There are 6 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: Douglas Koller
1.2. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: J. 'Mach' Wust
2.1. Re: Edeinal: Language of the Edeinos
From: Jasyn Jones
2.2. Re: Edeinal: Language of the Edeinos
From: H. S. Teoh
3a. Re: /nθ/ = [nd], etc., examples?
From: BPJ
3b. Re: /n�/ = [nd], etc., examples?
From: Matthew Boutilier
Messages
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1.1. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" douglaskol...@hotmail.com
Date: Wed Aug 21, 2013 8:56 am ((PDT))
> Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 14:48:10 -0700
> From: hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
> Subject: Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 04:23:16PM -0500, George Corley wrote:
> [...]
> > On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 10:16 PM, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
> > > And speaking of reforms... Chinese had a major reform also within
> > > the last 100 years, resulting in the so-called "simplified Chinese"
> > > writing that is decidedly easier to read and especially write
> > > (saving on a huge number of penstrokes on a vast number of common
> > > words),
I am not at all sure that simplified Chinese writing is *decidedly* anything.
"Collapsing" characters (one simplified character representing two or more
possible traditional characters) only takes about 250-300 characters out of the
total mix, a drop in the proverbial bucket; it's still pretty much a 1-to-1
simplified/traditional character correspondence in terms of the number of what
needs to be memorized and how it needs to be memorized to be truly literate.
"Savings" on penstrokes sounds great on paper (nyuk, nyuk), but it seems to me
that any "advantages" you pick up in one area are offset somewhere else,
regardless of whether you go from traditional to simplified or vice versa, so
discussing an actual tally of real net gains or losses probably needs to take
into account which camp you plunk yourself into.
> > > though to someone like me who grew up with the old writing,
> > > it felt like the writing was losing a whole dimension of nuance
> > > originally present. I still remember comments from family members
> > > about how the new system "loses the original meaning", "looks like a
> > > caricature of *real* writing", etc.. But now, 30 years later, they
> > > have mostly adapted to the new system though occasionally suffering
> > > the humiliation of being corrected by schoolchildren who say
> > > "teacher, you made a mistake in that character!" -- when it was
> > > actually the correct pre-reform character. The transition isn't
> > > completely finished yet, resulting in the need for publishing
> > > Chinese texts in two versions, traditional and simplified, in order
> > > to cater to older audiences, but with the latter rapidly overtaking
> > > the former as said older audience gradually passes on.
That may well be how it's playing out in Singapore and Malaysia, but one should
keep in mind that politics and face are in play elsewhere. I didn't hear a
whole lot of clamoring for simplified characters during my years in Taiwan and
while I still hear resistance to traditional characters here on the mainland,
it's not nearly as shrill as it was twenty years ago.
> > Is it actually easier to read? My impression is that it's only
> > (marginally) easier to write, and there are still many incredibly
> > complex characters that everyone forgets. You still must memorize
> > thousands of characters, and easier handwriting is only going to
> > become more irrelevant as computer technology continues to become more
> > ubiquitous.
George makes a good point. There was an "o tempora, o mores" flap all over the
news here not two weeks ago. As it turns out, teens (always a good barometer of
how the world is going to hell in a handbasket) are increasingly unable to
write their characters. Computer and cellphone input is most often pinyin
based, so kids *know* the characters, they can pick the right ones they want
out of the options presented, but they can't as easily actively produce them
pen-to-paper. And we're not talking 57-stroke or especially el obscuro
characters; we're talking some basic simplified characters (if different from
traditional) just beyond the reach of day-to-day usage or something that Hello
Kitty might say. A similar phenomenon was being noted with kanji in Japan when
I lived there in the early 90s. That suggests to me that it has far less to do
with stroke numbers, simplicity, or "ease of writing" than it does with the
lack of constant reinforcement needed to keep stuff in the mental semi-active
to active file.
> The glyphs are less complex, and therefore easier to read.
This appeals to horse sense and sounds like it should be so, but supporting
arguments I've heard are anecdotal (as, indeed, is mine :) ).
> Simpler glyphs also make it more readable on-screen -- on a
> low-resolution screen, some of the complex characters simply can't be
> drawn properly and come out just as black blocks of ink resembling the
> overall shape of the actual glyph.
