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Mike S., On 25/08/2012 04:38:
On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 11:25 PM, MorphemeAddict <lytlesw@hidden.email <mailto:lytlesw@hidden.email>> wrote:
On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 11:10 PM, Mike S. <maikxlx@gmail.com <maikxlx@gmail.com">mailto:maikxlx@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 12:03 PM, And Rosta <and.rosta@hidden.email <mailto:and.rosta@hidden.email>> wrote:
FWIW, Livagian has 21 unaccented consonants, 4 accented consonants, 7 unaccented vowels and 8 accented vowels -- 21 consonants and 7 vowels if you take only the unaccented. So that gives a sense of where I strike the balance.
That's not too elaborate. If you had accented consonants, then I assume that syllables had two mora, so you probably had long vowels too. Correct?
I think you're confusing accent marks (diacritics) with accent stress or tone. Accented vowels and consonants merely had diacritic marks on them to distinguish them from the unaccented variety, if I understand correctly.
Ha, yeah. I'm sure you're right. I remember And previously speaking about consonants taking pitch in some his sketches, so I figured the "4 accented consonants" were the sonorants /m n r l/ or something. Plus he has more accented vowels than unaccented ones, which made me think one got neutralized when it was "unaccented". We need a word... diacriticized? Diacriticated?
Mike, you're almost completely right in every detail. Accented segments in Livagian have a tone different from the tone preceding it. Only sonorants have tone, so only sonorants can be accented. Consonants and vowels are defined photactically: consonants can't be adjacent to nonvowels; vowels can't be adjacent to nonconsonants. The four tone-bearing consonants are /m n nx l/ {[m n N l]). And indeed, in unaccented vowels there is (in effect) a neutralization yielding seven rather than eight vowels. (More exactly, unaccented /r/ is a nonvocalic consonant and accented /r/ (/rw/ in ascii) is a vocalic consonant.)
--And.