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Superheavy Syllables

 
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eldin raigmore
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PostPosted: Mon May 10, 2010 8:05 pm    Post subject: Superheavy Syllables Reply with quote

Here's something I'm thinking of for a weight-sensitive-stress language with three "weights", namely Light, Heavy, and Superheavy.

A word (in this conlang) doesn't have to contain a Superheavy syllable and can't contain more than one. If what you think is a word seems to have two superheavy syllables, you've made some kind of mistake; either one of them isn't superheavy after all, or you've failed to notice the word-boundary that must come between them.
If a word has a superheavy syllable, that syllable must receive primary stress.

Onset-consonants don't affect the "syllable weight" at all. The rime, which consists of the nucleus (the vowels) and the coda (the consonants after the nucleus) do.

(If there is a syllable without vowels, its nucleus consists of consonants. In this lang, such syllables are always light; their nucleus is never a cluster, their coda is never a cluster, and their onset is never a cluster. The nucleus of such a syllable is always a single sonorant, the syllable never has both an onset and a coda.)

For purposes of syllable weight, there are two kinds of consonants;
* the Sonorants (approximants, glides, liquids, nasals, and semivowels), which are symbolized by "R" in the syllable-templates; and,
* the Obstruents (stops, plosives, affricates, and fricatives), which are symbolized by "B" in the syllable-templates.

(A vowel-less syllable's template is one of the following: R or RB or BR or RR)

If a syllable's rime fits one of the following templates, the syllable is light:
V
VB

If a syllable's rime fits one of the following templates, the syllable is heavy:
VR
VBB
VV
VRB
VVB
VRR
VRBB
VVR
VVBB
VVV
VRRB

(For simplicity's sake I might not allow clusters of more than two sonorants or more than two obstruents or more than three consonants. So I might not allow these heavy-but-not-superheavy templates: VBBB; VBBBB; VRBBB; VBBBBB)

If a syllable's rime fits one of the following templates, the syllable is superheavy:
VVRB
VVVB
VVRR
VVRBB
VVVR
VVVBB
VVRRB

(I also might not allow clusters of more than three vowels. So I might not allow these superheavy templates: VVBBB; VRRR; VRRBB; VRBBBB; VBBBBBB; VVBBBB; VRRRB; VRRBBB; VRBBBBB; VBBBBBBB; VVVV; VVRBBB; VVBBBBB)

---------------------------------------

(1) Does anyone know a word in a natlang that contains a syllable with a rime such as one of the superheavy ones above?
(2) How about the ones I omitted?
(3) Can anyone pronounce the more complicated superheavy syllables

These would include:
Syllables whose nuclei were tetraphthongs fitting a VVVV template, or triphthongs one of whose components is long fitting a VVV: or VV:V or V:VV template, or diphthongs both of whose components are long fitting a V:V: template.

Syllables whose codas contained a cluster of three sonorants, fitting a template such as RRRB or RRR.

Syllables whose codas contain a cluster of five or more consonants. These might fit a template such as BBBBB or RBBBB or RRBBB or RRRBB.

Syllables whose codas contain a cluster of four or more consonants including a cluster of two or more sonorants, fitting a template like, for instance, RRBB.
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PostPosted: Mon May 10, 2010 9:58 pm    Post subject: Re: Superheavy Syllables Reply with quote

Sounds like an interesting idea. I'm curious as to the allowed onset patterns - you might have some very complicated syllables, worse than English! ^_^

eldin raigmore wrote:
(1) Does anyone know a word in a natlang that contains a syllable with a rime such as one of the superheavy ones above?

VVRBB - English 'thanks' /Teinks/

Quote:
Syllables whose nuclei were tetraphthongs fitting a VVVV template, or triphthongs one of whose components is long fitting a VV: or V:V template, or diphthongs both of whose components are long fitting a V:V: template.

I'd bet that that would end up reanalyzed as two separate syllables really fast. (I think a triphthong is the highest density of vowels possible, since you've got on-glide, main vowel, and off-glide - maybe a triphthong with a long main vowel (VV:V) would be possible but not the rest. Even V:V: would become V: V:.)

Quote:
Syllables whose codas contained a cluster of three sonorants, fitting a template such as RRRB or RRR.

Syllables whose codas contain a cluster of five or more consonants. These might fit a template such as BBBBB or RBBBB or RRBBB or RRRBB.

Syllables whose codas contain a cluster of four or more consonants including a cluster of two or more sonorants, fitting a template like, for instance, RRBB.

I don't think any of those are possible without reanalysis into more than one syllable. (Even non-sonorant clusters would start using fricatives as ad-hoc syllable nuclei.)
So VRRBB would become VR RBB, even if RBB isn't technically allowed.
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PostPosted: Tue May 11, 2010 10:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think "lowered" might be superheavy, but I'm not entirely sure how to classify the 'w' in it.

I think it's either VRRB, in which case it's only heavy, or VVRB, in which case it's superheavy.

