Friday, July 15, 2011

Phonology

Before I go any further with this, I'd like some feedback on the phonology.   Here it is:


B as in Boy
C as in CHin
D as in DuD
F as in FluFF
G as in Good
H as in Hat
J as in John, Gem
K as in KinK
P as in PiP
S as in So
T as in ToT
V as in Victory
X as in SHoe
Z as in Zoo


The other 12 are called non-consonants (N) in Ceqli

Five Full Vowels (V):

A as in fAther
E as in bEt*
I as in machIne
O as in bOAt
U as in bOOt

And two semivowels (S):

W as in We, coW
Y as in You, boY

And five sounds, nasals and liquids (L), that are usually thought of
as consonants, but are considered non-consonants in Ceqli:

L as in LuLL
M as in MiM
N as in NooN
Q as in siNG
R as in RoaR (Midwestern American or Mandarin preferred, but any 'r' sound will do.)

It differs from Logan in a couple of ways.  First, it has the phoneme /N/ represented as 'q.'  Second, instead of letting i and u serve as semivowels, I add y and w.  Third, and here's where I want the feedback, Where Loglan has:

dj for /dZ/ I have j
tc for /tS/ I have c
j for /Z/ I have no letter and don't include the phoneme
c for /S/ I have x

As it stands, it's definitely an asymmetry in contrast to Loglan.  I don't have the voiced counterpart of /S/.  How bad is that?  Also, I have only two affricates regarded as phonemes, while ts, for example, is two phonemes.

If I were to change over to the Loglan dj and tc, apart from the hassle of change, I'd have the disadvantage of making Ceqli look just a little weirder than it already is, and I'd lose the five CV's ca ce ci co cu.  And then I'd have 25 letters with one left over.

Would it be worth all that hassle to make Ceqli technically more symmetrical?


14 comments:

  1. No!

    The asymmetry is okay. You've chosen something, it works, it's fine. Come up with a digraph if you absolutely need /Z/.... maybe "zz" or "hz" or even "zh".

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! I had myself convinced. I just needed the motion seconded:) Of course, any language needs a mechanism to represent all sounds. I figure that, at this point /Z/ just isn't a Ceqli phoneme, no more than /T/ is.

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  3. Ceqli alphabet letter "j" is phonemic /j/, which could be pronounced either as phonetic [j](= alphabetic digraph {jh or zh}) or as phonetic [dj] (= alphabetic trigraph {djh} or {dzh} or alphabetic digraph {dj}). But Ceqli alphabet letter "x" (= digraph {sh}) and Ceqli alphabet letter "c" (pronounced [tx] = alphabetic trigraph {tsh} or alphabetic digraph {ch}) don't have the optional range of pronunciation that Ceqli alphabet letter "j" does.

    Digraphic/Trigraphic alphabetic notations inside curled brackets can complement phonetic notations inside square brackets to clarify the phonetic notation being used: [Tiq] {thing}; [baGdad] {Baghdad}; [loK] {lokh}.

    Ceqli phonemic alphabet: /ceqli/
    Txeqli phonetic alphabet: [txeqli]
    Di-/Tri-graphic notation {chengli/tshengli}.

    ReplyDelete
  4. http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/ipasam-x.pdf X-SAMPA is an extension of SAMPA proposed by J.C. Wells of University College London to computer-code the IPA.

    X-S: [tr{ns''krIpS@n In 'eks''s{mp@ f@''nEtIk ''{lf@bEt] = 2/3-graf: {traenskripsh7n in eks-saemp7 f7netik aelf7bet}

    Auxiliary Pronunciation Alphabet (APA) does away with the differences between capital and lower-case letters (as used in X-Sampa) in order to provide phonetic transcriptions similar to the phonemic transcriptions in proposed auxiliary languages.

