There are 10 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. NATLANG: Hausa
From: Anthony Miles
2a. Re: TAKE - revision now includes pronouns
From: Lars Finsen
3. 30-Day Conlang: Day Sixteen
From: Gary Shannon
4a. Re: IPA question -- unvoiced vowel
From: John Vertical
4b. Re: IPA question -- unvoiced vowel
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
4c. Re: IPA question -- unvoiced vowel
From: Eric Christopherson
5a. affricates yielding /j/ ?
From: Matthew Boutilier
5b. Re: affricates yielding /j/ ?
From: Dirk Elzinga
6. Re: tonogenesis & /ts`/ > /j/
From: Alex Fink
7. More on Latin by the Road Less Travelled
From: Peter Bleackley
Messages
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1. NATLANG: Hausa
Posted by: "Anthony Miles" mamercu...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Nov 16, 2010 9:54 am ((PST))
Has anybody on the list had experience with Hausa? I'm thinking of using it as
the new model for my (formerly Chinese-inspired) Romlang. Specifically, the
development of the tones (individual origin and smearing) and the ejectives
and implosives interest me. I already own a Hausa book so it would be the
most economical choice of African languages.
Messages in this topic (1)
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2a. Re: TAKE - revision now includes pronouns
Posted by: "Lars Finsen" lars.fin...@ortygia.no
Date: Tue Nov 16, 2010 11:12 am ((PST))
Den 16. nov. 2010 kl. 08.30 skreiv R A Brown:
> As I think a few have noticed, TAKE is being revised to make more
> strictly _ancient_ Greek without inflexions, and to move away from
> the 'pidginization' that was creeping into the original version.
So the aim of TAKE now is to make something that could function as an
auxlang and/or traveller's aid in the hellenistic world? Fine, I can
buy that.
:-) LEF
Messages in this topic (3)
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3. 30-Day Conlang: Day Sixteen
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Nov 16, 2010 11:57 am ((PST))
Nothing really exciting has happened in the last 24 hours. Another 100
words or so were translated. Only 13 words were added to the lexicon.
It's getting to the point where a lot more of the words I need in a
given translation are already in the dictionary.
A day past the halfway point and I have 1719 words out of 2198, or 78%
of the original text translated. The dictionary now contains 388
conlang words and 922 English words.
--gary
Messages in this topic (1)
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4a. Re: IPA question -- unvoiced vowel
Posted by: "John Vertical" johnverti...@hotmail.com
Date: Tue Nov 16, 2010 12:45 pm ((PST))
>>> Traditionally, Japanese does something similar with /i/ and /u/ in
>>> certain positions, though it's allophonic, not phonemic. And in speech
>>> they frequently get dropped altogether.
>>>
>>> And /o/ in certain contexts as well. I've heard " Kyot' " for Kyoto.
>>> "beddo" drops "o" for "bed"
>>
>>>Interesting, I've never really noticed that. Is short /o/ just
>>>dropping word-finally, or is it getting devoiced?
>>
>> The term "dropping" makes me a little squeamish, but I guess that's
what's going on. /i/ and /u/ in Japanese are unrounded, which may lend them
to getting "whispered" (your "devoiced"), and eventually dropped. /o/,
rounded, is not whispered, so it must be dropped. Maybe what I'm describing
is limited to the "t" row of the chart? Notice that "Kyooto" has the long
vowel up front, and "beddo" has the geminate consonant (though voiced
geminate consonants do not occur in native Japanese words, to my knowledge).
And those are the only two examples that come to mind (though maybe, if you
wanted to describe a lipstick or nail polish as an exotic-sounding, some
shade of "reddo", a similar phenomenon would occur).
>
>I suppose it could be just with the /t/ column, but that seems odd to
>me. Voicelessness in Japanese is usually triggered by adjacent
>unvoiced consonants. Maybe the non-native geminate /d:/ is felt as
>being partly voiceless?
Or speakers are simply (re-)loaning the words as /bed(:)/ and /red(:)/, with
no final vowel at all. It's an interesting question to what extent the
epenthetic devoiced /u/ of loans really exists. I suspect the "voiceless
vowel" analysis is hung on to partly because otherwise consonant clusters
would have to be analyzed for nativ words as well.
