C_l s\_l s`_l K_G] (or however they may be transcribed)
>distinctly from [K], and I also find that my xenolectic pronun-
>ciation of Icelandic _hljóð_ has [C_l], but the snag is that I
>hardly *hear* any difference between them -- the same goes for
>voiceless nasals at different PsOA, BTW.
The number of languages that distinguish two voiceless lateral fricatives is
quite small - off the top of my head, Bura, Cocopa, Northern Diegueno
distinguish dental/alveolar and palatalized/palatal versions, Toda and
A-hmao distinguish dental/alveolar and retroflex versions, and one of the
Central Highland languages of Papua (Wahgi or Nii IIRC) has voiceless
lateral fricative allophones of its *three* laterals - dental, alveolar,
velar, but I think they only contrast word-finally.

Herman Miller's Virelli is one of the few conlangs I've seen with a
distinction between /hl, l/ and /hL, L/ (where L is the palatal lateral - HM
uses a cedilla or something under the palatal phones).

I think that the distinction is more audible when there is a very clear
front/palatal vs back/velar distinction between the two.

>But actually I'm beginning to have doubts about the
>palatal(ized)/palatal lateral distinction.  Perhaps
>palatality in liquids should vary harmonically along with
>palatality in vowels?  (Even so I could have *[r_j] > /j/!)
>OTOH if so shouldn't nasal palatality also vary harmonic-
>ally, with /J/ in front harmony words corresponding to both
>/n/ and /N/ of back harmony words; perhaps also front [j]
>and [H] against back [G] and [w].  The closest analog from a
>natlang that I know of is the variation between front /k g/
>and back /X R/ of classigal Mongolian, but the idea as such
>seems naturalistically plausible. There would be no phonemic
>distinction between palatal and non-palatal lingual
>sonorants, but there might still be a distinction in
>spelling, since Heleb spelling is supposed to be a
>rather clumsy adaptation of Classical Sohlob spelling
>-- CS having phonemic /J j/ against /n N G/ since it
>has no front harmony, but only height harmony.
The closest thing I can think of the spreading of pharyngealization in some
Caucasian languages - a pharyngealized uvular or vowel spreads
pharyngealization to the rest of the word, though I don't know if anything
blocks it. So I guess that's not the same as harmony of consonants triggered
by front/back vowels...

>> One of the characteristics of Scungric phonology is that there are
>> (minimally) two coronal series, one laminal/palatalized, the other
>> apical (redundantly either velarized, uvularized, or pharyngealized),
>>  distinguishing stops, nasals, sibilants, lateral approximants and
>> lateral fricatives for both, with the addition of trills in the
>> apical series.
>
>Does Scungric have vowel harmony?
Not in it's current incarnation. Right now it has 6 vowels at present - /i,
E, i\, a, u, O/ and probably two tones (most likely H & L with Rising and
Falling contours on multi-syllabic words).

There may be a sort of consonantal harmony, since the coronals and dorsals
have fronted/palatalized and backed/uvularized/pharyngealized series, while
labials are neutral - though the harmony may be limited to clusters of
adjacent coronal & dorsal segments (eg -t^jk- vs -t`q-).

--Bfowol

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