There are 11 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Phonotactics Exercise
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
1b. Re: Phonotactics Exercise
From: Padraic Brown
1c. Re: Phonotactics Exercise
From: Padraic Brown
2a. Re: Hanoa?tsi (and Iroquoian) Gender
From: Adam Walker
2b. Re: Hanoa?tsi (and Iroquoian) Gender
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
2c. Re: Hanoa?tsi (and Iroquoian) Gender
From: J. Burke
3a. Re: Gender Origin and Evolution (Hanoa?tsi/Central Mountain)
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
4a. [ɢ] becomes [ɢʼ] or [ʛ] before unrounded vowels for m
From: Ben Scerri
4b. Re: [ɢ] becomes [ɢʼ] or [ʛ] before unrounded vow els f
From: Matthew Boutilier
4c. Re: [ɢ] becomes [ɢʼ] or [ʛ] before unrounded vow els
From: Ben Scerri
4d. Re: [ɢ] becomes [ɢʼ] or [ ʛ] before unrounded vow els
From: David Peterson
Messages
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1a. Re: Phonotactics Exercise
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Apr 12, 2011 6:04 am ((PDT))
On 12 April 2011 13:59, Matthew Martin <matthewdeanmar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulmonic_ingressive
>
> Icelandic has them, but it mostly just used for já, jú, nei. Swedish has
> it, and its
> more common up north and is common enough that it is considered a
> distinguishing feature of northern Swedish. Apparently, Irish, Danish, and
> Norwegian have them, too.
>
>
Some speakers have them in Dutch as well, but it's uncommon and even seen as
a bit impolite. I'm surprised to read that in other Germanic languages those
may even be considered normal :) .
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (20)
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1b. Re: Phonotactics Exercise
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:43 am ((PDT))
--- On Mon, 4/11/11, Patrick Dunn <pwd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd been durned surprised to see a
> cat do a labiodental anything. And I'm
> pretty sure a cat can't do a rounded vowel at all.
You've obviously never seen a Meow-Mix commercial -- some pretty talented
cats out there! ;)))
I think it would be very hard to say what sounds a cat could
*theoretically* produce, as opposed to sounds we know they do produce.
As far as I know, cats can not control their airway / oral / labial
muscles at will -- they can't be asked to try to do something, or to mimic
some movement. Nor do I think we know a whole lot about innervation of
what muscules they do have, so I don't think we can't really discover with
much certainty any actual ability. A computer model of a cat's skelleton
and facial musculature could provide some vague clues as to possibilities,
though. I don't think they have a very robust labial musculature, so I'm
sure rounded vowels are out.
What cats do have, though, is a long oral cavity -- I would think there
might be some space for a couple extra points of lingual articulation.
Assuming the tongue can be sufficiently controlled.
> The IPA system is designed to represent human
> language. A creature with a
> wildly different oral infrastructure is going to need a
> brand new chart, with all new descriptors.
I think a standard chart would be sufficient for most "humanoid" folks
with some minor modification.
> Which is why Klingon, as awesome as it is, is kind of
> ridiculous. An
> entirely different species evolved from crustaceans, if I
> remember my canon, with a uvula?
Crustaceans? *blink* Wow.
That has to be about the lamest ST idea I've ever heard of! And there are
some pretty lame ideas out there in the ST universe...
Padraic
> On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 7:10 PM, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 7:48 PM, Matthew Martin
> > <matthewdeanmar...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > Are there any objective criteria to say one chart
> is better
> > > than another (not talking about formatting).
> Making sure that there
> > aren't too
> > > many sounds clustered together on the chart comes
> to mind (i.e. high
> > contrast)
> >
> > That would be a good criterion for engelang design,
> but it seems out
> > of place when trying to document an existing
> language. If an actual
> > language has less contrast than you would think
> optimal for an
> > engelang, well, that's the kind of language it is.
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 8:09 PM, Ben Scerri <psykieki...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > Now, onto the phonotactics themselves... Unless
> you have syllibic
> > > consonants, many of those configurations would be
> damn hard to produce.
> >
> > Google the name of the researcher Matthew mentioned in
> his original
> > post and you'll see where the "attested words"
> apparently come from.
> >
> > --
> > Jim Henry
> > http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
> >
>
>
>
> --
> I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; garlands
> from window to
> window; golden chains from star to star, and I dance.
