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Rex May - Baloo wrote: > > on 3/3/02 8:45 PM, Rob Speer at rob@hidden.email wrote: > > > > > Is 'faul' still a valid morpheme in Ceqli? > > Is 'fawl'? > > If both are acceptable, how is the pronunciation different? > > > > My impression is that it would be easier to just use weaks to form > > diphthongs: ay, ey, oy, aw, (ew?), ya, ye, yo, yu, wa, we, wi, wo. > > This is a good point in time to get everybody's opinion. Shall we use weaks > to make the diphthongs, or let i and u do it? In short, choose between > > ay ai > ey ei > oy oi > aw au > ew eu I would definitely choose one or the other, but before deciding, let's clarify something: If "dia" would be pronounced differently from "dya" (/dia/ vs. /dja/), should the same distinction hold for "dai" vs. "day?" And, are all four of these single syllables? My feeling is "dai" and "day" should be different, and that it would be more symmetrical to go with "dai". Thus: <ai> = /ai/, not <ay> = /aj/ (and not <ai> = /aj/, either). But there's nothing that requires absolute symmetry, though there seems, in view of the consonant questions, to be some sentiment in favor of it. Would there a be a gain in distinctiveness of syllables by contrasting: ia ai au wa ie ei io oy eu we But then there's a sort of a problem with: iu wi ui yu There shouldn't be both <iu> and <yu>, nor both <ui> and <wi>. This might be a good argument for eliminating the weaks, <w> and <y>. That way, at least, there are no additional rules to memorize. -- Mike Wright http://www.CoastalFog.net _______________________________________________________ "When they wired us humans up, they really should have labeled the wires--don't you think?" -- Ed