Re: Phonomological Analysis of Vulcan Utterances
Rob Zook 
Wed, 29 Oct 1997 09:00:24 -0600

At 12:08 AM 10/29/97 -0600, you wrote:
>From: Rob Zook 
>Date: Tuesday, October 28, 1997 9:03 PM
>
>> I'm pretty sure that all the ones with the letters "oy"  
>> probably should be spelled "oi", given that's the way that 
>> "kroykah" sounded in _Amok Time_. We should probably do the 
>> same with any "<V>y" combination. Except for a few specific 
>> instances the rest of the "y" occurances below probably act as 
>> a consonent.
>
><kroy> is, ironically enough, the one exception I would grant to
>this. Because the reduplicated form of <kroy> is <krokroy>, I suggest
>that it should be <kroy'> rather than <kroi>. This lets the syllable
>structure be kro-y', so that kro is the reduplicated syllable. But
>everywhere else I think your interpretations work.

That does not sound to disimilar to what it sounded like in _Amok
Time_ so I have no objection to that, so kroy' and kroy'kah then?
Should we also then change the other "oy" words to this syllable
structure?

>> The one that really bugs me is what the heck should "kh" sound
>> like? An aspirated "k" or a fricative "k"? My personal 
>> preference is the fricative. 
>
>I think in most cases it is the fricative (or <x>) -- though I do
>think Vulcan probably allows stop-/h/ consonant clusters...

But, I was thinking of "kh" as a voiceless velar fricative, and I
thought /x/ represented a voiced glottal fricative?

>> One more thing which suggests itself - the excessive use of "h"
>> with a vowel probably indicates a short vowel rather than an 
>> extra breathy syllable. This seems to appear in words from
>> the ST Novels more than anywhere else.
>
>Yes. Except "ah" tends not to be used to represent a short a, and
>there are a number of those. 

What kind of sound is the "a" in father then? I was thinking the
short a sound in English was a tense low front vowel, and that
that was also the sound in patte. 

>I've been turning them into <aa>s, to
>boost their frequency if nothing else. 

I agree with the sentiment, but...

>But it would help to no what
>the "real" difference is between <a> and <aa>.

Exactly.

>> I have extracted a few words from the dictionary which will
>> prove troublesome to the analysis program, and a suggested 
>> alterate spelling:
>> 
>> Dictionary Version            Some guesses
>> ------------------            -------------
>
>	[snip]
>
>> p'pil'lay                     p'pil'la'ai?
>
>Mmm. Probably just p'pil'lai.

Oops, fat fingers Rob strikes again ;-)

>> shroy                         shroi?
>
>or croi

or croy'?
with a reduplicated crocroy'

Rob Z.
--------------------------------------------------------
Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that
he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny 
the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic.
-- Notes from Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky