tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Aug 10 11:42:50 1999

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Re: Vowels



>Mailing-List: contact [email protected]; run by ezmlm
>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 10:32:57 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
>Priority: NORMAL
>X-Authentication: IMSP
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>
>On 9 Aug 1999 02:56:23 -0000 [email protected] wrote:
>
>> >Date: Fri, 06 Aug 99 17:12:41 EST
>> >From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>> >
>> >On Fri, 6 Aug 1999 12:28:55 -0400 [email protected] wrote:
>> >
>> >> 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 
>> >
>> >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?
>> 
>> This argument has been done before; I was just remembering it.  The fact is
>> it's all a matter of how you choose to name things: if you formulate the
>> rules right you wind up with the same results at the end of the day whether
>> you believe in diphthongs or not.  I find it simpler, as you do, to keep it
>> as vowels and consonants and occasional glides and exceptions to make the
>> phonology work, but you could construct the exact same phonology by
>> starting from vowels and diphthongs and having different exceptions and
>> whatnots. *Shrug*.  Whatever floats the individual language-student's boat.
>
>The difference that I see is that a "y" in English is truely a 
>"semi-vowel" because there are mysterious rhymes where it holds 
>a position in a word that only a vowel could hold. This never 
>happens in Klingon. The "y" is used in Klingon only where a 
>consonant can be used.
>
>To make the rules such that {y} could be considered a Klingon 
>vowel, you'd have some very complex exceptions to rules to make. 
>It would then be the only vowel to accompany other vowels with 
>no interceeding consonant, AND it would be the only vowel that 
>can begin a word with no preceeding consonant. Add that it is 
>never used between two consonants and is indeed never used 
>without at least one other vowel adjacent to it.
>
>In other words, it would be the only vowel which is always 
>treated like a consonant and never treated like a vowel. {{:)>

I think you misunderstood at least some of the other ways of defining
stuff.  Saying Klingon y is a vowel would be pretty grossly inaccurate.
But saying that Klingon ay/ey/Iy/oy/uy/aw/ew/Iw are "diphthongs" and can be
nuclei of syllables is something else entirely.  Here are two possible (and
not the only two possible) ways of defining the syllable-structure in
Klingon.  I am not taking sides as to which is "right", though I have my
preferences (and they align with yours, charghwI'):

A.  There are sounds of type P and type Q.  Type P sounds are a/e/I/o/u,
and type Q sounds are b/ch/D/gh/H/j/l/m/n/ng/p/q/Q/r/S/t/tlh/v/w/y/'.
There are also sounds of type W, which are a subset of Q, namely w and y.
A syllable in Klingon (except for the suffix -oy) consists of: (1) QP, (2)
QPQ, (3) QPW', with the exceptions that (ow) and (uw) are forbidden, (4)
QPrgh.

B.  There are sounds of type P (as above) and types S and type T, as well
as W as defined above.  S is b/ch/D/gh/H/j/l/m/n/ng/p/q/Q/r/S/t/tlh/v/',
and T is ay/ey/Iy/oy/uy.  A Klingon syllable (except for the suffix -oy)
consists of: (1) {S|W}{P|T} (i.e. S or W followed by P or T), (2) {S|W}PS,
(3) {S|W}T' (4) {S|W}Prgh.  If you also define type Q as above (which is
the same as {S|W}) the rules are even simpler, and note that they have no
exceptions.

I submit that the two definitions above are functionally interchangeable:
they describe precisely the same set of syllables; they have the same
extension.  (Note, however, that this set of syllables is not necessarily
the set of possible Klingon ones.  Aside from nitpicking that we have not
yet seen ALL the syllables in action, it should be noted that as I defined
them, the syllable {*qIy'} is possible, and we have not yet to my knowledge
seen any syllable ending in {-Iy'}.  This one may turn out to be forbidden,
and both definitions would have to be adjusted.  But for the sake of
argument, let's assume it can happen).

Linguistics is essentially a *descriptive* discipline, or at least it
should be.  Saying that one or the other of these definitions is "right" is
a *prescriptive* act, and one that isn't warranted.  Oh, sure, maybe
Klingon grammarians have a historical reason to view it one way or the
other, but (a) that does not necessarily make that view "better" in
describing the current state of affairs (examples of this abound in
real-life linguistics), and also (b) we don't know what this putative view
is, Okrand's descriptions notwithstanding.  Okrand's description of Klingon
is mostly descriptive as well, except for a few well-marked exceptions such
as when he tells us that -Qo' and -Ha' are considered rovers by Klingon
grammarians even though they don't rove.  He is describing the language as
it is, not telling us what Klingons think it is (if he were, I bet he'd
have given us more Klingon grammatical terms).

So I don't think it is appropriate to say that one or the other definition
given above is "right"; perhaps you might have a preference for one or the
other, or for still another one that could be drafted.  I'm sure the ones
above could be made simpler as well.  You could argue the relative merits
of one over the other, but what would be the point?  (A) has fewer classes
of sounds, but (B) has fewer exceptions... (A) accords better with how
we're writing the language, but writing has always been considered
secondary to speech in linguistics (not always with good reason, but
usually with some) and since we don't know how Klingons write the language
anyway that doesn't really help us one way or the other.  And so forth.  I
don't think an argument about terminology would be very fruitful.  You can
call things anything you like, so long as your results are consistent.
There are other desiderata in a description, of course, but those should be
considered in the context of what you're using the description for (and
maybe even shift descriptions depending on the particular topic at hand).

>> >So, basically, you are ready to use any voiced consonant as a 
>> >vowel. Hey, why stop there? Cherokee uses "s" as a whole 
>> >syllable. :) For that matter, for one exclammatory, so does 
>> >Klingon.
>> 
>> Any voiced consonant?  Are you mad?  After all, some languages have
>> *unvoiced* vowels too! :) But it would have to be a *continuant*, not a
>> stop.  I can't find my linguistics dictionary atm for a proper definition
>> of "vowel", but if for the sake of argument we use "sound that can be the
>> nucleus of a syllable," practically any continuant can qualify... with
>> varying degrees of likelihood.  Certainly r is in English (for some values
>> of r and some values of English) and Sanskrit, n is syllabic in Japanese,
>> there's a vocalic l in *one* verb in Sanskrit (it used to be more
>> widespread in earlier forms of the language, but dropped mostly out by the
>> Classical period),... these are all fairly frictionless sounds.  S is in
>> the Klingon exclamation and s is in Cherokee and in stuff like "Pssst!"  I
>> think the more friction the sound has the harder it is to make it hold a
>> syllable, so H would be hard... but not necessarily impossible.
>
>[raspberry]
>
>That is, an intralabial unvoiced, lingual fricative. I'm not 
>sure if that's accurate. I just made it up and it makes sense to 
>me.

I'd call it a voiceless interlabial trill.  I'd think it would be hard to
use that as a vowel; it has a lot of friction and also its position makes
it hard to make consonants near it... but then again, it could be okay as a
syllable in and of itself, with no surrounding consonants (and by my
admittedly ad-hoc definition that would qualify).  After all, if it's a
syllable, and syllables have to have at least one vowel in them...  Still,
I'd put that one low on the sonority scale.  (darn, the Lexicon of
Linguistics web site is down; I can't look stuff up better).

~mark




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