Re: The Mystery of the a:/aa Solved? (was Re: Phonomological Saul Epstein Wed, 29 Oct 1997 16:07:43 -0600 At 12:45 PM 10/29/97 -0600, Rob wrote: >At 10:47 AM 10/29/97 -0600, Saul wrote: >> >>> 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? >> >>So many of the more "active" action/state words end in that it's >>tempting to see a morpheme there, in which case there would be good >>reason to keep them all the same. Unfortunately, intensified "imroy" >>is "imimroy," "tixoy" is "titixoy", and so on. So, I don't know. > >Well, frankly I don't see what's wrong with leaving kroy spelled >kroi. The oi is a diphthongs, so what's wrong with splitting the >diphthongs to do the intensive form? Nothing. Gives me the willies, that's all. Probably because I'm making unconscious assumptions about syllable rules before the fact. But a diphthong isn't just a sequence of vowels, its a vowel that ends in a different place from where it starts. The difference doesn't prevent them from being split into two monophthongs, though. Especially if the diphthong itself resulted historically from the joining of two monophthongs. >>> >> 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 ) -- 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? >> >>According to what? For one thing, I don't think there ARE glottal >>fricatives, really, though that's sometimes how /h/ is classified. >>Friction at the glottis modifies the voicing of other sounds, >>producing "creaky" and "breathy" voice. > >Actually, I maybe getting confused here. I think you have the right >of it. In the Zvelebil Lexicon, we have /x/ as sounding like the ch >in the Scottish "loch". I've been saying that, and I realized it's >not quite as far back in the throat as a I thought. I was thinking >of thlingan Hol's Q. One might regard that as a voiced glottal >fricative. It's supposed to sound kind of like you're clearing your >throat. Well, now I'll have to look that up. I was under the impression that Okrand's is a uvular stop, like Arabic's "quf," while the is a uvular fricative. That's still further forward than the glottis. Without being very still and meditative and making glottal stops over and over again, it can be difficult to recognize how far back (and down) the glottis really is. >>> >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? >> >>It depends on the dialect. The "a" in my "father" is a low back >>vowel, just like the "ah" in my "ah-hah." Doctors tell us to "say >>'ah'" because we automatically put the backs of our tongues down. >> >>> I was thinking the >>> short a sound in English was a tense low front vowel, and that >>> that was also the sound in patte. >> >>The English "short" a IS a low front vowel (in many dialects), the >>sound of the "a" in English "pat." I don't know what French "patte" >>sounds like. > >Ok, I was a little mixed up. So the a in pat, is a lax low front >vowel, and the a in father is a tense low front vowel, that kind of >clears that up a bit. As I've heard it used (admittedly by Americans), >the a in patte sounds like the a in pat. The a in father is only a front vowel in some dialects. In mine it is back. But of course, the front-back distinction is much smaller among low vowels, because the distance involved is so much shorter. >Eureka! I think. I was perusing Mike Rose's Language Construction >Kit page, and I think I found the key to unlock those funny : >vowels. [snip] >So I think that the : adds "anxiety" to lax vowels and makes them >tense :-) The only exceptions might be /^:/ and /e:/. Of course >since we have no example of /a:/ it could also be an exception. >However, Mike's chart simplifies things considerable, he should >have expanded the horizontal axis to front-center-back and >the vertical axis to high, upper-mid, mid, lower-mid, low. He can't. The tense/lax distinction is an alternative to things like upper-mid. Here's a facsimile of the IPA vowel chart. front center back close i---------+----------u \ I \ U | close-mid e-----------------o \ * | open-mid E--------------) ae \ | open A-----------a The position of these signs depends on the position of the tongue in the mouth when producing different vowels. i in beat I in bit ei in bait E in bet ae in bat A -- a Kennedy says "bark" * in butt u in boot U in butcher o in boat ) in bought a in botch So the difference between e and ee and between o and oo is essentially one of height while the difference between i and ii and between u and uu is one of both height and anteriority. The usefulness of "tension" as a distinctive feature is debatable. >I'm looking for a more fully fleshed out chart, but if anyone >else has one and can send it to me, or knows of one on the web >and can point it out - I'd appreciate it. Check out http://www,arts,gla,ac,uk/IPA/vowels,html >If I'm right about this Saul, then the a:/aa should sound like >the "a" in father. That assumption has been sneaking up on me. But then, what does sound like? -- from Saul Epstein liberty uit net www johnco cc ks us sepstein "Surak ow'phaaper thes'hi thes'tca'; thes'phaadjar thes'hi suraketca'." -- K'dvarin Urswhl'at