There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Dictionary of Sound Changes -- Day 1
From: Roger Mills
1b. Re: Dictionary of Sound Changes -- Day 1
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
1c. Re: Dictionary of Sound Changes -- Day 1
From: David McCann
2a. Re: Translation: Christmas songs in May-- Completed !!
From: Roger Mills
2b. Re: Translation: Christmas songs in May-- Completed !!
From: Garth Wallace
2c. Re: Translation: Christmas songs in May-- Completed !!
From: Herman Miller
2d. Re: Translation: Christmas songs in May-- Completed !!
From: H. S. Teoh
3a. Re: the LCC5 relay is up
From: Tony Harris
3b. Re: the LCC5 relay is up
From: James Kane
3c. Re: the LCC5 relay is up
From: H. S. Teoh
3d. Re: the LCC5 relay is up
From: Jim Henry
4a. Re: 50 Shades of Poet
From: C. Brickner
5a. Re: natlang precedent?? vcc > v:c
From: BPJ
5b. Re: natlang precedent?? vcc > v:c
From: Alex Fink
5c. Re: natlang precedent?? vcc > v:c
From: Matthew Boutilier
Messages
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1a. Re: Dictionary of Sound Changes -- Day 1
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 6, 2013 6:19 am ((PDT))
--- On Mon, 5/6/13, Paul Bennett <[email protected]> wrote:
The font display issues seem to be mostly with Google's PDF rendering
engine, which I've had quite serious problems with in the past.
The PDF renders fine (for me) in Adobe Acrobat (on Windows, and Android),
Gnome Document Viewer (on Linux), Amazon Kindle (on Android), and Libre
Office, which is what I've been using at this stage to type in the
boilerplate -- there will eventually be a database with a user-friendly (or
at least me-friendly) UI that exports via XML and XSLT to something ready
to just plop into the Libre Office text (or some other mechanism that
becomes PDF at the click of a mouse).
The font in question is SIL Gentium, which I've never had issues with under
any other circumstances, and which seems to cover all the characters I'll
be needing, as well as being easier on the eyes than (e.g.) Code2000 or
Bitstream (or Titus) Cyberbit, and easier on the psyche than Computer
Modern.
==============================================
With Windows Vista and later, Times New Roman has (AFAIK) full IPA coverage,
and is of course well known, and was required by the journal publishers I've
tried to deal with.... I've seen problems with Gentium in pdf's in the past...
Herman Miller's _Thryomanes_ is good too.
Messages in this topic (6)
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1b. Re: Dictionary of Sound Changes -- Day 1
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 6, 2013 6:25 am ((PDT))
On 6 May 2013 15:19, Roger Mills <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> With Windows Vista and later, Times New Roman has (AFAIK) full IPA
> coverage, and is of course well known, and was required by the journal
> publishers I've tried to deal with.... I've seen problems with Gentium in
> pdf's in the past... Herman Miller's _Thryomanes_ is good too.
>
I'm personally partial to Charis SIL. Looks great everywhere. And a better
alternative to Gentium IMHO unless you need Greek support.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (6)
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1c. Re: Dictionary of Sound Changes -- Day 1
Posted by: "David McCann" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 6, 2013 10:04 am ((PDT))
On Mon, 6 May 2013 05:16:01 -0400
Paul Bennett <[email protected]> wrote:
> The font display issues seem to be mostly with Google's PDF rendering
> engine, which I've had quite serious problems with in the past.
It looks a bit ugly in Opera, but it's fine when downloaded and
viewed with Evince.
> As far as a "uniform phonemic notation", it'll be IPA, pure and
> simple
I agree with Sally Thomason here!
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005287.html
And surely it's better to use the established transcriptions?
> I will, however, be making the controversial step of assigning
> concrete values to the PIE sounds, most controversially the
> laryngeals. I don't think it matters too much what those values
> actually are, because they'll be whisked away into vowels and
> fricatives and all that good stuff very early on. I'm
> thinking /Ê/, /Ê/, /ÊÊ·/ because they're fairly easy to grasp, but I
> could go for whatever the current consensus is (e.g. /ħ/, /Ê/, /ÊÊ·/
> or whatever else is fashionable)
Similarly, /hâ hâ hâ/ are less likely to confuse, as well as allowing
you the cover /h/ when they all come out the same way.
