On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 00:55:38 -0600, "Logan Kearsley"
<chrono.surfer@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>I can pronounce a lot of clicks in isolation, but integrating them into
>>>words is... non-trivial.
>>
>> I rather doubt people whose languages involve clicks find them
>> "non-trivial" at all! It's just a matter of perspective. They might
>> even find a clickless language as extremely odd.
>
>Learned natively, I'm sure they're no harder than any other sound. That's
>not of much help when trying to design an auxlang not intended to be
>anyone's native tongue that's universally easy to pronounce, though.
My point is simply that "universally easy" is all a matter of personal
opinion.
>>>>>Coming soon, vowels and syllable structure....
>>>>
>>>> Yay!
>>>
>>>Alright, I went and proposed a syllable structure of CV(C), just as a
>>>starting example, and my group sort of jumped on it. So, I guess that's
>>>what
>>>we're going with, with slight modifications for terminals and initials.
>>>So,
>>>every word starts with a single consonant (it is currently under
>>>consideration whether to allow initial consonant clusters- thoughts?),
>>
>> If clicks and vocalic Rs are considered too far from "universal",
>> clusters can hardly suffer a different fate!
>
>I'm leaning the same way. Allowing two-consonant internal clusters
shouldn't
>be a problem, since you can just insert a syllable break in between to
>de-clusterize them
Makes perfect sense.
>(which would be the official phonological description
>anyway), but that don't work for initials. If nobody gives strong sup****t
>for putting in initial clusters, I'll probably just forget about it.
You can introduce a weak vowel (a schwa) in sup****t of the word intial
cluster. Kind of like how Spanish has estado where English has state.
Will your language have word final clusters at all?
>>>and
>>>ends with anything at all. We're probably going to disallow most
terminal
>>>consonants in deference to languages like Japanese- better to leave in
>>>some
>>>(like 'n'), or just say "all words will end with vowels"?
>>>
>>>The vowel list current stands as:
>>>a - [a], [A], [O]
>>>e - [e], [E], [I], [@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>i - [i]
>>
>> Why is [I] part of E and not I?
>
>Because it feels right.
OK!
>I tried to stuff everything that an English speaker
>would be likely to turn into a schwa into the E category.
That's just about everything!
>(Perhaps that's
>being overly anglocentric, but AFAICT, it shouldn't cause problems for
>speakers of other native languages; am I wrong about that?)
What, schwaifying everything? This language seems to be all about
allophones, so why not?
>>>o - [o]
>>>u - [u], [y], [U]
>>>And diphthongs:
>>>ai - [ai], [Ai]
>>>ei - [ei], [Ei]
>>>oi - [oi]
>>>ao - [ao], [au], [Ao], [Au]
>>>
>>>Lots of allophones. And we currently have more vowel sounds than
>>>consonants;
>>>that bothers me a bit, though I'm not sure why.
>>
>> As far as I can see, you really only have five vowel categories, each
>> having several allophones. I think it's arguable whether diphthongs
>
>Yup. Except for I and O; they seem a bit lonely. Not entirely sure what I
>could/should add or move around.
>
>> are individual vowels or are composed of two discreet vowels. Since
>> this is an auxlang and not a naturalistic conlang with a history
>> behind it, I don't think this is such a problem.
>>
>>>I suppose it's OK. 'ao'
>>>seems sort of like the odd-diphthong-out. Anything that should be
>>>rearranged/added/excluded?
>>
>> Why only one vowel+O diphthong? What about EO / EU; OU or UO. Why no
>> vowel+A diphthongs at all?
>
>Because I'm not terribly familiar with vowel+A diphthongs; It's possible
>that I'm just being stupid about it (which is why I'm posting here, for
>other people to examine), but I couldn't think of any examples in
languages
>I know / know about when making the list.
It's a matter of spelling, but words like "was" and "wasp" could
arguably be considered UA diphthongs: uasp, etc.
>Basically, I just started with a list of all of the diphthongs I could
think
>of that I can pronounce easily without a clear separation between the
>component vowels, and then dropped out all of the ones that I couldn't
think
>of examples for in at least two languages. Not terribly scientific, I
know.
>Perhaps [ou] would make a good allophone for [o]....
Or E! ;)))
Padraic
>
>-l.
>------------------------------------
>My inbox is a sacred shrine, none shall enter that are not worthy.
>
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