Re: [engelang] phonology - engelang messages

On Sun, Sep 16, 2012 at 7:11 PM, selpa'i <seladwa@hidden.email> wrote:

Am 16.09.2012 23:47, schrieb Mike S.:

> What is the phonological value of <h>, which I have been using> experimentally? Nothing but [x, h] makes any sense.

Agreed, and probably only one of /x h/ should be allowed. The other alternative is that /h/ is pronounced as the breathy-voiced glottal fricative which is how I suspect most English speakers are pronouncing Lojban <'> anyway, but that's a tricky sound cross-linguistically, isn't it. I remember some Eastern European saying on the Lojban list that he was using [G] for <'>, which I take as another indication that contrastive /h x/ is problematic.

Really? [x] is hard to distinguish from [h] for English speakers? The Lojban speakers I have heard/talked to in Lojban didn't seem to have trouble with it, and I didn't notice anything special, but of course I haven't heard everyone's Lojban by far. Still, I wouldn't mind having /x/ and /h/ be different phonemes, the latter being either <'> or <h>, while /x/ would simply be <x>, i.e. what Lojban does.

The problem is that the perceivable contrast [h] and [x] is effectively neutralized in certain but not all environments. In particular, in the position of C of [iCi], that is a consonant between two [i], the contrast effectively is reduced to one between a voiceless approximant and a voiceless fricative at the same or nearly the same point of articulation, and the difference to the perceiver is vanishingly slight. It doesn't seem that way to the speaker, because the speaker "feels" the presence or absence of friction and can't really hear himself accurately.

It was And Rosta who pointed this out a while back. I didn't take his word until I downloaded Audacity, recorded my voice several times, and listened to the playback. And was right: I couldn't reliably detect the contrast.

The system Jorge has in mind is for 6 rather than 7 vowels, no [y]. Strict CV phonotactics and no consonant-vowels. Plus a vowel-separator C. The system I have in mind is for 7 vowels. Phonotactics are that vowels must be flanked by consonants; and i & u are both vowels and consonants. The role of vowel separator is taken over by i & u, sometimes contrasting (after a) and sometimes not, for I would also disallow /eu/, /yu/, /oi/, /uu/, /ii/. In Jorge's system [eIui] would be ambiguous between /e yu wi/ and /e wi/, [eIuia] between /e yu wi ya/ and /e wi ya/ and /e yu ya/ and /e wu ya/ -- a proper mess. In my scheme, [eIuia] could only be /eiuia/. I might also consider allowing /i@, u@/, orthographically <ii, uu> in some environments, maybe any preconsonantal environment.

I agree with you on the basic seven vowels /a e i o u w y/=[a E i O u y 9] where /y/ could also be [@] and /a/ is any low vowel.

A phonemic /y/ = [@]? Why not just use that as buffer vowel for the otherwise vowel-less predicates. I find it helpful that schwa so far only appears in predicates, it makes things more distinct in my ears.

Similarly to Loglan <y> would be [9] or [@] and <w> would be [y]. I apologize to everyone for that bit of confusion.

<w>=[y], the intraroot buffering vowel, would be available for metalinguistics, but would be implicit in root predicates just as it is now. <y>=[9] or [@] would be a hyphening morpheme like Lojban zei and would be spelled. I would construct roots like ndr, br, nt such that a vowel would likely have to be pronounced in those places any way e.g. brynt-. The so-called hyphen would also appear in front of a root when the root didn't start with a reasonable onset e.g. yndr-, which could be elided when following another word e.g. na ndra'a "I am not a ndr."

Maybe it would be better to swap the phonetic values <y> and <w>, but I would prefer <y> to be the hyphen and <w> to be the buffer.

I would say that /i u/ could be underlyingly semivowels or glides which I will symbolize as [I U] or consonants [j w], but can also be realized as a sequence of vowel and consonant. Yes they serve as separators. I would constrain vowel strings composed of /a e i o u/ as follows: No geminates which means no /ii uu/; no sequences of two non-high vowels /ae ao/ etc. However everything else is allowed with the following sanctioned phonetic variation: 1) After a non-high vowel, /i u/ is pronounced [I U], but may also be pronounced [ji wu]. i.e. each of /ai au ei eu oi ou/ = [aI aU EI EU OI OU] or [aji awu Eji Ewu Oji Owu] respectively.2) Before any vowel, /i u/ pronounced [I U] or [j w], but may also be pronounced [ij uw]i.e. each of /ia ua iu ui/ etc. = [Ia Ua Iu Ui] etc. or [ija uwa iju uwi] etc. respectively. 3) between two vowels, /i u/ are pronounced [I U] or more likely [j w], though even [jij wuw] is allowed.

Wouldn't it be simpler to assign [w] and [j] to seperate letters, <w> and <y> (and not use <y> for schwa) ? Treat them as C and forbid all diphthongs for example. Seems much simpler.

Yes that would be simpler, but it would entail that there be only five monosyllabic variables. I don't see the point of separate symbols for the [w] and [j] in your system. There would always be an odd number of vowels in sequence, and every second one would be [w] or [j], right?

> It seems like a waste of variables to me, but the Lojban crowd seems> to dig their attitudinals, and I am actually starting to almost think> 30 V/V'V variables total *is* enough, so maybe it's a good thing for> the future Xorban sales brochure to have Lojban-like attitudinals.> Lojban attitudinals begin with q followed by a vowel.

Yes though not all of them. The way I look at it, the reason that most of them start with the glottal stop follows from a more general rule that all syllables start with a non-null onset.
Hehe, that's exactly how I see it as well. I just had an argument with someone on the Lojban list about this and they wouldn't accept this idea. Is <q> really more visually appealing than <.> ? Maybe it is, but it's also much heavier on the eye. I'm probably biased due to my Lojban background. I think as long as <'> doesn't become [?], I won't compain.