Big whoop. That I can't write "tao1tie4" in a 3-pica font is hardly a damning
argument against traditional characters. And besides, the Chinese are the very
folks who brought you *all* of the Tao Te Ching carved onto one thumbnail-sized
piece of ivory. :)
> > > Resisting the reform seems about as sensible as resisting natural
> > > language change, in retrospect. (After all, it *is* the writing
> > > system catching up with, oh, hundreds, or even thousands, of years
> > > of phonological and grammatical changes that nobody but linguists
> > > even remember.)
It's one thing to argue for dropping letters or kana that have long outlived
their usefulness and dragging a writing system that at least professes to be
phonetic/phonemic into a nearby decade. That's spelling reform. But how do
simplified characters move us any closer to modern Chinese phonological or
grammatical realities? Did anyone claim they would? It may feel analogous, and
certainly such concerns arose contemporaneously, but traditional to simplified
characters is not exactly the same march to modernity that Wenyanwen to Baihua
was.
> > > Such resistance inevitably fades into obscurity in
> > > the dusts of time as the rest of the world moves on. :) (And I say
> > > that as someone who is still emotionally attached to the traditional
> > > Chinese writing -- in spite of being almost completely illiterate!
> > > Yet one realizes that after it's all said and done, it's really only
> > > nostalgia that remains, nostalgia which the younger generation does
> > > not have and definitely will *not* be passing on to *their*
> > > children. No matter how hard or "evil" the transition may have been,
> > > people just adapt to it as they always have, and the world goes on.)
Sure. As an American, I do not at all mourn the loss of "colour", "centre", or
"amoeba". I didn't teethe on those (thank you, Mr. Webster). Coming to Swedish
post-spelling reform, I do not tear up about simpler, happier times when I see
"qwinnor" or "hvit" in Swedish books I inherited. Didn't teethe on it. I did
come to German pre-Rechtschreibreformen, so I harumph and snort as well as any
respectable German codger about signs of the end of days and spell the old way
(and since I don't live there, who cares?). Teethed on it.
You teethe on it, you have invested and are invested in it, and you're not
likely to be thrilled about a rule change halfway through the game. *We*
managed to learn it, why can't *you*? There was talk here a long while back
about a Frenchman who didn't want to give up the "-x" plurals -- you can
explain that "-s" is more logical, that the "-x" itself was some misinterpreted
"-ls" ligature back in the hoarfrosts of time, yadda, yadda -- but if he feels
he's losing some "Frenchness", good luck with the "sensible" argument.
Nostalgia intertwined with identity is powerful stuff. I feel his pain.
I suppose a nice orthographic spring cleaning every couple of centuries
probably makes some "sense". I personally don't mind seeing "nite" on a movie
marquis or a quater-page ad in the local paper, but I don't want to see it in a
bona fide piece of writing. But if you're going to, say, lay waste to English
"gh", please wait until I'm well into my eighties or deep in the cold, cold
ground, whichever come first. And I *really* don't want to be around for the
discussion on whose Mary/marry/merry pronunication is going to be the baseline
for reform. :)
As for characters, I teethed on traditional, so guess where my prejudices lie.
I have no idea what the future may hold. I can just as easily imagine a
traditional renaissance and resurgence as a simplified domination as a
protracted status quo. Meanwhile, in the Lao Kou corner of the universe, we
write predominantly in traditional characters, spell "catalogue" with a "-ue",
"yoghurt" with a "gh", liberally sprinkle eszetts where we can, and all other
manner of idiosyncratic humbug -- and the world goes on :)
Kou
Messages in this topic (45)
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1.2. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "J. 'Mach' Wust" j_mach_w...@shared-files.de
Date: Wed Aug 21, 2013 10:09 am ((PDT))
On Tue, 20 Aug 2013 20:02:54 +0200, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:
>On 20 August 2013 19:16, J. 'Mach' Wust wrote:
>
>>
>> I rather think this quite the same topic, but with a gradual
>> difference. Of course, written English, due to high literacy, has
>> probably a huge influence back on spoken English. But so must have had
>> written Latin on spoken Romance, to a certain degree. And also the
>> other way round, in both cases. With Latin, there came a point when
>> many people felt the vulgar language to be so different from the high
>> language that it deserved to be written in a different way. I bet that
>> there are already English varieties that are felt to be so different
>> from regular English that they are occasionally written in a different
>> way. Not consistently so, not yet, but English is still only 600 years
>> away from its spelling, unlike Romances, which were about a millenium
>> away from theirs.
