[YG Conlang Archives] > [ceqli group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
Rex May - Baloo wrote: > > on 2/27/02 1:31 PM, Mike Wright at darwin@hidden.email wrote: > > > Rex May - Baloo wrote: > >> > >> on 2/27/02 6:19 AM, Ray Bergmann at rayber@hidden.email wrote: > >> > >> Rex >> 1) permissible consonant clusters > >> > >> I've been going by instinct so far. All voiced or all > >> unvoiced, or unvoiced > >> prededing voiced. Worst clusters I've come up with is > >> Bdomen (abdomen) and > >> Kfey (coffee) > >> > >> Ray >> In Unish a schwa is understood to separate several > >> consonants together so "bdomn" would be pronounced > >> [b`dom`n] if it were Unish. But actually the Unish words > >> for "abdomen, belly, venter" and "coffee" are "BELI" and > >> "KOFI". > >> > >> In Tx as well I'm expecting schwa-buffering. Another reason why I > >> opted not to have a schwa phoneme. > > > > This is where my question about a "native accent" comes in. People who > > have a problem with certain consonant clusters will end up with more > > of a "foreign" accent than those who don't. It seems to me that you > > are on the road to making the language more appealing to a smaller > > sub-set of speakers than is absolutely necessary. If you permit words > > like /mekdanaldz/ (MacDonalds), you're going to have Japanese wanting > > to say it as /mekkudanarudozu/. (The Japanese name for the chain is > > Makkudonarudo.) The Japanese language, like many others, doesn't have > > a real schwa, so I wouldn't expect schwa-buffering from them. > > > > I bet lots of Spanish speakers would tend to say "Txiq estu" for "Txiq > > stu", too. > > > > My advice would be to stick with (C)V or, at worst, (C)V(C) syllable > > shapes, and to constrain vocabulary selection accordingly. Ray's > > examples of <beli> and <kofi> are so-o-o much more appealing, even to > > me, than monstrosities (no offense) like <bdomen> and <kfey>. > > Well, as it stands the word shape is nCnN Ð One or more consonants followed > by one or more non-consonants (including vowels and weaks). That gives an > effectively infinite number of possible words. But if we can't have any > consonant clusters we'd have something pretty Hawaiian-looking. How about > using Italian as a model? If it seems unpronounceable to an italian, we > consider it unpronounceable in Ceqli. > > > > > Since all Txeqli words are loan words, I see no reason not to make it > > a principle that they should be forced to fit the Txeqli phonology, > > including word-internal syllable stress patterns, whatever those are > > designed to be. So, if the native stress pattern for a three-syllable > > word is designed to be medium-light-heavy, then <banana> should be > > /"ba na 'na/, not /"ba 'na na/, following English /"b@ 'n& n@/. > > > > To me, lack of regularity in this area is no more appealing (and no > > less confusing) than lack of regularity in syntax. I see frequent > > mention of computer parsing, and this would be much easier with a > > fully regular prosody. > > Good. What would (you know a lot more aobut this than I do) be a good rule > or set of rules? My instincts call for penultimate accent to begin with. Would you still feel that way if the word were <president> rather than <banana>: /"pre 'si dent/? How about /"o to 'mo bil/? To me, heavy-any number of lights-medium feels pretty good: /"pre si 'dent/, /"o to mo 'bil/, /"ba na 'na/. Of course, there's going to be a feeling of unnaturalness in the case of something like <banana>, which has a different pattern in our native language. -- Mike Wright http://www.CoastalFog.net _______________________________________________________ "When they wired us humans up, they really should have labeled the wires--don't you think?" -- Ed