tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Aug 06 13:26:10 1999
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Re: Vowels
- From: Marc Ruehlaender <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Vowels
- Date: Fri, 06 Aug 1999 15:26:06 CDT
jatlh ~mark:
> > Klingon vowels are well defined as well (as opposed to English, which has
> > lots and sometimes more than people realize). there's a, e, I, o, u. You
> > could argue that diphthongs in Klingon comprise sorta vowels
>
jatlh charghwI':
> I don't believe that Klingon has any diphthongs. I've never seen
> one. Since {y} and {'} are consonants, the only affix that
> offers any potential for a diphthong is {-oy}, and that is
> preceeded by {'} if it follows an open syllable. So, where do
> you get this idea of a diphthong in Klingon?
>
I'm sure, ~mark can defend himself quite well, but in the end
it's a matter of terminology. Whether you call sequences like
{ay}, {aw} etc. diphtongs (you'd only do that if there is no
syllable boundary between {a} and {y}/{w}, of course) or you
call them vowel+consonant only matters for how you write the
phonological(?) rules and...
> > while that bothers
> > some folks the fact is that if you define the accompanying rules right you
^^^^^^^^^^ (like, e.g., charghwI' :-)
> > wind up with the same result, so what's the difference. It's likely
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^!!!
> > simpler not to, though, since diphthongs are not commonly used as
> > syllable-nuclei except with specific cases (final consonant ', etc (and
> > others, I know, this isn't exhaustive))
>
> It sounds like you are counting {y} as a vowel. I don't.
>
what it _should_ sound like, though, is that non-syllable-initial
{y} and {w} can (but don't need to) be seen as forming a diphtong
with the preceding vowel.
Marc Ruehlaender
aka HomDoq
[email protected]