>>
>>
>Actually, things happened about the completely opposite way from what
>you're describing. The vernaculars were simply deemed unworthy of being
>written. At all. People at that time didn't view language the same way we
>do. In particular, they didn't differentiate between a language and its
>written version. What was actually spoken by the masses was considered a
>debased form of communication, and the only language worth recording was
>the language of the Bible, Latin (in Western Europe). It has nothing to do
>with how different the vernaculars were from Latin. If it was not Latin, it
>wasn't something that should, or even could, be written (it helps that most
>writing at that time was of religious nature or related). Writing was
>Latin, and that was it. It took the troubadours to change this view, as
>they started to view the vernaculars as languages worthy of making
>compositions in that were good enough to be recorded.
>
>So it *is* quite a different phenomenon from spelling reform. It was about
>divorcing the idea of writing from the idea of writing *in Latin*.
Then why did spelling in Romances start only several centuries after
spelling in Germanic languages? Old English had a considerable body of
written literature, Old High German had some, in a time when Romances
were not used but for scattered phrases. I think the reasonable
explanation for this is that when Romance speakers were writing Latin,
they still felt that this was their own language, in spite of the
changes in pronunciation and grammar (which were only gradually bigger
than the ones we observe today in English).
--
grüess
mach
Messages in this topic (45)
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2.1. Re: Edeinal: Language of the Edeinos
Posted by: "Jasyn Jones" jas...@gmail.com
Date: Wed Aug 21, 2013 10:34 am ((PDT))
Hello the List! Been a while, but I am still honing Edeinal and the
world/culture it comes from. Your help was invaluable.
I just had one little piece to add (mainly because one of the earlier
respondents said they'd be interested in sounds the edeinos can make,
but humans can't).
On Apr 10, 2013, at 5:47 AM, Jasyn Jones <jas...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Unique Edeinos Sounds
[...]
> Other unique sounds are used in their verbal communications. These
> include:
>
> Clack: An edeinos can snap its teeth together, creating a sharp
> snapping sound (with the echoey undertone of the nasal cavity). This
> is represented in speech by an apostrophe, such as in the name
> Tal�Mar.
>
> Whuff: An exhalation of air through the nose, like a human snort,
> though lower pitched and louder.
One more unique sound.
There are a few edeinal words that are written with double T's, like
Jakatt and Jakutta. These are pronounced, oddly enough, as two T's, one
after another.
The way they're produced is kind of odd, however. Edeinos have a very
long snout, and a tongue to match. The double-T is made by snapping the
middle of the tongue against the roof of the snout, then the front of
the tongue against the front of the snout. (Of course, this means the
first "T" is somewhat softer than the second, sort of like a sharp "D".)
Again, I'm working through the article, and if there's anything of note
to post, I will.
Thanks for the help and the comments.
And, yes, teams of linguists have been dispatched into the Living Land
invasion zones, to catalogue Edeinal. Bitter fights over disputed or
contradictory reports have broken out in academic circles, and
linguistic theories are being discarded, created, and reformulated
faster than the literature can keep up with.
In addition to Edeinal (and all the chaos it wrought on the discipline)
there are now, at last count, 13 identified alien languages being spoken
on Earth (the actual count runs into the double digits, but nobody knows
this yet). As well, there are numerous human languages from 5 separate
alternate Earths (all of which developed in slightly different ways from
their analogues on this Earth). There are also two different human
languages from non-Earth worlds, with no known analogues to any Earth
languages.
Linguistics is in an uproar, as are linguists.
- -
Jasyn Jones
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
"Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Daddy Warpig's House of Geekery:
daddywarpig.wordpress.com
Storm Knights, my Torg webpage:
stormknights.arcanearcade.com
Messages in this topic (36)
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2.2. Re: Edeinal: Language of the Edeinos
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Wed Aug 21, 2013 12:06 pm ((PDT))
On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 11:33:39AM -0600, Jasyn Jones wrote:
> Hello the List! Been a while, but I am still honing Edeinal and the
> world/culture it comes from. Your help was invaluable.
Welcome back!
> I just had one little piece to add (mainly because one of the earlier
> respondents said they'd be interested in sounds the edeinos can make,
> but humans can't).
>
> On Apr 10, 2013, at 5:47 AM, Jasyn Jones <jas...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Unique Edeinos Sounds
>
> [...]
>
> > Other unique sounds are used in their verbal communications. These
> > include:
> >
> > Clack: An edeinos can snap its teeth together, creating a sharp
> > snapping sound (with the echoey undertone of the nasal cavity). This
> > is represented in speech by an apostrophe, such as in the name
> > Tal’Mar.
