There are 2 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: OT YAEPT -omp, -onk
From: Herman Miller
2a. Re: Proto-Jardic noun morphology
From: Herman Miller
Messages
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1.1. Re: OT YAEPT -omp, -onk
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 14, 2013 5:53 pm ((PST))
On 2/14/2013 12:05 AM, Amanda Babcock Furrow wrote:
> [1] We had phonics in second grade. I loved it, except for
> the perplexing nonsense about there being different vowels
> in OSTRICH and whatever other word they used to exemplify
> the other vowel. I don't recall the teacher being able to
> explain that one to us :)
>
> Come to think of it, which vowel *is* in ostrich, cot or
> caught?
I'll use /A/ for my vowel in FATHER, BOTHER, COT, LOT (roughly [ɑ]) and
/O/ for my vowel in CAUGHT, CLOTH (actually more like [ɒ]); my vowel in
"ostrich" is /A/ (like in "cot").
The LOT-CLOTH split interests me because it seems so haphazard. Why /A/
in "ostrich" (and "costume", "hostile", "imposter", "posterior",
"posthumous") when most "-ost" words originally with a short o have /O/
after the LOT-CLOTH split?
Counting only words with /A/ or /O/, I generally have:
/A/ (LOT) in words with -ob, -oc, -och, -ock, -oct, -od, -odd, -odge,
-oll, -om, -omp, -ompt, -on, -once, -onch, -ond, -ont, -onx, -onze, -op,
-opt, -osh, -osque, -ot, -ox, -oz
/O/ (CLOTH) in words with -off, -oft, -og, -ol, -ong, -onk, -oss, -ost, -oth
(I count the vowel in -or as a different vowel even though it's also
usually denoted by /O/; it's more of an [ɔ] sound.)
Exceptions:
/A/ in logic, cog, goggle, toggle, column, hologram, policy, politics,
olive, solid, tolerate, volume, conk, Cronk, wonk, borrow, sorrow,
tomorrow, opossum, ossify, costume, hostile, imposter, ostrich,
posterior, posthumous, Goth, Gothic
/O/ in chocolate, sorry
Exceptions seem to be mainly in non-final syllables, but there are also
examples that follow the split in non-final syllables (e.g. offer,
often, boggle, donkey, wonky, glossy, foster, roster)
Messages in this topic (46)
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2a. Re: Proto-Jardic noun morphology
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 14, 2013 6:39 pm ((PST))
On 2/14/2013 10:06 AM, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> Hallo conlangers!
>
> On Thursday 14 February 2013 05:15:03 Herman Miller wrote:
>> I'm thinking it might simplify some things if length is distinctive in
>> Proto-Jardic.
>
> Why not? There are many languages where vowel length is
> distinctive, and even families where it is distinctive in the
> common ancestor but not in the daughters (e.g., Romance).
It's also a nice contrast with Tirelat, which gained a distinction in
vowel length (e.g. from compensatory lengthening).
>> Say that inanimate nouns end in -i or -ī, where short -i
>> was lost (*siaḍi-olu> śaṛ-öl) but long -ī remained as -i (*zakī-olu>
>> zaķi-l). Abstract nouns might have ended in -o, or some other short
>> vowel that didn't mutate the -o in -olu.
>
> That is my opinion, too.
I noticed a similar alternation in verb inflection, where the present
tense suffix is -ó, but the present tense of the antipassive voice is
-vö. (This suggests that the fronting of /o/ to /ö/ might have happened
before the /o/ vs. /ó/ split, unless both /o/ and /ó/ changed to /ö/
after short /i/.)
> That a language is head-initial now doesn't mean it always was.
> It may have been head-final earlier. Proto-Celtic probably was
> head-final (at least, Celtiberian was, and so was PIE). My own
> Proto-Hesperic is also head-final, and while Old Albic is pretty
> consistently head-initial, the old head-final word order shows
> in compounds, and in the secondary case endings which evolved
> from Proto-Hesperic postpositions.
Jarda also has head-final order in compound words, but multiple-word
compounds are head-initial. (Lindiga is head-initial even within
compound words, which gets weird when you add suffixes.)
>> Modern Jarda has an ordinary trilled /r/ as well, and I'm assuming that
>> was a trilled alveolar /r/ in Proto-Jardic. But looking at initial
>> consonant clusters in modern Jarda, it does seem likely that /ṛ/ was
>> some kind of approximant to begin with. You never see /ṛ/ as the first
>> consonant in an initial cluster (e.g. *ṛw or *ṛj), which would be
>> expected if it had been some kind of stop. It could have been a lateral,
>> but Jarda has enough laterals as it is. Or a tap, like /ɾ/ vs. /r/ in
>> Spanish.
>
> So you have an alveolar and a retroflex rhotic. This *could* be
> the residue of a merger of an alveolar and a retroflex series (or
> whatever may have done in the other retroflexes), but that is not
> necessary. Not knowing the phonology you have in mind, I cannot
> tell which scenario makes the most sense, though.
Well, it's a sound that really doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the
Proto-Jardic sounds. The Jarda sound is more like trying to say /j/ with
your tongue tip curled back than it's anything like an American English
/r/. When it dissimilates after /r/, it changes to /j/. So I don't know
that I'd call it a rhotic even though I write it as <ṛ>.
> --
> ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
> http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
> "Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (6)
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