Re: CONLANG Digest - 30 Oct 2000 to 31 Oct 2000 (#2000-298)

John Cowan sikayal:

> jesse stephen bangs wrote:
>
> > Actually, the orthography was changed a little while ago.  Now, <â> is the
> > standard spelling, with <î> used only in the personal pronouns (îmi,
> > îti, îi), the preposition în, compounds that begin with în-, and those few
> > verbs that have î as the thematic vowel.
>
> Gross.  That means that you have to remember that â patterns with front
> vowels, a with back vowels (e.g. in the interpretation of a preceding c or g).
> Or am I misremembering, and î patterned with back vowels already?
You misremember, if you're saying that <c g> are [tS dZ] before <î>
(or <â>).  <cât> is [k1t], not [tS1t], so in that sense the new
orthography makes it easier to remember.  However, the vowels /1 @/ often
alternate with the front vowels: /sf1nt ~ sfintsj/, /v@d vezj/.

I'm doing my Ling paper right now on Romanian vocalic alternations, so my
mind is brimming with diphthongization, centralization, lowering, etc.

>
> --
> There is / one art                   || John Cowan <jcowan@...>
> no more / no less                    || http://www.reutershealth.com
> to do / all things                   || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
> with art- / lessness                 \\ -- Piet Hein
>
Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
"It is of the new things that men tire--of fashions and proposals and
improvements and change.  It is the old things that startle and
intoxicate.  It is the old things that are young."
-G.K. Chesterton _The Napoleon of Notting Hill_