    APA: /[tra<nskr'i\px7n in ayd-f7neti a<lfabet]/ = 2/3-graf: {traenskripsh7n in ayd-f7neti aelfabet}

    ReplyDelete
  5. X-SAMPA (X-S) compared to APA

    X-S [x] v.less velar fricative APA /[k^]/;
    X-S [X] v.less uvular fricativ APA /[q^]/;
    X-S [S] v.less palatoalveolar fric. /[x]/;
    X-S [s\] v.less alveopalatl fric. /[x9]/;
    X-S [ts\] Chinese q APA /[tx9]/;
    X-S [Z] v. palatoalveolar fric. APA /[j]/;
    X-S [dZ`] Chinese j APA /[dj9]/;
    X-S [S`] v.less rtrflx velar fric. /[x`]/;
    X-S [tS`] Chinese ch APA /[tx`]/;
    X-S [dZ`] Chinese zh APA /[dj`]/;
    X-S [j] palatl approximnt/semivowel /[y]/;
    X-S [J] palatl nasal Sp año {anyo} /[n\]/;
    X-S [y] close front spread vowel /[u<]/;
    X-S [Y] near-close front spred vowl /[u{]/

    ReplyDelete
  6. I just read that [c] voiceless palatal plosive has allophones in X-SAMPA: /c, t_s, t_S/), so then in APA there would be [c] = Chinese c with allophone ts}]/. I can't work out exactly what X-SAMPA [S/]is in IPA, though I know X-SAMPA [S\] is Chinese x = APA /[x9]/ and so it makes me wonder whether Chinese q could have allophones /[tx9, c9]/ and whether Chinese ch could have allophones /[tx`, c`]/ in APA.

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  7. Oh, I see that the / mark that I thought followed S in S/ is just the final enclosure sign of the phoneme! Well, in Chinese X-S /c, t_s/ = APA /[c, ts]/ may be allophones of Chinese c but X-S /t_S/ = APA /[tx]/ could belong either to Chinese q = APA /[tx9, c9]/ or Chinese ch = APA /[tx`, c`]/ depending which vowel follows!

    Anyway all this demonstrates that there can be no problem at all having /[j]/ and /[dj]/ as allophones of Ceqli j.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I see I made a mistake above, in the line:
    X-S [dZ`] Chinese j APA /[dj9]/ ...
    It should be:
    X-S [dZ\] Chinese j APA /[dj9]/;
    And then this line is correct:
    X-S [dZ`] Chinese zh APA /[dj`]/.

    ReplyDelete
  9. X-S [ts1] = Chinese ci {tsi}
    = APA /[tsi|, ci|]/;

    X-S [dz1] = Chinese zi {dzi}
    = APA /[dzi|]/;

    X-S [s\i] = Chinese xi
    = APA /[x9i]/;

    X-S [ts\i] = Chinese qi
    = APA /[tx9i, c9i]/;

    X-S [dZ\i] = Chinese ji {jhi}
    = APA /[dj9i, z9i]/;

    X-S [s`z`] = Chinese shi
    = APA /[x`r`]/;

    X-S [tS`z`] = Chinese chi
    = APA /[tx`r`, c`r`]/

    X-S [dZ`z`] = Chinese zhi
    = APA /[dj`r`, z`r`]/.

    ReplyDelete
  10. MORE POSSIBLE ALLOPHONES

    X-S [dZ\i] = Chinese ji {ji, jhi}
    = APA /[dj9i, j9i, z9i]/;
    X-S [dZ`z`] = Chinese zhi
    = APA /[dj`r`, j`r, z`r`]/.

    ReplyDelete
  11. APA ALLOGRAPHIC VARIATIONS

    APA [ c|i, ci|, tsi| ] = Chinese ci {tsi}
    APA [ z|i|, dzi| ] = Chinese zi {dzi}
    APA [ x9i ] = Chinese xi
    APA [ c9i , tx9i ] = Chinese qi
    APA [ j9i, z9i, dj9i ] = Chinese ji
    APA [ x`r` ] = Chinese shi
    APA [ c`r`, tx`r` ] = Chinese chi
    APA [ z`r`, j`r`, dj`r` ] = Chinese zhi

    ReplyDelete
  12. Mistake in
    APA [ c|i, ci|, tsi| ] = Chinese ci {tsi}

    It should be
    APA [ c|i|, ci|, tsi| ] = Chinese ci {tsi}

    ReplyDelete
  13. I probably said at one time or another that "j" could be pronounced /Z/ or /dZ/, but I think it's wisest at this point to make it just the latter, to allow for the inclusion of the former down the road sometime. Partly that's to avoid the asymmetry you mention, partly it's because my ear sees a clearer distinction between x and c than between /Z/ and j,

    ReplyDelete
  14. Chinese and Japanese are using the /dZ/ /tS/ /S/ scheme, and /Z/ in English is rare and some people don't know they exist, so the asymmetry should be kept.
    (maybe also /dz/ for /z/?)

    ReplyDelete