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Re: [txeqli] Glides vs. vowels, and nCnN



(Hi. I just joined the list. I'm a Lojbanist, and am interested in *eqli
despite the terrible ambiguities I've seen in it so far. Mostly, I think
the morphology is neat.)

On Wed, Feb 27, 2002 at 09:03:58PM -0800, Mike Wright wrote:
> Regarding glides, I don't think they should coexist with certain types
> of vowel combinations. It's too difficult to distinguish the following
> pairs in connected speech:
> 
> bua bwa
> bau baw
> bai bay
> bia bya

Is there anything to distinguish? To me it seems those are the same in
each case, and that the second is how they should be written in Txeqli's
morphology. The first uses dipthongs with weak vowels, which I believe
should not at all coexist with Txeqli's entirely separate "weaks".

> Also, do you expect nCnN to be true in practice? If not, why not
> narrow it down? Try listing all reasonable combinations, then look for
> a relatively compact set of rules. But I would prefer a more complex
> set of rules yeilding fewer bizarre possibilities such as /bdomen/ and
> /kfey/--not to mention the theoretical possibility of horrors such as
> /ksbqrmnlq/ or /bpbpbpqmqmqm/.

Those aren't theoretically possible; they have no vowels and thus no
syllables.

I believe that the rule that a weak cannot be its own
syllable would imply that you can't have three weaks in a row, in fact.
Or is there a counterexample, a cluster of three weaks that can be
prononuced between two vowels with no extra syllables?

> Unlike syntax, the complexity of the morphophonemic rules shouldn't
> have any practical impact on speakers, but only on those who are
> creating new morphemes, which is not something that has to be done on
> the fly.

Complexity?

The significant advantage I see to Txeqli is that its morphology is so
dead simple.

-- 
Rob Speer 
(raba spir?)