> --Arthur Rimbaud
>
Messages in this topic (20)
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1c. Re: Phonotactics Exercise
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:49 am ((PDT))
--- On Tue, 4/12/11, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Conception isn't possible between the two species for
> > reason 1. The
> > neurotransmitters aren't dangerous to Leyen - in fact
> > they're an essential
> > part of the fun. Sex with a human wouldn't do anything
> > for a Leyen. Also,
> > Leyen look a bit androgynous to humans - the cues they
> > use to distinguish
> > male from female are generally olfactory rather than
> > visual. Attraction is pretty unlikely to start with.
>
> Given the range of sexual fetishes humans have been known
> to entertain, I wouldn't be so sure about the "unlikely" part.
Indeed! I could envision a certain excitement some humans might experience
when confronted with the possibility of paralysis or death. Perhaps a
certain discerning conniseur of alien relations might be interested in
such a liaison. Maybe for a price?
Padraic
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
Messages in this topic (20)
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2a. Re: Hanoa?tsi (and Iroquoian) Gender
Posted by: "Adam Walker" carra...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Apr 12, 2011 6:55 am ((PDT))
I'm sure it works just fine for the speakers of those languages, but from
the perspective of an outsider -- that's just plain weird! And what about
malevolent "male" spirits, or does their cosmology not include such? Does
malevolent automatically equate with female?
Adam
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 11:36 PM, J. Burke <rtoen...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> A couple of you asked about Iroquoian genders a couple weeks back. My
> conlang Hanoa?tsi develops genders very similiar to those of Mohawk, so the
> list of typical Hanoa?tsi gender referents below can apply just as readily
> to Mohawk/Iroquoian as to it, for those who are interested. The language
> (like Mohawk) has four semantic genders (masculine, feminine, neuter,
> indefinite) that are expressed morphologically by only three sets of
> prefixes (for singular, dual and plural numbers); the prefixes fall into
> three morphological classes: masculine, feminine/indefinite and
> feminine/neuter. Aside from the masculine (which is its "own world," so to
> speak, and more firm in its semantics), the meanings of the three sets of
> prefixes are just general inclinations and vague associations, as opposed to
> hard-and-fast categories. There's a lot of room to play around
> semantically and rhetorically (some examples of which are shown below).
>
>
> Masculine
>
> * Male human beings
>
> * Male animals
>
> * Spiritual or other entities that are ontologically comparable to either
> of the above and can be understood as male
>
>
> Feminine/Indefinite
>
> Feminine
>
> * Female human beings who are regarded with prestige or in a
> respectful way by the speaker (high or powerful women, e.g., or
> older women, especially women older than the speaker)
>
> * Female human beings for whom the speaker has feelings of
> affection or closeness (a wife or sister, e.g.)
>
> * Good or helpful spiritual or other entities that are
> ontologically comparable to female human beings and can be
> understood as female
>
>
> Indefinite
>
> * Unidentified human beings whose sex is unknown, deliberately
> withheld or concealed, or not considered to be relevant
>
> * Generalized persons ('one', 'someone', 'they', e.g.)
>
>
> Feminine/Neuter
>
> Feminine
>
> * Female animals or animals of unknown or unspecified sex
>
> * Female human beings who do not fall under the feminine
> category of the feminine/indefinite gender as described above
>
> * Female human beings which the speaker regards with contempt,
> disdain or other negative feelings ('beastly woman' or 'bitch',
> e.g.)
>
> * Bad or harmful spiritual or other entities that are
> ontologically comparable to female human beings and can be
> understood as female
>
>
> Neuter
>
> * Non-living or inanimate objects
>
> * Trees, plants and most insects
>
Messages in this topic (4)
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2b. Re: Hanoa?tsi (and Iroquoian) Gender
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:17 am ((PDT))
On 12 April 2011 15:52, Adam Walker <carra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm sure it works just fine for the speakers of those languages, but from
> the perspective of an outsider -- that's just plain weird! And what about
> malevolent "male" spirits, or does their cosmology not include such? Does
> malevolent automatically equate with female?
>
>
I'd expect rather than malevolent "male" spirits are not separately marked
from benevolent "male" spirit because masculinity itself is considered more
marked, i.e. more relevant than attitude.