> Likewise, I'll be going for /p/, /pÊ°/, /pË/ for the PIE stops series,
> with footnotes and sidenotes and whatever all else absolutely
> chock-full of ifs, ands, buts, and maybes (and other caveats).
I hope that's a typo! I use /p pâ b/ and I could live with /p b bÊ°/.
Messages in this topic (6)
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2a. Re: Translation: Christmas songs in May-- Completed !!
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 6, 2013 6:28 am ((PDT))
--- On Sat, 5/4/13, Herman Miller <[email protected]> wrote:
On 5/4/2013 3:32 PM, Roger Mills wrote:
> A bit of whimsy. Don't know why this was going thru my head this morning:
> Gwr.
>
> lu-H doq-L o-H trang-M how-F leN-M dr-L
> ki-L ye-M hing-hing-M how-F
>
> Lu-do? that red-nose (k.o. animal)
> to him very-shiny nose...
Nice work getting it all to fit the melody. Let's see how far I can get in
Jarda.
================================================
The easy part was that the original has lots of monosyllables, or 2-syl that
can easily be reduced to mono forms (compounds or reduplications....)
Since the Gwr were, anciently, aggressively into things Octal, I suppose their
music used an 8-tone scale (is that like the ancient Greek modes? no sharps or
flats??). If you have time or inclination, Herman, it might be amusing to hear
the melody recast into that sort of thing.....???
=============================================
ÅudoÅ, tis-kjul sÅl-vaz-ni,
Rudolph, ice-deer fire-nose-with
(Jarda does technically have a word for "red", but it dates from before I
decided that Jarda was a Sangari language, and Sangari don't see red as a color
distinct from yellow. Besides, I like the idea of an ice deer with a fire nose.)
ni-an vÅ vaz Åim-ê Åá¹a.
have-PAST.IMPF he nose shine-ACT.PART very
It should really be "nian vÅra (ergative) vaz Åimê Åá¹a", but that doesn't
fit. The whole sentence would normally go "Nian ÅudoÅá¹a, tiskjulá¹a
sÅlvazni, vaz Åimê Åá¹a".
au sin nês-ki lô-á¹a vÅ
and if see-SUBJ you-ERG it
têz-ki lô-á¹a pa Åim vÅ
say-SUBJ you-ERG that glow it
Yes, unfortunately the word for "shine" and "glow" is the same in Jarda.
kêb-an sjul tis-kjul-Åa klêd
laugh-PAST.IMPF all ice-deer-ERG other
It should technically be "kêban sjulnên" (with a classifier).
au nÅ-vôn-an dü-á¹a vÅ
and dis-honor-PAST.IMPF they-ERG him
va-tên-an RudoÅ bá¹aá¹-vam
not-allow-PAST.IMPF Rudolph luck-less
zur büz á¹ix plin tis-kjul-i
associate ever for game ice-deer-GEN
Hey, it sort of mostly works. Maybe I'll try to finish it some time.
===================================
It is fun............
Messages in this topic (9)
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2b. Re: Translation: Christmas songs in May-- Completed !!
Posted by: "Garth Wallace" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 6, 2013 9:43 am ((PDT))
On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 6:28 AM, Roger Mills <[email protected]> wrote:
> --- On Sat, 5/4/13, Herman Miller <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 5/4/2013 3:32 PM, Roger Mills wrote:
>> A bit of whimsy. Don't know why this was going thru my head this morning:
>> Gwr.
>>
>> lu-H doq-L o-H trang-M how-F leN-M dr-L
>> ki-L ye-M hing-hing-M how-F
>>
>> Lu-do? that red-nose (k.o. animal)
>> to him very-shiny nose...
>
> Nice work getting it all to fit the melody. Let's see how far I can get in
> Jarda.
