Re: Questions about Hungarian

On 01 May 2004 Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...> wrote:

> Also, there's apparently a special non-IPA transcription sceme
> used by Uralicists, about which I want to know more.
  It comes from the so-called "Setälä Notation". It was published by
Emil Nestor Setälä, a Finnish linguist, in 1901. This is also the base
of the current notations used in Turkology. Its concept came from the
Czech-style Slavic orthography (using additional Greek and some
cyrillic letters).
  An important feature of this system is that it tries to map
functional cathegories instead of phonetic accuracy. This behaviour
makes the translation between Setälä and IPA difficult. However we can
transcript Hungarian short "a" in Uralic system (<a0> : "a" with ring
above) but we can't do it in IPA (Hungarian phonology uses /O/, but in
fact, it has a different acustic quality and would be rather
transcripted as /Q_x/.)

  I will use RFC-1345 notation between <>'s here to ASCII-ize Setälä
notation, if applicable. Cf. <http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1345.html>.
Additional character is <@> for schwa /@/; the special sign ^ which
will change the position of a diacritical mark, e.g. <'(> breve above -
<'^(> breve below; the modifier sign ~ to rotate, revert accents, e.g.
<'~>> right arrowhead, <'~<> left arrowhead, <'~(> inverted breve
  The notation between //'s corresponds to X-SAMPA equivalent of the
Uralic signs.

  The Satälä notation is usually typesetted in serif italic font.

  The Uralist notation has three "joker" characters:
- small reversed epsilon (small digit "3", X-SAMPA /3/) stands for any
  vowels (of uncertain quality);
- "baby gamma" (X-SAMPA /7/ or sometimes small digit "8" opened on top)
  denotes any back vowels (of uncertain quality);
- "baby gamma" with diaeresis above stands for any front vowels (of
  uncertain quality).

  Vowels are grouped into front and back vowels, there's no central
vowels, i.e. a triangular scheme is used. Graphically <a> and <@> are
on the central line but <a> is usually considered as back, while <@> as
front vowel (in many languages <@> has a back pair <@~(>!).
  In practice there's three degrees of open-close feature: open, mid,
close, _plus_ the "very" open <a>.
  I use here the following abbreviations the describe the cardinal
vowels: B - back, F - front; V - "very open", O - open, M - mid, C -
closed; L - labial (rounded), I - illabial (unrounded).
  <a> BVI, <e> FMI, <i> FCI, <o> BML, <u> BCL; other cardinals have non-
systemic diacritics: <a:> FOI, <o:> FML, <u:> FCL, <a0> BOL. (Setälä
defined small Greek epsilon also for the sound between <e> and <a:>,
but it's seldom used.)
  The other vowels are derived by diacritics (there may be 3-4 on a
single vowel!):
  <'.> (dot above) - "palatal" (front) variant
  <'^(> (breve below) - "velar" (back) variant
  <'-> (macron) - long
  <'~<> ("<" below) - advanced (also in case of consonants)
  <'~>> (">" below) - retracted (also in case of consonants)
  <'^>> (circumflex below) - raised
  <'^<> (caron below) - lowered
  <'(> (breve) - shorter, reduced
  <'^(> inverted breve above - same as breve below (usually used
      only with schwa to denote velar variant)
  <'^~(> inverted breve below - semivowel, glide, non-syllabic
  index-style letter - (1) (between consonants) reduced vowel, e.g. "u"
      in index is the labial variant of the schwa; (2) (before or after
      a vowel) the vowel is articulated as a transitional sound between
      the base vowel and the one in the index.
The other notations are author-specific inventions or language specific
developments. (Uralists are very inventive in this field :)))

  Consonantism are more similar to IPA, however there're also
constitutional differences, e.g. Setälä doesn't distinguish palatal and
palatalized series, therefore <s'> may stand for /s'/, /s\/, <t'> for
/t'/ and /c/.

  Diacritics:
  small capitals: voiceless
  small "c" in index (may be substituted by rev-9-quote): aspirated
  <'~>> ">" below (or above in case of "g" etc.) - retracted
  <'~<> "<" below (or above) - advanced
  <'^.> dot below - retroflex (cacuminal, celebral)
  <'^0> ring below - syllabic
Note: Uvulars are transcribed as velars; or retracted velars if they're
dictinctive. The only one exception is the uvular trill that has its
own sign because there's no velar variant.

  Plosives: <p> /p/, <b> /b/, <t> /t/, <d> /d/, <t'> /c, t'/, <d'> /J\,
d'/, <k> /k, q/, <g> /g, G\/, <'9> (upper quote) /?/. [Many authors
state that /c/ and /J\/ are realized as affricate (even in Hungarian),
in this case <t'><x*'> and <d'><j> notation is used instead.].

  Nasals: <m> /m, F/, <m~<> /F/, <n> /n/, <n'> /N, n'/, <ng> /N, N\/.

  Fricatives: <f*> /p\/, <b*> /B/, <f> /f/, <v> /v/, <t*> /T/, <d*>
/D>, <s> /s/, <z> /z/, <s<> /S/, <z<> /Z/, <x*> /x/, <g*> /G/, <x*'>
/C, x'/, <g*'> /j\, G'/, <h> /h, h\/ [(1) <g*'> is usually replaced by
a simple <j> if it's not distinctive; (2) When distinctive: /h/ = small
cap <H>, /h\/ = <h>; (3) Pharyngeals are not defined, I'd use advanced
glottals for them.]

  Affricates are written as a digraph of the plosive and the fricative
element but there're simplifications: <c> /ts/, <ed> /dz/, <c<> /tS/,
<ed<> /dZ/.

  Laterals: <l> /l/, <l'> /L, l'/, <l=> /5, l_e/, small cap <L*> /K/,
<l*> /K\/.

  Tremulants: small caps <Q*> /B\_0/, <q*> /B\/, <r> /r/, <ja> /4/,
<r*> /R\/.

  Approximants do not exist in Setälä system: <j> /j/ is regarded
rather as voiced palatal fricative, i.e. a plain sign in place of
<g*'>. /r\/ may be advanced <j~<>, /r\'/ as retroflex <j^.>, /M\/ as
retracted <j~>>, /w/ as non-syllabic <u^~(>, /H/ as non-syllabic
<u:^~(>, etc.

  If hope I didn't leave out to much and didn't make many mistakes.

Addendum: In FU morphology, capitals are used to denote the vowel
of the suffixes that changes according to vowel harmony. Usually
the back variant is chosen as common form, e.f. Finnish -ssA =
-ssa/-ssä 'in', Hungarian -tOk = -tok/-tek/-tök '2pl marker'.

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