This gender system strikes me as a system where masculinity is strongly
marked, unlike most Indo-European languages where masculine is the unmarked
gender. Having a feminine gender split into a "high kind" and a "low kind",
but not the masculine gender, then makes sense: the feminine gender is
unmarked, "expected", so other considerations become more relevant than the
gender itself, while nothing is more relevant than "maleness".
> Adam
>
> On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 11:36 PM, J. Burke <rtoen...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > A couple of you asked about Iroquoian genders a couple weeks back. My
> > conlang Hanoa?tsi develops genders very similiar to those of Mohawk, so
> the
> > list of typical Hanoa?tsi gender referents below can apply just as
> readily
> > to Mohawk/Iroquoian as to it, for those who are interested. The language
> > (like Mohawk) has four semantic genders (masculine, feminine, neuter,
> > indefinite) that are expressed morphologically by only three sets of
> > prefixes (for singular, dual and plural numbers); the prefixes fall into
> > three morphological classes: masculine, feminine/indefinite and
> > feminine/neuter. Aside from the masculine (which is its "own world," so
> to
> > speak, and more firm in its semantics), the meanings of the three sets of
> > prefixes are just general inclinations and vague associations, as opposed
> to
> > hard-and-fast categories. There's a lot of room to play around
> > semantically and rhetorically (some examples of which are shown below).
> >
> >
> > Masculine
> >
> > * Male human beings
> >
> > * Male animals
> >
> > * Spiritual or other entities that are ontologically comparable to either
> > of the above and can be understood as male
> >
> >
> > Feminine/Indefinite
> >
> > Feminine
> >
> > * Female human beings who are regarded with prestige or in a
> > respectful way by the speaker (high or powerful women, e.g., or
> > older women, especially women older than the speaker)
> >
> > * Female human beings for whom the speaker has feelings of
> > affection or closeness (a wife or sister, e.g.)
> >
> > * Good or helpful spiritual or other entities that are
> > ontologically comparable to female human beings and can be
> > understood as female
> >
> >
> > Indefinite
> >
> > * Unidentified human beings whose sex is unknown, deliberately
> > withheld or concealed, or not considered to be relevant
> >
> > * Generalized persons ('one', 'someone', 'they', e.g.)
> >
> >
> > Feminine/Neuter
> >
> > Feminine
> >
> > * Female animals or animals of unknown or unspecified sex
> >
> > * Female human beings who do not fall under the feminine
> > category of the feminine/indefinite gender as described above
> >
> > * Female human beings which the speaker regards with contempt,
> > disdain or other negative feelings ('beastly woman' or 'bitch',
> > e.g.)
> >
> > * Bad or harmful spiritual or other entities that are
> > ontologically comparable to female human beings and can be
> > understood as female
> >
> >
> > Neuter
> >
> > * Non-living or inanimate objects
> >
> > * Trees, plants and most insects
> >
>
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (4)
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2c. Re: Hanoa?tsi (and Iroquoian) Gender
Posted by: "J. Burke" rtoen...@yahoo.com
Date: Tue Apr 12, 2011 11:02 am ((PDT))
It seemed weird to me, too, years ago, but I've since come to appreciate it; it
at least makes more sense to me than does the randomness and arbitrariness of
SAE gender.
This kind of high strangeness is the rule for many languages; consider, e.g.,
Bloomfield's account of Algonquian animacy:
"Nouns are in two gender classes, inanimate and animate; the latter includes
all persons, animals, spirits, and large trees, and some other objects, such as
tobacco, maize, apple, raspberry (but not strawberry), calf of leg (but not
thigh), stomach, spittle, feather, bird's tail, horn, kettle, pipe for smoking,
snowshoe."
Of course, it's been argued that animacy is related to spiritual power and
religious/social importance, so it can be understood as making some kind of
semantic sense to Algonquian speakers. But to an English speaker, who would
never consider stomachs or horns to be alive or animate in any sense, it's very
weird.
Malevolent male spirits are expressible; they're just not grammaticalized in
the gender system.
>This gender system strikes me as a system where masculinity is strongly
>marked, unlike most Indo-European languages where masculine is the >unmarked
>gender. Having a feminine gender split into a "high kind" and a "low >kind",
>but not the masculine gender, then makes sense: the feminine gender is
>unmarked, "expected", so other considerations become more relevant than >the
>gender itself, while nothing is more relevant than "maleness".
