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Re: [ceqli] Re: Xyen



on 5/23/05 9:37 AM, Jim Henry at jimhenry1973@hidden.email wrote:

> On 5/22/05, Rex May <rmay@hidden.email> wrote:

> I'm beginning to think that maybe
> the following vowel here is
> more important than the leading consonant.  I
> mean, for me,
> 
> pwa, pwe, pwi
> 
> are easy to say and hear, but pwo and
> pwu are not.

That makes sense.

> In like manner, tho maybe to a lesser
> degree, I find
> 
>  cya, xya, sya
> 
> rather better than cye, xye, sye.
> 
>
> But not by much, so I'd decide to prohibit c/x/s+y.  There.  I just
> decided
> it.

Good.

> And prohibit at least the combos yi, wo, and wu.

Probably a
> good idea.  Maybe "ye" as well?  It was the one
that started this whole
> thread, after all

Sort of.   Xye, sye, cye, of course.  But what about a word like byen?  To
me it's clearly different from ben.   I think for an English speaker, the
fact that a consonant follows the 'e' makes a difference, somehow.   Or, I
could prohibit the ye, and words of that sort would turn into two syllables
- byen vs. biEN - which, frankly, sound pretty much alike to my ear.  I'm
willing to make that change if there's general agreement that it won't hurt
anything.

>.

> How's this list sound for cwaba?
> 
> B+L, R, W, Y
>
> C+W
> D+L, R, W, Y
> F+L, R, W, Y
> G+L, R. W, Y
> H+L, R
> J+W
> K+L, R. W,
> Y
> P+L, R. W, Y
> S+F, K, L, M, N, P, R, T, W
> T+L, R, W, Y
> V+L, R, W, Y
>
> X+K, L, M, N, P, R, T, V, W
> Z+B, D, G, L, R, W, Y

That looks pretty good.
> I like the way you rule out
anything except /w/ after the affricates, and
> everything but liquids
and semivowels after the stops.  I'm not so sure about
> /hr/ and /hl/, \

Depending on whether you use the BaCH allophone or the English aitch
allophone of the word, you have these possiblites for the two clusters.

hlam.   Either pronounced like Hebrew Chlam, or with an unvoiced L.
hram.  Either like Hebrew Chram or with an unvoiced r.

>
though.

> And 2 nasals and liquids in any combination are
> permitted as
> long as they're bracketed by vowels.  A few n/l pairs are
> allowed
> to end a morpheme ? A vowel must go before, but none is
> needed
> afterward:
> 
> RN, RM  LN, LM

Why not RQ and LQ?

No reason why not at all.   I just don't think I've found those combos in
any words that I've borrowed so far.  So they could be allowed but most
likely rare in practice.

One more consideration.   Ceqli makes many opposites by reversal, which
consists of keeping the cwaba initial group, and then reversing the order of
the following faloba:

bimyo - subtle, boymi - obvious
dina - honest, dani - dishonest

Now, I'd like to allow for some more offbeat clusters in some of the
resulting reversals:

dalam - deep, dmala - shallow

It's easy for me.  Just like the name Dmitri, which lots of Anglophones can
say quite easily.  

Reactions?

-- 

Rex F. May (Baloo) 
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