> ================================================
>
> The easy part was that the original has lots of monosyllables, or 2-syl that
> can easily be reduced to mono forms (compounds or reduplications....)
>
> Since the Gwr were, anciently, aggressively into things Octal, I suppose
> their music used an 8-tone scale (is that like the ancient Greek modes? no
> sharps or flats??).
AIUI, the Greek echoi were all heptatonic, and differed in the type of
the tetrachords and the position of the remaining semitone.
I'm not sure how an octotonic scale could arise naturally, though
considering Indonesian scales I suppose anything is possible.
Messages in this topic (9)
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2c. Re: Translation: Christmas songs in May-- Completed !!
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 6, 2013 7:04 pm ((PDT))
On 5/6/2013 9:28 AM, Roger Mills wrote:
> Since the Gwr were, anciently, aggressively into things Octal, I
> suppose their music used an 8-tone scale (is that like the ancient
> Greek modes? no sharps or flats??). If you have time or inclination,
> Herman, it might be amusing to hear the melody recast into that sort
> of thing.....??? =============================================
The diatonic modes without sharps or flats are named after ancient Greek
modes, but they don't actually have anything to do with ancient Greek music.
There are a few possibilities for 8-tone scales. The Zireen tuning "nai
yulung" is essentially an 8-tone equal temperament with narrow octaves,
but it's pretty unusual-sounding. There's the octatonic scale, with
alternating whole steps and half steps
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octatonic_scale). Another good option is a
porcupine scale, with 7 large steps and 1 small step. I think the
porcupine scale might be the best option.
Messages in this topic (9)
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2d. Re: Translation: Christmas songs in May-- Completed !!
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 6, 2013 7:50 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, May 06, 2013 at 10:04:34PM -0400, Herman Miller wrote:
[...]
> There are a few possibilities for 8-tone scales. The Zireen tuning
> "nai yulung" is essentially an 8-tone equal temperament with narrow
> octaves, but it's pretty unusual-sounding. There's the octatonic
> scale, with alternating whole steps and half steps
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octatonic_scale). Another good option
> is a porcupine scale, with 7 large steps and 1 small step. I think
> the porcupine scale might be the best option.
The octatonic scale is pretty cool, since it derives the three varieties
of diminished 7th chords (up to inversion). I remember trying to compose
music for it, though I didn't get very far: you run out of variety
pretty quickly due to the symmetry across every 3 notes. On the usual
7-tone scales, there's some unevenness that produces more interesting
varieties that you can play with.
T
--
I think the conspiracy theorists are out to get us...
Messages in this topic (9)
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3a. Re: the LCC5 relay is up
Posted by: "Tony Harris" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 6, 2013 7:24 am ((PDT))
It was a most interesting experience to "translate" from UNLWS,
definitely. But made for a lot of wonderful conversation (and laughter)
as we saw how turtles became lions and accursed plums turned into sweet
fruit under moonlight!
On 05/06/2013 01:00 AM, Alex Fink wrote:
> http://conlang.org/language-creation-conference/lcc5/lcc5-relay/
>
> It was UNLWS that was responsible for the greatest transmogrification
> here. As I hear Tony told it (I sadly wasn't around for this part of
> the recounting!), he managed to identify all our words, but ran out of
> time to do anything with the syntax, so fit them together into a
> vaguely coherent story, with the effect of "running the story through
> a meat grinder". Ahh, beautiful chaos :)
>
> Alex
Messages in this topic (6)
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3b. Re: the LCC5 relay is up
Posted by: "James Kane" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 6, 2013 4:23 pm ((PDT))
Wow that is an incredible change from the first text to the last! About the
only similarity is that there is a father and some fruit involved!
