Re: Tíngrjsil etabnammity

Julien Eychenne sikyal:

> JS Bangs wrote:
>
> > The consonants come in two sets, palatalized and unpalatalized (a la
> > Slavic or Irish Gaelic), though some sound shifts have made the palatal
> > label convenient rather than descriptive. Here's a quick rundown:
> >
> > Non-palatalized Palatalized
> > ------------------------------
> > p   t   k       p'  ts,tS  tC
> > b   d   g       b'  dz     dj\
> > f   s   x       f'  S      C
> > v   z           v'  Z
> > m   n           m'  J
> >     l               K\
> >     r               z`
> >
> > The vowels are seven:
> > ----------------
> >  i    1    u
> >  e    @    o
> >       a
> >
> > Here's where the fun comes in. Palatalization is indicated by the vowels,
> > not the consonants. The vowels /i e/ always provoke palatalization, and
> > the vowels /@ 1/ sometimes do. The vowels /u o a/ never palatalize (except
> > sometimes).
> >
> > In the orthography, we write the full vowels /i e u o/ as |í é ú ó|. The
> > unaccented versions are used for the central vowels: |e| for /@/ when the
> > preceding consonant is palatalized, otherwise |o|, and |i| for [1] when
> > the preceding consonant is palatalized, otherwise |u|. Thus, we get the
> > following syllables:
> >
> > ki   ke   ku   ko   ka   kí   ké   kó   kú
> > tC1  tC@  k1   k@   ka   tCi  tCe  ko   ku
>
> I do love the fact that /@/ palatalizes a consonant and the way
> orthography indicates it.  It might be the case that schwa comes from
> */e/ and */o/ (who merged), and /e/ reported its palatality on a
> preceding consonant, as it often happens. And
> maybe this just what you have in mind (?).
This is just what I have in mind, conveniently. The original vowel system
is something like /i e u o I E M V a/, where /I M/ eventually merged to
/1/, but /I/ left behind palatalization on the vowel, and likewise /E V/
merged to /@/, but /E/ left behind palatalization. The orthography does a
pretty good job of representing the original vowel values, although there
are complications with stress that get lost. There also were sequences of
/jM/ and /jV/ that effectively merge with /I/ and /E/

(Actually, it's more complicated than this in the real proto-language:
what I've described above is more like pre-Tzingrizil).

> However (WARNING :  I may be wrong ;)), if orthography is somehow
> related to phonology, I'm not sure whether /1/ causing palatalization is
> a realistic phenomenon. This is quite common that vowels palatalize
> consonants and reduce themselves to schwa, but I'm not sure we find in
> natural languages /1/ causing palatalization.
Well, as I said above, those instances of /1/ that cause palatalization
derive from historical /I/, so I don't find this too unrealistic.

> > There are some front vowels that don't palatalize, though, and for those
> > we put an |a| between the consonant and the vowel.
>
> This is particularly interesting, and looks nice in your examples. I
> have just one question : do you use |a| for both /6/ and
> "depalatalization" diacritic ?
There is no /6/, but yes, I do use |a| for both /a/ and the depalatalizing
diacritic. There is no ambiguity here, since Tzingrizhil has no
diphthongs, or at least no diphthongs spelled as such. |ai| is always [i]
with an unpalatalized consonant preceding; the sequence [aI] is spelled
|aj|.


--
Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/blog

Jesus asked them, "Who do you say that I am?"

And they answered, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground
of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our
interpersonal relationship."

And Jesus said, "What?"