> >
> > Whuff: An exhalation of air through the nose, like a human snort,
> > though lower pitched and louder.
>
> One more unique sound.
>
> There are a few edeinal words that are written with double T's, like
> Jakatt and Jakutta. These are pronounced, oddly enough, as two T's, one
> after another.
>
> The way they're produced is kind of odd, however. Edeinos have a very
> long snout, and a tongue to match. The double-T is made by snapping the
> middle of the tongue against the roof of the snout, then the front of
> the tongue against the front of the snout. (Of course, this means the
> first "T" is somewhat softer than the second, sort of like a sharp "D".)
[...]
It's funny, while you were busy honing Edeinal, one of my non-serious
half-joke alien conlang sketches came to life and decided that it wanted
full conlang status (as opposed to just remaining as a jokelang). Its
setting is still somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as the native speakers are
stereotypical green aliens having a spherical body, a single eye on an
eyestalk that grow from their equivalent of the tailbone, two arms with
claws in place of hands, and webbed feet. They ride in your
stereotypical saucer-shaped spaceships manufactured by FTL Tech Inc.,
who first popularized the concept of personal iFTLVs (interstellar
faster-than-light vehicles) after being inspired by reports that on a
certain distant planet, the concept of personal computers caused a major
technological revolution.
Having only one eye, their language has many pejoratives based on
many-eyed creatures being regarded as monstrous, and their tender
eyestalk gives rise to threats being of the form "I'll grab your eye!".
Their oral cavity is larger than a human's, and their tongue is
therefore longer and more flexible; one of the sounds they make is a
kind of trill where the *middle* part of their tongue vibrates --
something impossible for the human tongue. The voiceless version of this
trill is phonemic. Fortunately, the human voiceless uvular trill /R_0/
has phonological characteristics very similar to this sound, and serves
as a pretty good human approximation thereof, so this sound is, by
convention, transcribed as /xR_0/. It appears, appropriately enough, in
the word _ehrlu_ /ExR_0lU/ "tongue". This sound contrasts with /r/,
which is a *voiced* alveolar trill.
Grammar-wise, their language is structured in a rather peculiar way.
While sharing a lot of similarities with human languages, it also has
some unique features. One of the most fundamental structures is the
possessive, which is constructed as a head noun followed by one of a set
of possessive personal pronominal suffixes. For example:
ipf - eye
ipfen - my eye
ipftek - your eye
ipfet - his eye
ipfut - their eye
ipfah - their (distal) eye; or eyes in general.
This is relatively tame as far as human natlangs go, of course. Where it
goes crazy is when the verbalizing/instrumental suffix -mi comes into
play. This suffix seems to behave like an instrumental marker sometimes,
but also like a verbalizer; it turns a possessive noun into a verb
characteristic of that noun, with the possessive turning into a personal
marker:
ipfen - my eye
ipfemi (= ipf + en + mi) - I see.
ipftek - your eye
ipftekmi - you see.
apfat - mouth
apfattek - your mouth
apfattekmi - you eat.
ehrlu - tongue
ehrlunen - my tongue
ehrlunemi - I speak.
But this is only the beginning of the weirdness. While it kinda makes
sense that a verbalized body part would be associated with the action
performed by that body part, you also have constructions like:
voluŋ - spaceship
voluŋgen - my spaceship
voluŋgemi - I fly (by spaceship)
which leads to the question: what if I want to say "I fly *your*
spaceship"? The answer is that the instrumental character of -mi becomes
more obvious, in that the subject of the clause detaches into a separate
NP:
voluŋtekmi gruŋgen
voluŋ-tek-mi gruŋ-en
spaceship-2SG.POSS-INSTR hands-1SG.POSS
I fly your spaceship (lit. with-your-spaceship my-hands).
Here, another peculiarity of the language is manifested: there are no
standalone personal pronouns! It's impossible to refer to "you" or "I"
directly; one can only say "your body" or "my body" as a circumlocution.
The pronominal affixes are always possessive, and a stand-in noun like
"body" is required by the grammar. "Body" is the default periphrasis; it
may be substituted with other body parts depending on context. In the
above example, the act of flying a spaceship is done with the hands, so
the chosen periphrasis is _gruŋgen_ "my hands".
It seems really odd that _voluŋtekmi_ by itself would mean "you fly by
spaceship", whereas _voluŋtekmi gruŋgen_ means "*I* fly your spaceship".