James
On 6/05/2013, at 6:00 PM, Alex Fink <[email protected]> wrote:
> http://conlang.org/language-creation-conference/lcc5/lcc5-relay/
>
> It was UNLWS that was responsible for the greatest transmogrification
> here. As I hear Tony told it (I sadly wasn't around for this part of
> the recounting!), he managed to identify all our words, but ran out of
> time to do anything with the syntax, so fit them together into a
> vaguely coherent story, with the effect of "running the story through
> a meat grinder". Ahh, beautiful chaos :)
>
> Alex
Messages in this topic (6)
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3c. Re: the LCC5 relay is up
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 6, 2013 5:00 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, May 06, 2013 at 02:00:18AM -0400, Alex Fink wrote:
> http://conlang.org/language-creation-conference/lcc5/lcc5-relay/
>
> It was UNLWS that was responsible for the greatest transmogrification
> here. As I hear Tony told it (I sadly wasn't around for this part of
> the recounting!), he managed to identify all our words, but ran out of
> time to do anything with the syntax, so fit them together into a
> vaguely coherent story, with the effect of "running the story through
> a meat grinder". Ahh, beautiful chaos :)
[...]
Ahhahahaha... skimming through the English translations of the relay
entries made me cackle madly... esp. with the post-UNLWS transformation.
:) I'm of the opinion that the final text makes a lot more sense than
the original, though. ;-) As Sally pointed out, the original sounds like
the diseased rambling of an insane father in a dysfunctional family. The
final text actually sounds more plausible.
Any plans for another relay in the near future? I'm itching to put
Tatari Faran through the works again -- it's been *quite* a while!
T
--
Nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path
that leads to himself. -- Herman Hesse
Messages in this topic (6)
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3d. Re: the LCC5 relay is up
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 6, 2013 10:13 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 7:59 PM, H. S. Teoh <[email protected]> wrote:
> Any plans for another relay in the near future? I'm itching to put
> Tatari Faran through the works again -- it's been *quite* a while!
Over on the relay list, relay 20 is still sloooooowly grinding its way
to an end. I think someone proposed going ahead and starting relay
21, but there was resistance to the idea of starting it before relay
20 finishes. If relay 20 doesn't finish in another month or two,
though, I think we should reconsider it.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org
Messages in this topic (6)
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4a. Re: 50 Shades of Poet
Posted by: "C. Brickner" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 6, 2013 8:56 am ((PDT))
In Senjecas there are three words that fit this description.
á¹eÌla, 1) t.v. write-, compose-, -(poetry). 2) i.v. write-, compose-,
-poetry.
á¹eÌlis, adj. poetic.
á¹elÅÅnus, poet.
á¹eÌlos, poem.
There is one compound of this verb:
á¹eļÅmos, ballad.
á¹Ã©Ä¼omaÌaÌgus, balladeer.
ļÅma, i.v. tell stories, spin yarns.
ļomÅÅnus, storyteller, fable writer.
ļÅmos, legend, fable, tale, saga, story, tradition.
The prefix âðees-â relates a word to the spiritual realm. Thus,
ðeesļÅmos means myth.
tÅÅlÄa, t.v. narrate an epic.
tÅÅlÄis, adj. epic.
toolÄÅÅnus, epic narrator.
tÅÅlÄos, epic.
There are no etymologies since, in this conculture, Senjecas is the original
language.
Charlie
----- Original Message -----
So, it's my birthday, and I'm working on something as a present for
myself. I'd like to collect terms that gloss to something like 'poet',
'word smith' or (dare I say) 'cunning linguist' in as many conlangs as
possible. Would you y'all be willing to tell me about how that would
come out in your various conlangs? I'd love to see etymologies if you
have them too. If you have special orthographies, I'd love to see that
as well.
Thank you!
Scott
(apologizes to those who have seen this cross-posted elsewhere)
Messages in this topic (6)
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5a. Re: natlang precedent?? vcc > v:c
Posted by: "BPJ" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 6, 2013 10:07 am ((PDT))
2013-05-05 01:46, Matthew Boutilier skrev:
> yeah, i was thinking that as well. thanks for the Scandinavian info.
>
> all i myself could really think of was examples like
> OE æppel 'apple' > modern /'æp(É)l/
> OE sitteþ 'sits' > archaic modern /'sɪtɪθ/
>
> but not with lengthening of the vowel.