John Vertical
Messages in this topic (12)
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4b. Re: IPA question -- unvoiced vowel
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Nov 16, 2010 1:57 pm ((PST))
On 16 November 2010 21:42, John Vertical <johnverti...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Or speakers are simply (re-)loaning the words as /bed(:)/ and /red(:)/,
> with
> no final vowel at all. It's an interesting question to what extent the
> epenthetic devoiced /u/ of loans really exists.
Mmm... I listen to spoken Japanese nearly everyday, and I can tell you the
devoiced /u/ really exists. Not every speaker uses it as strongly as the
other, but for most speakers it is present, even if sometimes ultrashort.
Only in familiar pronunciations of "desu" or "-masu" the final /u/ is
sometimes really removed (with compensatory lengthening of the previous
/s/). Its presence is always felt in the rhythm of the language in any case
(as it forms a mora).
As for the added "o" of "beddo", I must say I've never heard that loanword
pronounced without it. In fact, in all the loanwords (or ad hoc
pronunciation of foreign words) that I've heard that use "o" as epenthetic
vowel (indeed, normally only words that have a /t/ or /d/ as coda), that /o/
id usually quite strong. Stronger than the unvoiced "u", in any case.
> I suspect the "voiceless
> vowel" analysis is hung on to partly because otherwise consonant clusters
> would have to be analyzed for nativ words as well.
>
>
In my experience, the "voiceless vowel" analysis is hung on because it's
really there.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (12)
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4c. Re: IPA question -- unvoiced vowel
Posted by: "Eric Christopherson" ra...@charter.net
Date: Tue Nov 16, 2010 11:15 pm ((PST))
On Nov 15, 2010, at 6:49 PM, Douglas Koller wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Garth Wallace" <gwa...@gmail.com>
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 5:00:13 PM
> Subject: Re: IPA question -- unvoiced vowel
>
> On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 12:21 PM, Douglas Koller <lao...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Garth Wallace" <gwa...@gmail.com>
>> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
>> Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 2:31:07 PM
>> Subject: Re: IPA question -- unvoiced vowel
>>
>> Traditionally, Japanese does something similar with /i/ and /u/ in
>> certain positions, though it's allophonic, not phonemic. And in speech
>> they frequently get dropped altogether.
>>
>> And /o/ in certain contexts as well. I've heard " Kyot' " for Kyoto.
>> "beddo" drops "o" for "bed"
>
>> Interesting, I've never really noticed that. Is short /o/ just
>> dropping word-finally, or is it getting devoiced?
>
> The term "dropping" makes me a little squeamish, but I guess that's what's
> going on. /i/ and /u/ in Japanese are unrounded, which may lend them to
> getting "whispered" (your "devoiced"), and eventually dropped. /o/, rounded,
> is not whispered, so it must be dropped. Maybe what I'm describing is limited
> to the "t" row of the chart?
A friend of mine who's a Japanese professor says he's heard people pronounce
Marlon Brando's last name as something like [bu4and]. His stance is that the
dropping of the -o is a hypercorrection based on the speakers' knowledge that
Japanese -/do/ corresponds to -/d/ in English.
> Notice that "Kyooto" has the long vowel up front, and "beddo" has the
> geminate consonant (though voiced geminate consonants do not occur in native
> Japanese words, to my knowledge). And those are the only two examples that
> come to mind (though maybe, if you wanted to describe a lipstick or nail
> polish as an exotic-sounding, some shade of "reddo", a similar phenomenon
> would occur).
Judging from Rosetta Stone, /ddo/ is pronounced something more like [tdo].
> Kou
Messages in this topic (12)
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5a. affricates yielding /j/ ?
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" mbout...@nd.edu
Date: Tue Nov 16, 2010 1:47 pm ((PST))
does anyone know of an example in natlangs where some voiceless affricate
(e.g. /tS/ or /ts`/) becomes the approximant /j/?
it seems likely enough. in bahraini arabic there is the voiced counterpart:
/dZ/ is spoken as [j]. but in a conlang i'm working on i really want a
sound change wherein retroflex /ts`/ goes to /j/. is the palato-alveolar
/tS/ situation substantially different from retroflex that if the former
yields /j/ the latter might not?
i have other retroflex consonants (e.g. the sibilant /z`/) that i do not
want to be affected, so that /ts`/ sort of drifts off on its own.
thanks!
matt
Messages in this topic (2)
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5b. Re: affricates yielding /j/ ?
