Re: Open questions on Chevraqis

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:

>I've switched the transliteration so "sj" [S] is now "sz" and "ch" [tS] is
>now "cz" for consistency.  I even debated changing "j" [dZ] to "dz" but am
>worried that yet another z would be confusing.
D'oh! I knew that. Good to know I've been pronouncing
Czevraqis correctly (in my head) all this time tho. :)

> > The other question concerns the pitch-accent and the
> > stress. "Accents work like trochées, counting from the
> > back, for an uninflected form, e.g. MIhara, AbRIoren."
> > Is this the same as stressing the antepenultimate,
> > i.e. third-to-last, or are there occasions when it's
> > not the same?
>You know, originally I figured two-syllable words would have an accent too,
>falling on the first syllable.
Oops. I should've thought of that.

>However, when I tried speaking the language (what little existed of it) it
>sounded terribly monotonous.  So I'm rethinking that.
So actually, what you have is a "stress the first syllable"
rule? IMHO, that's what makes Finnish sound bad, (while
Quenya sounds marvellous with practically the same phonotax).

I understand what you mean by "monotonous".

>My idea was that (as in Korean? and Japanese) the accented syllable has
>higher pitch.  I didn't actually conceive of anything more complex.  The
>rules for Japanese, if I understand the !@#$ thing correctly, are actually
>a bit more complicated than that, but I knew nothing formally about
>pitch-accent when I had the idea.  :-/  I suppose that, as with Korean,
>loudness would tend more to convey emotion.  This is another area I'm going
>to have to rethink.
Aha. Okay then.

><rueful look>  How do all you people do it?  :-)
As for Cein, first I just had a general rule to stress
the final syllable (louder and higher). Then I read
about the Welsh stress where the penultimate is stressed
but the last syllable receives a higher pitch, making
it sound (to the untrained ear) to have final stress.
This sounded cool, but I finally decided against it
anyway. So I decided only to use this to explain the
shift to final stress in Cein (from Quenya) (with the
Welsh way as intermediary).

>I have two 4000 word papers due this week and things are incredibly busy,
>but I'll squeeze more in...I feel terribly guilty now....
And here I go asking questions you really don't have time
to answer. Sorry about that. Eek. Ook. :)

||| daniel


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