>
> at a conference last year, i heard a very interesting talk about how
> variouslanguages (in particular, O
> E / Middle English) deal with short-V + single-C mid-word ... how different
> languages tend towards either adding a mora to the V, or *doubling* the C. but
> anyway, that doesn't really help me.
My notation was perhaps not all that clear.
Scandinavian usually had lengthening of short vowels
before short consonants, but sometimes -- in specific
words -- it was the consonant which lengthened instead,
e.g. in OSc /wika/ 'week' > Sw /v\ek:a/ although
/v\e:ka/ (and /v\ik:a/) are also found in dialects. In
some cases the divergent development prevented merger
between related forms as when /wit/ 'intelligence,
sanity' > /v\et:/ while /weit/ 'knows' > /v\e:t/ but of
course there's no plan to it! The notaition with CC is
customary because original long consonants and clusters
pattern alike in preventing V lengthening and causing
V: shortening -- except that both were sometimes
sensitive to the presence of morpheme boundaries --
usually enforced by related clusterless forms. Thus
/reisti/ 'raised' > /re:ste/ rather than **/reste/.
Actually vowel length in inherited Swedish words is
entirely predictable from stress, coda weight and
morpheme structure with some affixes inhibiting vowel
shortening.
Vulgar Latin had similar form of syllable structure
dependent vowel quantity shift: Latin contrastive vowel
length was lost but in most of VL a stressed V not
followed by a CC/C: was lengthened. Iberian Romance
differs in that all stressed V were lengthened. Just
like in Scandinavian and M. English lengthened [I] and
[U] merged with [e] and [o] rather than with [i] and
[u], except in Sardinia and, by Augustine's testimony,
in Africa. In Balkan Romance only [U] > /u/.
> i could always do *bikki > *biki and then have open-syllable lengthening.
> but that would probably merge with *biki.
Why? It depends on in which order open syllable
lengthening and CC simplification occur. This said the
Scandinavian quantity shift was probably a *single*
process which shoehorned all stressed syllables to be
long, so that there were no short or overlong syllables
anymore. If you are using some sound change applying
software just ordwer open syllable lengthening before
geminate shortening -- or have dialects doing it
differently if you can't decide! :-)
/bpj
> i originally was planning on having a *glottal stop mobil**eÌ* doing
> certain work in my noun- and verb-morphology, rather than the geminate
> consonant:
> *biki > biki
> *biÊki > (*bihki >) biÌki
> *biÌki > bia̯ki
> whatever, i don't know. i would *also* have to get rid of the
> gemination separately,
> but i suppose the output of that could merge with the output of *biki. that
> would really mess with my semitic-like morphology, though.
> *biki > biki
> *bikki > (also) biki
> *biÊki > (*bihki >) biÌki
> *biÌki > bia̯ki
>
> although that probably would be nothing novel. does modern Hebrew even have
> phonemic consonant length? i was at a talk on Hebrew the other day and the *
> pi`el* form of *gadal* "to grow" was cited as *gidel*, not *giddeÌl *as i
> believe it would've appeared in classical Hebrew. i don't know if anyone
> here knows about this.
>
> ok, done rambling.
>
> thanks,
> matt
>
> On Sat, May 4, 2013 at 5:37 AM, BPJ <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> 2013-05-03 21:37, Matthew Boutilier skrev:
>>
>> i was wondering if anyone knew, off the top of their head, of an instance
>>> where a short vowel preceding a geminate consonant lengthens when the
>>> language as a whole loses phonemically distinctive consonant gemination.
>>>
>>> so, like, to account for all the original syllable structures:
>>> *biki > biki
>>> *bikki > biÌki
>>> *biÌki > bia̯ki (the diphthongization is separate; happens before the
>>> aforementioned geminate-loss thing)
>>>
>>> well??
>>>
>>> thanks in advance,
>>> matt
>>>
>>>
>>
>> AFAIK it's usually the other way around: _CC shortens
>> and _CV or even _C# lengthens. In 14th century Scandinavian:
>>
>> * V:C > V:C
>> * VCC > VCC
>> * V:CC > VCC
>> * V(:)# > V:
>> * VC > V:C, some times/places/words VCC
>> * V(:) > V / [-stress]
>>
>> Aptly known as the Scandinavian quantity shift.
