[YG Conlang Archives] > [ceqli group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
On 5/19/05, Rex May - Baloo <rmay@hidden.email> wrote: > Okay, I'm having doubts. Should I allow "Xy" as in xyen or xyu (and, > implicitly also "Cy")? I fear they're among the harder combinations to > pronounce, and also hard (I'd think) for many to distinguish from the same > word without the y. I mean, xyen and xen seem too close together. Then maybe you should drop them. > I'm > thinking it should be xien and xiu, with two distinct syllables, to preclude > that danger. I think I made the first forms because the origin words, from > French and Chinese, are listed as monosyllabic, though I have my doubts > about "chien". It sounds like two syllables to me. "chien", "rien", and "bien" are all monosyllabic, at least in the standard French dialect I learned in college. > And I have been advised that it's about time I decided what phonological > combinations are to be allowed. I'm inclined to disallow more than two > consonants in a cluster. That would eliminate str, spr, skr, spl, skl and > the same series beginning with "x". Or I could disallow more than two > consonants EXCEPT for these. Beyond that, I think I want to allow things > that seem pronounceable to me, and justify it later. I have no problems > with zb, kn, sf, tl, dl, zd, zg, ks, kx, ts, ps, px. Anybody have an idea > about what ought to be allowed and how to state it systematically? As our > new member said, Eo never stated its rules up front and that is a flaw. I > suppose the way to go is just to make a list of permissible combinations. Or, better, a few simple rules about which _kinds_ of phoneme can be combined with which other kinds of phoneme and in what order. E.g.: an initial syllable can begin with any of these: C | ZG | SK | ZL | SL | KL | GL where Z = voiced fricative, S =unvoiced fricative, K = unvoiced stop, G = voiced stop, C = any consonant, L = liquid (l or r). I would recommend against the combinations like KS | GZ, or against clustering an affricate with just about anything else. I don't find them hard to pronounce, but lots of people do; and I do sometimes find them hard to distinguish acoustically from the plain fricatives without the initial stop when other people pronounce them. But the same argument applies _a fortiori_ to the affricates, which seem to be embedded pretty solidly in ceqli. Easy pronouncability is obviously not your highest goal, but one to be balanced with others; it's up to you to say how much ease of pronunciation you're willing to give up to achieve other goals (e.g. having many words with few syllables). The rule above needs to be expanded to show which consonants the semivowels (y, w) are allowed to follow. You might rule out either of them following any consonant at roughly the same point of articulation, i.e. not only sy, xy, cy, zy, jy, ny but also pw, bw, mw. -- Jim Henry http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/review/log.htm