Note the change of person on the verb simply by the presence of another
NP in the clause. So far, the only way I've managed to rationalize this
is that clauses like _voluŋtekmi_ are actually *abbreviations* of a
hypothetical full form:
*voluŋtekmi gruŋtek
*voluŋ-tek-mi gruŋ-tek
spaceship-2SG.POSS-INSTR hands-2SG.POSS
You fly your spaceship (lit. with-your-spaceship your-hands).
in which the subject _gruŋtek_ is elided because it is coreferent with
the possessive affix in _voluŋtekmi_.
None of this, however, explains "where the verb is". Is the -mi NP
actually a verb in disguise? Or is this some kind of weird verbless
language which uses instrumental NPs as verb substitutes? So far, I'm
still holding out hope that "true" verbs (not based on -mi NPs) exist in
this language, but that hope is gradually dimming when I encounter
constructions like:
gruŋgemi tseŋteku ahshapftu
gruŋ-en-mi tseŋ-tek-u ahshapf-tu
hands-1SG.POSS-INSTR glass_dome-2SG.POSS-PAT outside-DAT
I open your glass dome (lit. with-my-hands your-glass-dome to-outside)
The instrumental/verbalized NP _gruŋgemi_ is typically translated as "I
handle (something)". Here, though, the dative NP _ahshapftu_ "to the
outside" seems to be acting as an adverbial modifying (what may be
construed to be) the verb "to handle", narrowing its scope of meaning
from a generic "to handle", to a more specific "to open". A similar
construction using a different dative NP provides the antonymic meaning:
gruŋgemi tseŋteku vershtu
gruŋ-en-mi tseŋ-tek-u versht-tu
hands-1SG.POSS-INSTR glass_dome-2SG.POSS-PAT inside-DAT
I close your glass dome (lit. with-my-hands your-glass-dome to-inside)
This suggests that the verbal meaning of the clause is actually not
borne by any single NP / verbalised NP, but rather distributed across
the NPs in the clause. Further evidence for this comes in the difference
in nuance between the following two clauses:
voluŋtekmi gruŋgen.
voluŋ-tek-mi gruŋ-en
spaceship-2SG.POSS-INSTR hands-1SG.POSS
I fly your spaceship.
At first glance, it may appear that the role of "verb" is being filled
solely by the verbalized NP _voluŋtekmi_; however, the following dispels
any such notion:
voluŋtekmi bufen.
voluŋ-tek-mi buf-en
spaceship-2SG.POSS-INSTR body-1SG.POSS
I ride your spaceship.
The change from _gruŋgen_ "my hands" to _bufen_ "my body" (possibly
simply "I", since _bufen_ is the usual periphrasis for "I") caused the
verb to shift from "fly" to "ride", showing that part of the verbal
meaning is being carried by the subject NP as well!
Here are some examples of the verbal meaning being distributed across 3
NPs in a clause:
voluŋgetmi gruŋgen aiherltu
voluŋ-et-mi gruŋ-en aiherl-tu
spaceship-3SG.POSS-INSTR hands-1SG.POSS distant_skies-DAT
I fly his spaceship away (to the distant skies).
voluŋgetmi bufen aiherltu
voluŋ-et-mi buf-en aiherl-tu
spaceship-3SG.POSS-INSTR body-1SG.POSS distant_skies-DAT
I ride his spaceship away.
voluŋgetmi gruŋgen aiherlat
voluŋ-et-mi gruŋ-en aiherl-at
spaceship-3SG.POSS-INSTR hands-1SG.POSS distant_skies-ABL
I arrive on his spaceship (I was the pilot).
voluŋgetmi bufen aiherlat
voluŋ-et-mi buf-en aiherl-at
spaceship-3SG.POSS-INSTR body-1SG.POSS distant_skies-ABL
I arrive on his spaceship (I was a passenger).
Notice how the combination of _voluŋ...mi_ (spaceship-...-INSTR) +
_aiherltu_ (to the distant skies) carries the meaning of "fly away",
whereas the combination of _voluŋ...mi_ + _aiherlat_ (from the distant
skies) carries the meaning of "arrive (by spaceship)". The subject NP,
depending on which periphrasis was used for the standalone pronoun,
varies the meaning from "fly (as a passenger)" to "fly (as a pilot)".
Thus far, I'm still unsure how this strange grammar can be rationalized
in human natlang terms.