Yeah, you're on the right track with that analysis. The feminine split into
"high" and "low" occurred, probably, due to the nature of women in Iroquoian
society. Women traditionally were very powerful in Iroquoian culture, so it
makes sense that they'd develop a quick, easy means of showing respect to the
powerful ones (rather like some IE languages have formal and informal second
persons--it's a similar idea, but applied to the third person). But at the
same time there were rigid expectations of women among the Iroquois; if you
were too aggressive, e.g., you were viewed as patently un-female (and even
today there's a subtle physical component of the feminine/neuter gender in
Mohawk, when used to refer to women; a physically and/or sexually aggressive
woman runs the risk of being referred to by the feminine/neuter, which can be
the equivalent of 'bitch' in our culture; that gender also has some zooic
associations, as it's used to refer to animals of
unknown/unspecified sex, and this association feeds back onto women referred
to by the gender).
Messages in this topic (4)
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3a. Re: Gender Origin and Evolution (Hanoa?tsi/Central Mountain)
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" joerg_rhieme...@web.de
Date: Tue Apr 12, 2011 1:02 pm ((PDT))
Hallo conlangers!
On Mon, 11 Apr 2011 22:50:29 -0700, J. Burke wrote:
> After making my most recent post, I thought that perhaps some might be
> interested in seeing how a gender system such as that of Hano?tsi or Mohawk
> originates. Below is a (fairly rough) description of the evolution of the
> Hanoa?tsi system, inspired to some degree by Iroquoian.
>
> To preface it, a little background: Hanoa?tsi is one of the descendants of
> my (better-known) conlang Noyahtowa. Noyahtowa has five persons (first,
> second, third, fourth or obviative, fifth or farther obviative), two numbers
> (singular, plural), inclusive and exclusive plural first person, animate and
> inanimate nominal categories, and an indefinite. Animate and inanimate are
> not living and non-living as we consider them; rather, they're related to
> spiritual power or importance (as in Algonquian); thus, e.g., a sacred pipe
> or medicine bundle may be animate.
Nice and interesting. I also have an animate/inanimate distinction
in my conlang Old Albic, and there too are some things which are
grammatically animate even though they aren't living beings, but I
haven't found out much of what they are. (The whole Old Albic
lexicon requires more work yet.)
> The Noyahtowa verb agreement system marks both subject and object and
> is active alignment: intransitive participants are designated as agents (and
> marked with so-called "subjective" finals/pronominals) when they initiate
> and/or control the action, and as patients or undergoers (and are marked
> with so-called "objective" finals/pronominals) when they don't. Objective
> suffixes appear on the finals/pronominals when the intransitive participant
> is a patient.
Sure. Quite common in North America, those beasts. I also have it
in Old Albic (even though the language is set in Europe).
> The passage below discusses the evolution of the pronominal system from
> Noyahtowa to Hanoa?tsi. The context is the reshaping of the language's
> inflectional system in the wake of a number of very destructive sound
> changes (such as the loss of voiceless vowels) that chopped off and merged
> many of the personal endings (finals) on the verbs. I always imagined that
> between the destruction of the old inflectional system and the development
> of this new one that separate pronoun words became common to disambiguate
> (whose use, of course, receded with the implementation of the new system);
> formerly, separate pronoun words served largely empatic functions.
Sure. When a vital distinction collapses due to sound change,
some kind of replacement has to be developed.
> (A reference is made below to "pPCM," which is pre-Proto-Central Mountain,
> the ultimate ancestor of all my Central Mountain languages, the family of
> which Noyahtowa and Hanoa?tsi are members; it's an internally reconstructed
> language which, owing to that fact, is more agglutinating and regular than
> any natural language has a right to be; it's pure CV in form, with no vowel
> length and only the most basic sounds.)
As reconstructed languages tend to be, especially internally
reconstructed ones.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Both the pronominal system of Hanoa?tsi (H) and the means by which
> pronominal ideas are expressed are radically altered from post-Classical
> Noyahtowa (pCN). First, pronominal marking by suffixes (finals) is
> abandoned, and a new set of pronominal prefixes are innovated to replace the
> finals. The basic components from which these prefixes are built are (save
> in a single case, the masculine, as described below) drawn from the old
> intransitive objective finals, thus:
>
> -γ˜ã- first person
> -ya- exclusivity
> -ž˜ẽ- inclusivity
> -wa- second person
> -nã- third person animate
> -hʔə- third person inanimate
How do these finals end becoming prefixes? Perhaps a kind of copula
that is prefixed to the verb and then eroded by sound changes, as in
COP-S VERB-S > COP-S-VERB-S > S-VERB ?
