tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon May 13 20:11:09 1996
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Re: Phonology & surroundings
- From: "Dr. Maciej St. Zieba" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Phonology & surroundings
- Date: Mon, 13 May 1996 23:10:37 EDT
"Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 07:35:34 -0700
>>From: Consulat General de Pologne <#[email protected]>
>>
>>Yesterday I could't fall asleep as I was thinking all the time about Klingon
>>phonology. And I came out to a conclusion, that there is something more
>>special to {-'} than what I have written before.
>>
>>TKD p. 16: "Occasionally the echo is quite audible, with a guttural sound
>>like {gh} preceeding the echoed vowel. Fo example {yIlI'} "transmit it!"
>>���������
>>can sound more like {yIlI'ghI}. This extra-heavy echo is heard most
>>often when the speaker is particularly excited or angry."
>>
>>toH!
>
>You seem fond of making mountains out of molehills.
Isn't it exactly what ALL linguists do with the language? Other people
JUST use the languages.
>Bear in mind that
>Okrand was doing his damnedest to try to explain how to get a good, strong,
>easy-to-recognize glottal stop in final position to a linguistically naive
>audience. I've spoken to *educated* people, in college, who only just
>realized that "t" and "d" are similar sounds, different mainly in voicing.
>A word-final glottal stop is a totally new concept to most
>English-speakers, and he's using all the tricks he can to make it make
>sense. In addition, he's also trying to explain away the various vagaries
>of pronunciation inflicted on the lines by some of the actors (like when he
>said that "baH" is sometimes pronounced "maH" to back-fit Marc Lenard's
>reading of the proto-tlhIngan invented by James Doohan in the first
>movie). Note it's a sound "like" gh, not a true "gh". I wouldn't put much
>stock in the use of "gutteral" meaning it's truly in a phonemically
>distinct point of articulation. He's not using language precisely here:
>this is a book in which he has to describe a retroflex stop as being
>produced "halfway between the teeth and... that part of the roof of the
>mouth that is rather gooshy." If you pronounce a glottal stop good and
>strong, and especially if you're not very good at glottal stops, you'll
>hear some air escaping through it. If you haven't cut off your voice
>properly (as if you were too excited and shouting) you'll hear *voice*
>escaping through. That's a voiced glottal fricative isn't it? And to
>someone who's finally starting to understand what Klingon "gh" sounds like,
>it's pretty close, and a good way to describe it.
Very interesting your description. Would be even more without the meta-ST
bla-bla.
>>Wow! Don't you realise that this would be the only case of a voiceless
>>stop that when voiced changes also the place of articulation from
>>glottal into guttural?
>
>You might as well pay close attention to "qa" "qe" "qI" and marvel that the
>"q" is pronounced in different places, slowly creeping up closer and closer
>to being more velar than uvular. The mouth is a continuum, and all sounds
>are affected by neighboring ones.
Now you are kidding. Or taking me for an idiot (in the old Greek sens {:-{). )
>>Of course this "new" {gh} is only like the old {gh} we already know.
>>I would prefer to write this new sound as {'gh}.
>
>No, this "new" gh is just an excited pronunciation of ' and that's all it
>is.
>
>I can sort of see your theories that gh is an voiced counterpart to '
>(there are cases where voiced and unvoiced consonants have slightly
>different points of articulation -- Klingon is an extreme example, with
>Okrand having chosen t and D but not T and d deliberately because there are
>no languages known which select those consonants so inconsistently) and
>thus explaining the -rgh cluster as having originated from -r'. But I'm
>not sure where you'll get evidence for it, or even what difference it would
>make if you were "right" (in whatever sense you can be said to be "right"
>about the mythic history of an invented language).
Well I was just wondering, and taking my fun from the language. Not looking
necessarily who is "right" and who is not. The sense of the "right" is
that of a "possible world's logic & truth", but even then I am not
NECESSARILY looking for it now. I wanted to DISCUSS my reflections.
>~mark
>
>
Qapla'
macheq noychoH jembatoQ
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