>> Other Germanic languages had similar shifts in
>> vowels at about the same time with concommitant
>> loss of consonant length. Needless to say there
>> are still fringe dialects with the old system;
>> e.g. the Swedish of Finland still has stressed VC#.
>>
>> AFMOC Linjeb has a twist (partly suggested on this
>> list, by Alex IIRC): first vowels lengthen before
>> voiced plosives (P/PP), later voiceless P / V_V >
>> voiced and all PP > voiceless P.
>>
>> /bpj
>>
>
Messages in this topic (6)
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5b. Re: natlang precedent?? vcc > v:c
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 6, 2013 6:03 pm ((PDT))
Offlist, earlier, I told Matt that I remember an example of VC: > V:C being
shown on the list in the last few years! But I couldn't find it in five
minutes of searching.
I've remembered one quasi-instance, though. Latin had the "littera rule"
according to which V:C and VC: irregularly alternated in some circumstances,
e.g. _littera_ ~ _lītera_ 'letter', _Iuppiter_ ~ _Iūpiter_ 'Jupiter', when C
was a voiceless stop, and usually when V was high. But I think here the V:C is
thought to have been the older.
Google tells me the rule applied in other contexts too, like _flamma_ ~
_flÄma_.
www.ninjal.ac.jp/phonology/Ranjan-abstract.pdfâ
conf.ling.cornell.edu/weiss/Observations_on_the_littera_rule.pdfâ
On Sat, 4 May 2013 18:46:25 -0500, Matthew Boutilier <[email protected]>
wrote:
>at a conference last year, i heard a very interesting talk about how
>variouslanguages (in particular, O
>E / Middle English) deal with short-V + single-C mid-word ... how different
>languages tend towards either adding a mora to the V, or *doubling* the C. but
>anyway, that doesn't really help me.
Which languages were cited? (If it's just Germanic, it's dangerously little to
base a cross-linguistic generalisation on.)
I'd expect the direction of this change to be dependent on the isochronic type
of the language in question. The change VC > V:C (or VC > VC:) has the effect
of equalising the length of syllables, and so it's the sort of thing you'd
expect in a syllable-timed language (or I guess a stress-timed one, like
Germanic is, where syllables rather than morae bear stress). If we want
examples of VC: > V:C while VC remains, I'd think to go looking in a mora-timed
language.
>but i suppose the output of that could merge with the output of *biki. that
>would really mess with my semitic-like morphology, though.
Is gemination morphological in your language, or does it distinguish roots?
>although that probably would be nothing novel. does modern Hebrew even have
>phonemic consonant length? i was at a talk on Hebrew the other day and the *
>pi`el* form of *gadal* "to grow" was cited as *gidel*, not *giddÄl *as i
>believe it would've appeared in classical Hebrew. i don't know if anyone
>here knows about this.
I'll throw in my lay understanding: no, it shifted to a fricativity contrast
(intervocalically; of course, stops stayed stops elsewhere). The change has
the name "begadkefat spirantisation", where "begadkefat" is just a list of the
affected consonants, i.e. all the plain stops. Standard Modern Hebrew having
been rephonologised by German, none of these pairs remain allophonic, or
morpho-allophonic (whatever the term should be). On *t d g the distinction has
collapsed. On *p b k it remains, but other mergers have split /b/ < *bb from
/v/ < *b, *w and /k/ < *kk, *q from /X/ < *k, *ḥ, and loans have split /p/
from /f/.
Alex
Messages in this topic (6)
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5c. Re: natlang precedent?? vcc > v:c
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" [email protected]
Date: Mon May 6, 2013 7:01 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 8:03 PM, Alex Fink <[email protected]> wrote:
> Offlist, earlier, I told Matt that I remember an example of VC: > V:C
> being shown on the list in the last few years! But I couldn't find it in
> five minutes of searching.