> Additionally, the element -ʔã- was drawn from the old third person animate
> plural intransitive objective final, where it was interpreted as a
> pluralizer; and the elements -ł- and -š- were drawn from the old
> intransitive objective finals where they functioned as objective suffixes.
> The latter element was made the objective suffix for inanimate third
> persons, while the former was made the objective suffix for all other
> persons, following the patterns present in the old intransitive objective
> finals.
What are the functions of -ł- and -š- in Noyahtowa? I guess they
are connected to animacy, if that is how they are used in Hanoa?tsi.
> The obviative, farther obviative and indefinite are lost in H; but the
> singular vs. plural distinction of number becomes augmented by a third
> number, the dual (=D), which refers specifically to two persons or things,
> while the plural comes to refer to three or more persons or things. The
> element -ʔã- could mark either the dual or plural number: when it preceded
> the element for person or clusivity, it functioned as a pluralizer (in
> keeping with the pattern in the old third person animate plural intransitive
> objective final, where -ʔã- preceded -nã-, with the latter marking the third
> person animate); when -ʔã- followed the element for person or clusivity,
> however, it functioned as a dualizer.
This sounds weird to me. The same element as dual or plural marker,
depending on whether it precedes or follows the person marker? Not
impossible, but weird. Is there a natlang precedent for that?
> The new pronominal prefixes were built up on this template:
>
> plurality + person or clusivity + duality
>
> The element -γ˜ã- marking first person is omitted from the non-singular
> (dual and plural) first person forms; since there are elements that
> specifically mark exclusivity and inclusivity, and these distinctions only
> exist in the non-singular first person, the presence of -γ˜ã- in those forms
> was redundant and therefore unnecessary.
I see. I could imagine *-γ˜ã-ya- and *-γ˜ã-ž˜ẽ- losing the -γ˜ã-
element, perhaps due to some sound change; and as the category of
clusivity is found only in the first person, no replacement for the
lost 1st person element is necessary. A nice way to arrive at
irregular 1st person plurals.
> The new intransitive pronominal prefixes are thus:
>
> [paradigms snipped]
>
> Among the intransitive objective forms above, the objective suffixes (which
> immediately follow the subjective prefixes) -ł- and -š- appear as -la- and
> -ž˜ã-, respectively. The reason for this is thus: in keeping with the
> principles of word-formation, a connective vowel -a- was inserted between
> the (originally) consonant-final intransitive objective prefixes and a
> following element, and this connective became analyzed as part of the
> intransitive objective prefixes. Further, ł is voiced to l and š voiced and
> nasalized to ž˜ by virtue of the phonological rules governing intervocal
> obstruents present in the language at the time; likewise, the nasalization
> of the connective -a- to ã in the third person inanimate forms, and the
> nasalization of ə to ə˜ in the singular and plural third person inanimate
> forms follows from phonological rules governing vowel nasalization.
So far, so good.
> Into the foregoing pronominal system was introduced the masculine gender
> (=M) (see below for a description of typical gender referents). The
> phonological element marking the masculine was -sẽž˜ə˜-, from an initial of
> the same form that had originally meant 'customary, ordinary, plain' (pPCM
> stem sasʊŋɔmɩ-, a detransitivized and stative derivative of the complex
> unproductive initial -saŋɔmɩ- 'become accustomed to someone/something'), but
> which had come to mean 'human being, person';
An interesting semantic shift. Perhaps via the intermediate step
'mortal' (as opposed to immortal higher beings)? 'Ordinary' >
'mortal' makes sense, and 'mortal' > 'human' is attested in several
Indo-European languages (e.g., Persian).
> with the introduction of the masculine gender, this initial came to
> refer specifically to male human beings.
Has happened in many languages.
> Three further pronominal prefixes were innovated containing the
> masculine element (singular, dual, plural), on the model of the third person
> animate prefixes. Co-occuring with this development, the long-established
> distinction of animacy faded from the language; the inanimate third person
> forms came to express a neuter gender category (=N), while the
> animate third person forms came to express an indefinite gender (=I),
>From the lists of referents you give below, I conclude that the
neuter gender roughly compares to the Old Albic inanimate, while
the indefinite compares to the Old Albic common gender (Old Albic
subdivides animate into masculine (male beings), feminine (female
beings) and common (beings of generic sex, sexless beings,
collective entities, etc.)).