In any case, the pronominal possessive affixes seem to play a very deep
role in the language. They are retained even when an explicit possessor
is specified:
voluŋ - spaceship
cheŋ - male person
voluŋget - his spaceship
voluŋgetcheŋ - the male person's spaceship (lit.
spaceship-his-male_person)
It's ungrammatical to omit the 3rd person singular possessive affix -et:
*voluŋcheŋ - [ungrammatical]
Furthermore, plurality is marked on this possessive affix, *not* on the
possessor noun:
voluŋgutcheŋ
voluŋ-ut-cheŋ
spaceship-3PL.POSS-male_person
The male persons' spaceship.
Well, I'll end with a cutesy little phrase that I learned from my
informant:
sheŋt cheŋ he vaht fraht
seven male and eight female
['SENt 'tSʰEN xE 'vAxt 'frAxt]
A group of people (lit. 7 men and 8 women).
This phrase, surprisingly English-like in construction, is a colloquial
phrase that refers generically to some unspecified group of people. It
does not literally mean 7 males and 8 females; rather, it has the effect
of "some number of males and some number of females" in a generic sense.
The numbers 7 and 8 were chosen solely for rhyme. :) It's used in
contexts like "oh, yesterday a bunch of people showed up at my place",
"I saw a group of people walk by", "he got beaten up by a group of
people", etc..
T
--
People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at
least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the
programs they write will be pretty weird. -- D. Knuth
Messages in this topic (36)
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3a. Re: /nθ/ = [nd], etc., examples?
Posted by: "BPJ" b...@melroch.se
Date: Wed Aug 21, 2013 11:58 am ((PDT))
2013-08-20 02:17, Matthew Boutilier skrev:
> is there a natlang precedent for fricatives having allophones as voiced
> stops (perhaps via voiced fricatives) when following a *nasal*?
>
> basically, i want this for a conlang:
> /nf/ = [mb]
> /nθ/ = [nd]
> /nx/ = [ŋg]
>
> this has nothing to do with the position of the stress, so although my
> brain keeps returning to Verner's Law, it's totally different. and, it's
> independent of any general plosivization of fricatives.
>
> and, while we're here, would [b] really work as the allophone of [f], even
> though [f] is not bilabial?
>
> thanks,
> matt
>
That's basically what you get in (later) Old Norse:
The phonemes /θ/ and /d/ only contrast word/stem-initially.
Elsewhere they merge as [ð] except that
- before voiceless sounds it gets devoiced,
- when geminated it's [d:],
- after nasals and /l/ [d] rather than [ð] occurs.
/bpj
Messages in this topic (4)
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3b. Re: /n�/ = [nd], etc., examples?
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" bvticvlar...@gmail.com
Date: Wed Aug 21, 2013 12:52 pm ((PDT))
aha, ok, thank you both. i'll go ahead and incorporate it.
the ON example reminded me of Gothic which, now that i think of it, does
something similar; /d/ (phonetically [ð], as in PGmc) devoices to [θ] at
word's end or, e.g., before *-s* (and is written with the þ-letter), but
it's written with the d-letter (which i guess in this case means it's
phonetically [d]) when following nasals.
e.g *g**ōþs*** 'good (masc. nom. sg.)' < *gōdaz
but *winds* 'wind (nom. sg.)' < *windaz
i think Gothic /b/ and /g/ behave similarly. this is probably the natlang
whence my subconscious got this idea to begin with.
thanks!
matt
On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 1:58 PM, BPJ <b...@melroch.se> wrote:
> 2013-08-20 02:17, Matthew Boutilier skrev:
>
>> is there a natlang precedent for fricatives having allophones as voiced
>> stops (perhaps via voiced fricatives) when following a *nasal*?
>>
>>
>> basically, i want this for a conlang:
>> /nf/ = [mb]
>> /nθ/ = [nd]
>> /nx/ = [ŋg]
>>
>> this has nothing to do with the position of the stress, so although my
>> brain keeps returning to Verner's Law, it's totally different. and, it's
>> independent of any general plosivization of fricatives.
>>
>> and, while we're here, would [b] really work as the allophone of [f], even
>> though [f] is not bilabial?
>>
>> thanks,
>> matt
>>
>>
> That's basically what you get in (later) Old Norse:
> The phonemes /θ/ and /d/ only contrast word/stem-initially.
> Elsewhere they merge as [ð] except that
> - before voiceless sounds it gets devoiced,
> - when geminated it's [d:],
> - after nasals and /l/ [d] rather than [ð] occurs.
>
> /bpj
>
Messages in this topic (4)
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