Or it could be neither, because I just realized lowered has two syllables...never mind.

Tolkien_Freak: I pronounce "thanks" like VRBB. The 'a' is its own sound, not a combination of two. I'm from Indiana, so that's with a Midwestern accent. With what accent do you speak?
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PostPosted: Wed May 12, 2010 1:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

killerken wrote:
Tolkien_Freak: I pronounce "thanks" like VRBB. The 'a' is its own sound, not a combination of two. I'm from Indiana, so that's with a Midwestern accent. With what accent do you speak?


Some weird mildly-Texan variation on normal Californian GA. (I don't even know.)

Yeah, 'lowered' is /lo.wr\=d/.
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PostPosted: Wed May 12, 2010 11:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

VVRBB - points /poInts/
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eldin raigmore
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PostPosted: Wed May 12, 2010 5:31 pm    Post subject: Re: Superheavy Syllables Reply with quote

Tolkien_Freak wrote:
Sounds like an interesting idea. I'm curious as to the allowed onset patterns - you might have some very complicated syllables, worse than English! ^_^
Haven't decided anything. Have thought about it -- a little.

Tolkien_Freak wrote:
VVRBB - English 'thanks' /Teinks/
/streNkTs/ has a VRBBB coda. It's a CCCVCCCC syllable, with a three-consonant onset cluster (sBR) and a four-consonant coda cluster (RCBs). IIRC all English three-consonant onsets are sBR (first sound has to be /s/) and all four-consonant codas in English are RCBs. And English doesn't allow four-consonant onsets nor five-consonant codas.
Some other Germanic language allows four-consonant onsets; but its coda-clusters are limited to three consonants.
Some conlanger said somewhere that the cross-linguistic natlangish limit of onset-clusters and of coda-clusters was five consonants. I don't know whether that's true; I've never seen an onset-cluster nor a coda-cluster longer than four consonants. And I've never seen a language that allows eight consonants in the same syllable; all the four-consonant-onset languages I've seen allow at most three consonants in coda-clusters, and all the four-consonant-coda languages I've seen allow at most three consonants in onset-clusters. But maybe the five-consonant limit is correct; it's just that if that is so I've never seen any proof.

Tolkien_Freak wrote:
I'd bet that that would end up reanalyzed as two separate syllables really fast.
Depending on the language I'd bet you're right; probably for most languages you're right.
Tolkien_Freak wrote:
(I think a triphthong is the highest density of vowels possible, since you've got on-glide, main vowel, and off-glide
Maybe you're right, but some professional linguists have at least proposed an analysis of some natlangs as having tetraphthongal syllable-nuclei, or to put it differently, tautosyllabic tetraphthongs. AIUI tetraphthongs is the limit for tautosyllabic vowel-clusters; there are attested clusters of up to eight vowels, but all five-vowel-or-longer clusters span a syllable-boundary.

Here is what I could find about tetraphtongs using Clusty. Mario Pei and Larry Trask found the term useful (so, apparently, does the SIL); I'd have to look in their books to see what they were talking about.

Taliesin wrote:
Whether triphthongs (and tetraphthongs) actually exist is also somewhat debated: the issue is, as with diphthongs, what status/difference is there between the glides (semi-vowels) /j/ and /w/ and "true" vowels. Is a sequence of three "vowels" a sequence of three vowels or are one or two of them glides?
The conveniently ignored bits ... [are] the length of the elements of a diphthong ...


http://rudhar.com/foneport/en/noteport/notep016.htm#Note16c-VowelStretch contains octophthongs(!), but there don't seem to me to be more than diphthongs per syllable. Since I don't speak any variety of Portuguese at all, much less all the different accents that site talks about, I don't know whether I'm right.

This article, whatever its other merits, seems to be bullshit about -phthongs. He actually thought <you> was pronounced as a monophthong /u/!

http://www.bookrags.com/tandf/triphthong-1-tf/ seems to suggest that if you actually paid or otherwise registered to be able to see the inside of that dictionary, it would either have examples of tetraphthongs or have a reference to a source that had such examples.

http://cephalogenic.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html has some four-vowels-in-a-row in one word, but not in one syllable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Vowel/Archive_1 does too, but I can't tell whether or not they're in one syllable.

http://www.unileiden.net/stresstyp/record.asp language 35, "Aukaans; Ndyuka", is recorded as having syllable-template (C)(w/y)V(:)(V)(N). That nuclues could be considered a tetraphthong, I think, if you thought of the (w/y) as being part of the nucleus instead of part of the onset.

See also http://www.unileiden.net/stresstyp/record.asp languages 122, 170, and 331

Tolkien_Freak wrote:
maybe a triphthong with a long main vowel (VV:V) would be possible but not the rest. Even V:V: would become V: V:.)
You could be right.

