tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 17 14:19:30 1995
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Re: tlh-H phonology question
- From: [email protected]
- Subject: Re: tlh-H phonology question
- Date: Wed, 17 May 95 22:17:58 BST
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]> (message from Marc Ruehlaender on Wed, 17 May 1995 07:22:16 -0400)
On Wed, 17 May 1995 07:22:16 -0400, Marc Ruehlaender <[email protected]> said:
[replying to me]
>> (1) It seems counter-intuitive to treat final {w} and {y} as something
>> other than consonants, because
>> a. they are no different from word-initial {w} and {y} and
> now I think [w] and un(?)syllabic [U] are different, dito for
> [j] and [I], so you say /w/ = [w,U], /j/ = [j,I] ?
Yes, if you wish. That is, if you insist on transcribing {aw} and {ay}
as [aU] and [aI] rather than [aw] and [aj].
> or do you say e.g. yay = [jA:j] not [jaI] ?
Well, why not? But I wouldn't make much of that.
> Also do you think the vowels should stay the same
> before y,w ? so e.g. 'oy' = [?@Uj?] not [?OI?] ?
I think that {o} and {oy} should be [o] and [oj] (or [O] and [Oj]),
respectively. If Okrand's explanation makes it look as though {o}
is normally pronounced [@U] or something, it's because he did not
expect his audience to know anything about phonetics and phonology
or, for that matter, to have any idea of IPA. I don't think that
his choice of English examples should be taken too seriously.
> (you see, I don't have the tapes yet...)
The narrators on the tapes are smooth-browed native English speakers,
not Klingons.
> hmmm... maybe if we could ascertain that -oy inserts a '
> at the end of open syllables and it doesn't insert ' after
> "Diphtongs"... (is it ghewoy or ghew'oy? )
I vote for {ghewoy} from {ghew} and {ghew'oy} from {ghew'}.
It would be best if we had a native speaker to interview,
but that doesn't happen to be the case.
--'Iwvan