> filling the semantic hole that resulted from the previous loss of the
> indefinite pronominal. The addition of the masculine, neuter and indefinite
> dimensions to the language created a semantic hole for referring to the
> feminine (=F). This hole was filled by using both of the original third
> person prefixes (for animate and inanimate third persons, which by now
> encompassed indefinite and neuter genders, respectively) to refer to the
> feminine, with each prefix holding distinct connotations and having distinct
> uses in that capacity, in addition to and alongside of their indefinite and
> neuter meanings and uses; this re-analysis occured such that the indefinite
> gender (originally animate third person) became a feminine/indefinite gender
> and the neuter gender (originally inanimate third person) became a
> feminine/neuter gender. Thus, the four semantic gender distinctions of the
> language (masculine, feminine, neuter, indefinite) are expressed
> morphologically by only three sets of third person prefixes; those prefixes
> are thus:
>
> [paradigms snipped]
>
> Among the third person masculine forms, the masculine element -sẽž˜ə˜-
> appears as -z˜ẽž˜ə˜- in the third person plural masculine prefixes
> (subjective and objective); the s there is voiced and nasalized to z˜ by
> virtue of the phonological rules governing intervocal obstruents present in
> the language at the time.
>
> Transitive pronominal prefixes, which express the co-occurence of an agent
> and patient, consist of the intransitive subjective prefixes agglutinated,
> thus:
>
> agent + patient
Is it a typological rule that patient markers are placed closer
to the verb stem than agent markers? I dimly remember such a rule
from somewhere, and follow it in Old Albic (where the patient
marker precedes the agent marker because they are suffixed).
> In all transitives, there is an inherent third person singular
> feminine/indefinite patient (originally an inherent third person singular
> animate patient); in such cases, the patient is not overtly expressed, and
> thus the element expressing third person singular feminine/indefinite never
> appears in the patient position of a transitive prefix (only when a third
> person feminine/indefinite participant is dual or plural is it overtly
> expressed in a transitive prefix). This inherent patient common to all
> transitives is changed or overridden by the presence of an element
> expressing some other, different pronominal category combination in the
> patient posistion of the transitive prefix.
Old Albic has no inherent "default" patient in transitives; leaving
the slot empty detransitivizes the verb (functionally an antipassive;
a functional passive is formed by leaving the agent slot empty).
Does your language have a morphological antipassive?
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
Messages in this topic (2)
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4a. [ɢ] becomes [ɢʼ] or [ʛ] before unrounded vowels for m
Posted by: "Ben Scerri" psykieki...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:58 pm ((PDT))
Greetings all,
I have a problem in that when I attempt to pronounce [ɢ], it becomes [ɢʼ] or
[ʛ] (I can't really tell which one, as it is sort of between them? I'm not
sure...) before unrounded vowels for me.
This wouldn't normally be a problem, but I want to be able to use this sound
as part of my Linguistics course (and conlanging) so I should be able to
produce it... Does anyone know how I can fix this problem?
Thank you.
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
4b. Re: [ɢ] becomes [ɢʼ] or [ʛ] before unrounded vow els f
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" mbout...@nd.edu
Date: Tue Apr 12, 2011 10:27 pm ((PDT))
so you want to make a voiced uvular stop, and can't help but either
glottalize it or make it ingressive (if i remember that diacritic
correctly)?
can you make a [q]? just practice the voiced/voiceless distinction with
[t]~[d], [p]~[b], etc until you have a good command of how to turn your
vocal cords on and off, so to speak. then use the analogy [G] : [q] :: [k]
: [g] ; uvulars are not too much further back than velars.
otherwise i'd suggest learning to glottalize [d'] and [b'] etc, so you're
able to turn this feature on and off.
matt
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 11:55 PM, Ben Scerri <psykieki...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Greetings all,
>
> I have a problem in that when I attempt to pronounce [ɢ], it becomes [ɢʼ]
> or
> [ʛ] (I can't really tell which one, as it is sort of between them? I'm not
> sure...) before unrounded vowels for me.