Posted by: "Dirk Elzinga" dirk.elzi...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Nov 16, 2010 6:08 pm ((PST))
There is a regular sound correspondence in Uto-Aztecan which relates VcV in
the Southern UA languages to V(y)V in the Northern languages (c = /ts/, y =
/j/). I have cognate sets if you're interested.
On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 2:43 PM, Matthew Boutilier <mbout...@nd.edu> wrote:
> does anyone know of an example in natlangs where some voiceless affricate
> (e.g. /tS/ or /ts`/) becomes the approximant /j/?
> it seems likely enough. in bahraini arabic there is the voiced
> counterpart:
> /dZ/ is spoken as [j]. but in a conlang i'm working on i really want a
> sound change wherein retroflex /ts`/ goes to /j/. is the palato-alveolar
> /tS/ situation substantially different from retroflex that if the former
> yields /j/ the latter might not?
> i have other retroflex consonants (e.g. the sibilant /z`/) that i do not
> want to be affected, so that /ts`/ sort of drifts off on its own.
>
> thanks!
>
> matt
>
Messages in this topic (2)
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6. Re: tonogenesis & /ts`/ > /j/
Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Nov 16, 2010 2:49 pm ((PST))
On Mon, 15 Nov 2010 17:55:11 -0500, Matthew Boutilier <mbout...@nd.edu> wrote:
>forget everything i just said. what about the following:
>
>V: VCV VCV:
>
>V_HH VCV VCV_HH long vowel > high/long vowel
>
>V_H VCV VCV_H long vowel > short vowel (vowel
>length not phonemic)
>
>V_H V_HL C V_LH C syncope: a vowel preceding a
>syncopated vowel gets HL tone UNLESS syncopated vowel is H, in which case
>vowel preceding it gets LH
>
>basically, i scrapped the diphthongs altogether, realizing that i only put
>them in there to (unsuccessfully) account for V_LH in the first place.
>
>does this make sense??
I think so (for what it's worth; don't take me as an expert on this or
anything).
What happens in *V:CV(:), when the second vowel is syncopated? Is the high
tone from V: just lost? Or does e.g. V:CV: maybe just yield V_H(H) C?
On Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:43:20 -0500, Matthew Boutilier <mbout...@nd.edu> wrote:
>does anyone know of an example in natlangs where some voiceless affricate
>(e.g. /tS/ or /ts`/) becomes the approximant /j/?
>it seems likely enough. in bahraini arabic there is the voiced counterpart:
>/dZ/ is spoken as [j]. but in a conlang i'm working on i really want a
>sound change wherein retroflex /ts`/ goes to /j/. is the palato-alveolar
>/tS/ situation substantially different from retroflex that if the former
>yields /j/ the latter might not?
>i have other retroflex consonants (e.g. the sibilant /z`/) that i do not
>want to be affected, so that /ts`/ sort of drifts off on its own.
What's the rest of the inventory like? I think obtaining the spontaneous
voicing is the crux of this, and how that's most natural to do depends I
think on what else is around. Other than that, affricates fricate all the
time, and [dz`] > [z`] > [Z] > [j] would be totally routine.
I'm no expert on the history of Arabic, but mind that Modern Standard Arabic
is not the direct ancestor of the other varieties. In Classical Arabic I
thought jiim was supposed to be [g_j] or [J\], which is already palatal and
so closer to [j] than [dZ] would be.
Alex
Messages in this topic (1)
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7. More on Latin by the Road Less Travelled
Posted by: "Peter Bleackley" peter.bleack...@rd.bbc.co.uk
Date: Wed Nov 17, 2010 2:57 am ((PST))
I've put some more stuff about my incorporating, marked nominative
Romlang on http://fantasticaldevices.wordpress.com/
Messages in this topic (1)
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