>
> I've remembered one quasi-instance, though. Latin had the "littera rule"
> according to which V:C and VC: irregularly alternated in some
> circumstances, e.g. _littera_ ~ _lītera_ 'letter', _Iuppiter_ ~ _Iūpiter_
> 'Jupiter', when C was a voiceless stop, and usually when V was high. But I
> think here the V:C is thought to have been the older.
> Google tells me the rule applied in other contexts too, like _flamma_ ~
> _flÄma_.
> www.ninjal.ac.jp/phonology/Ranjan-abstract.pdfâ
> conf.ling.cornell.edu/weiss/Observations_on_the_littera_rule.pdfâ
>
ok, this is fantastically cool. thank you.
>
> On Sat, 4 May 2013 18:46:25 -0500, Matthew Boutilier <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
> >at a conference last year, i heard a very interesting talk about how
> >variouslanguages (in particular, O
> >E / Middle English) deal with short-V + single-C mid-word ... how
> different
> >languages tend towards either adding a mora to the V, or *doubling* the
> C. but
> >anyway, that doesn't really help me.
>
> Which languages were cited? (If it's just Germanic, it's dangerously
> little to base a cross-linguistic generalisation on.)
>
oh, there was no such cross-linguistic generalization made. theory-wise it
was very responsible. i really forget the details, though, but it was
strictly an explanatory account of whatever happened between OE and ME.
>
> I'd expect the direction of this change to be dependent on the isochronic
> type of the language in question. The change VC > V:C (or VC > VC:) has
> the effect of equalising the length of syllables, and so it's the sort of
> thing you'd expect in a syllable-timed language (or I guess a stress-timed
> one, like Germanic is, where syllables rather than morae bear stress). If
> we want examples of VC: > V:C while VC remains, I'd think to go looking in
> a mora-timed language.
>
> >but i suppose the output of that could merge with the output of *biki.
> that
> >would really mess with my semitic-like morphology, though.
>
> Is gemination morphological in your language, or does it distinguish roots?
>
morphological. well, if i have it at all (assuming i can come up with a
convincing story for how it came into being), it will be morphological.
>
> >although that probably would be nothing novel. does modern Hebrew even
> have
> >phonemic consonant length? i was at a talk on Hebrew the other day and
> the *
> >pi`el* form of *gadal* "to grow" was cited as *gidel*, not *giddÄl *as i
> >believe it would've appeared in classical Hebrew. i don't know if anyone
> >here knows about this.
>
> I'll throw in my lay understanding: no, it shifted to a fricativity
> contrast (intervocalically; of course, stops stayed stops elsewhere). The
> change has the name "begadkefat spirantisation", where "begadkefat" is just
> a list of the affected consonants, i.e. all the plain stops. Standard
> Modern Hebrew having been rephonologised by German, none of these pairs
> remain allophonic, or morpho-allophonic (whatever the term should be). On
> *t d g the distinction has collapsed. On *p b k it remains, but other
> mergers have split /b/ < *bb from /v/ < *b, *w and /k/ < *kk, *q from /X/ <
> *k, *ḥ, and loans have split /p/ from /f/.
>
well, but i don't know when this phonemic fricativity contrast would ever
have existed. once upon a time (inherited from proto-semitic), the
causative (*pi`el* 'binyan' in Hebrew grammars; an unfortunate name because
central *`ayin* cannot geminate) was marked by gemination of the middle
consonant (and different vowels) ... so,
*gadal 'he grew' *giddel 'he caused to grow'
then, as you say, the begadkefat spirantization occured (and i'll throw in
Hebrew's open-syllable lengthening), producing:
BHeb *gaÌdal* (phonetically [ga:'ðal]) 'he grew,' and *giddeÌl *'he caused
to grow' (since BS did not affect geminates) ... so it was always
singleton-AND-fricative or geminate-AND-plosive.
then, as you say, German had no /ð/, nor does it distinguish geminate
consonants ... so, AFAIK, modern Hebrew would do something like
*gadal* 'he grew' *gidel* 'he caused to grow,' with the intervocalic
fricativization (which was never really phonologically distinctive, i
think) AND consonantal gemination both gone. or am i missing something?
matt
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