>
> This wouldn't normally be a problem, but I want to be able to use this
> sound
> as part of my Linguistics course (and conlanging) so I should be able to
> produce it... Does anyone know how I can fix this problem?
>
> Thank you.
>
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
4c. Re: [ɢ] becomes [ɢʼ] or [ʛ] before unrounded vow els
Posted by: "Ben Scerri" psykieki...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Apr 12, 2011 10:30 pm ((PDT))
The odd thing is, I can do [G] naturally by itself (or, technically with a
schwa), but when I put it on an unrounded vowel, specifically [i], it
becomes ejective... This makes no sense to me. I don't get this problem with
[q] however.
On 13 April 2011 15:24, Matthew Boutilier <mbout...@nd.edu> wrote:
> so you want to make a voiced uvular stop, and can't help but either
> glottalize it or make it ingressive (if i remember that diacritic
> correctly)?
>
> can you make a [q]? just practice the voiced/voiceless distinction with
> [t]~[d], [p]~[b], etc until you have a good command of how to turn your
> vocal cords on and off, so to speak. then use the analogy [G] : [q] :: [k]
> : [g] ; uvulars are not too much further back than velars.
>
> otherwise i'd suggest learning to glottalize [d'] and [b'] etc, so you're
> able to turn this feature on and off.
>
> matt
>
> On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 11:55 PM, Ben Scerri <psykieki...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Greetings all,
> >
> > I have a problem in that when I attempt to pronounce [ɢ], it becomes [ɢʼ]
> > or
> > [ʛ] (I can't really tell which one, as it is sort of between them? I'm
> not
> > sure...) before unrounded vowels for me.
> >
> > This wouldn't normally be a problem, but I want to be able to use this
> > sound
> > as part of my Linguistics course (and conlanging) so I should be able to
> > produce it... Does anyone know how I can fix this problem?
> >
> > Thank you.
> >
>
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
4d. Re: [ɢ] becomes [ɢʼ] or [ ʛ] before unrounded vow els
Posted by: "David Peterson" deda...@gmail.com
Date: Wed Apr 13, 2011 2:28 am ((PDT))
Try pronouncing a schwa first, so your vowel is kind of like [əi]. Thing is,
with a uvular consonant, your tongue can't get to the place it needs to to form
a pure [i] in time, and so some sort of repair strategy takes place. In your
case, you appear to be breaking off the consonant before getting to the vowel.
In Arabic, though, for example, all vowels change after an emphatic consonant
(uvular, pharyngeal or pharyngealized). In particular, they lower. This kind of
happens naturally in speech. It doesn't mean it's impossible, though. Start
with [ɢəi], work with it, and as you get comfortable, start trying to elide
that schwa little by little. You'll get it.
David Peterson
LCS President
l...@conlang.org
www.conlang.org
On Apr 12, 2011, at 10◊28 PM, Ben Scerri wrote:
> The odd thing is, I can do [G] naturally by itself (or, technically with a
> schwa), but when I put it on an unrounded vowel, specifically [i], it
> becomes ejective... This makes no sense to me. I don't get this problem with
> [q] however.
>
> On 13 April 2011 15:24, Matthew Boutilier <mbout...@nd.edu> wrote:
>
>> so you want to make a voiced uvular stop, and can't help but either
>> glottalize it or make it ingressive (if i remember that diacritic
>> correctly)?
>>
>> can you make a [q]? just practice the voiced/voiceless distinction with
>> [t]~[d], [p]~[b], etc until you have a good command of how to turn your
>> vocal cords on and off, so to speak. then use the analogy [G] : [q] :: [k]
>> : [g] ; uvulars are not too much further back than velars.
>>
>> otherwise i'd suggest learning to glottalize [d'] and [b'] etc, so you're
>> able to turn this feature on and off.
>>
>> matt
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 11:55 PM, Ben Scerri <psykieki...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Greetings all,
>>>
>>> I have a problem in that when I attempt to pronounce [ɢ], it becomes [ɢʼ]
>>> or
>>> [ʛ] (I can't really tell which one, as it is sort of between them? I'm
>> not
>>> sure...) before unrounded vowels for me.
>>>
>>> This wouldn't normally be a problem, but I want to be able to use this
>>> sound
>>> as part of my Linguistics course (and conlanging) so I should be able to
>>> produce it... Does anyone know how I can fix this problem?
>>>
>>> Thank you.
>>>
>>
Messages in this topic (4)
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