Tolkien_Freak wrote:
I don't think any of those are possible without reanalysis into more than one syllable. (Even non-sonorant clusters would start using fricatives as ad-hoc syllable nuclei.)
That certainly does happen in natlangs, at least according to some pro linguists' analyses of some words in some dialects.
Tolkien_Freak wrote:
So VRRBB would become VR RBB, even if RBB isn't technically allowed.
That I'm not sure about. Wouldn't English allow a rime like /-arnts/? I can't think of an English word that actually ends in VRRBB, but I think it's possible, and also I think it could be tautosyllabic. <ironed" is VRRRB in my 'lect; [ajrnd]. Or maybe it's VVRRB, [airnd].

killerken wrote:
I think "lowered" might be superheavy, but I'm not entirely sure how to classify the 'w' in it.
I think it's either VRRB, in which case it's only heavy, or VVRB, in which case it's superheavy.
Or it could be neither, because I just realized lowered has two syllables...never mind.
Yes, in my 'lect it's /lo.wrd/ with a syllabic /r/. That distinguishes it from /lo:rd/, which ends with V:RB template rime, and is written <lord>.

killerken wrote:
Tolkien_Freak: I pronounce "thanks" like VRBB. The 'a' is its own sound, not a combination of two.
I pronounce it [TEjNks] or [TejNks]. I'm not sure my "long a" phoneme is more of an [ej] or more of an [Ej].

Aeetlrcreejl wrote:
VVRBB - points /poInts/
Good example. In my 'lect I have more /pojnts/ or even /points/ than /poInts/. But either way it's either a VVRBB or a VRRBB (because if /oj/ isn't a diphthongal phoneme then maybe the /j/ is a sonorant consonant.)

-----------------------------------

Can anyone here actually pronounce a three-sonorant cluster, or does anyone here know who can? Because I think maybe I can't.
[jlm], [jln], [jr\`m], [wlm], [wln], [wr\`m], and [wr\`n], all are tough for me; and the [wr\`m] and [wr\`n] ones seem to make the [r\`] nuclear (syllabic), resulting in [wr\`=m] and [wr\`=n].

However there is the archaic and dialectal word <bairn> (a child or baby; Scotland (at least the lowlands), Northumberland, Newcastle, and North (or at least NorthEast) England). I can pronounce it as /bejrn/, maybe, though it could be more like [beir\`n] or [bEir\`n] or [beIr\`n] or [bEIr\`n]. The Wiktionary gives a non-rhotic pronunciation of /bɛ:n/ (/ɛ:/ in IPA is /E:/ in Z-SAMPA and CXS; the /r/ "phoneme" is actually more of a chroneme in non-rhotic dialects in words such as these, and just lengthens the preceding vowel.) But my 'lect is rhotic, with /r/ being a retroflex approximant [r\`]. If there is a rhotic dialect of English with the word <bairn> in it, maybe they can pronounce three sonorants in a row.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BTW:
In case anyone's interested:
Here's how I came up with which rimes were light, which were heavy, and which were superheavy.
I decided a nuclear vowel was around 5/6 of a mora; a coda sonorant was around 2/3 of a mora; and a coda obstruent was around 1/3 of a mora.
I wanted to round anything between 1.5 morae and 2.5 morae (inclusive) to 2 morae (heavy). I wanted to round anything between 0.5 morae and 1.5 morae (exclusive) to 1 mora (light). I wanted to round anything between 2.5 morae and 3.5 morae (exclusive) to 3 morae (superheavy).
I didn't want any syllables as light as 0.5 morae or lighter, nor any as heavy as 3.5 morae or heavier.
So the lightest possible rime would follow the template R.

Light syllables' rimes could be in the following templates:
2/3 of a mora: R or BB
5/6 of a mora: V
1 mora: RB or BBB
7/6 of a mora: VB
4/3 of a mora: RR or RBB or BBBB

But I didn't want any all-consonantal syllables to be more than two consonants long (which happens, but rarely, in natlangs), nor did I want any obstruents to be consonantal syllables (not as rare as consonantal syllables with onset-clusters and coda-clusters). So I left out the BB and BBB and RBB and BBBB rimes.

I was counting long monophthongs like V: and diphthongs like VV as one-and-two-thirds morae, that is, as 5/3 morae. Triphthongs like VVV and diphthongs with one long element like VV: and V:V, I was counting as 2.5 morae.

Heavy-but-not-superheavy syllables' rimes could be in the following templates:
1.5 morae: VR or VBB
5/3 of a mora: VV (or V(:)) or RRB or RBBB or BBBBB
11/6 of a mora: VRB or VBBB
2 morae: VVB (or V:B) or RRR or RRBB or RBBBB or BBBBBB
13/6 of a mora: VRR or VRBB or VBBBB
7/3 of a mora: VVR (or V:R) or VVBB (or V:BB) or RRRB or RRBBB or RBBBBB or BBBBBBB
2.5 morae: VVV (or VV: or V:V) or VRRB or VRBBB or VBBBBB

What I said above about all-consonantal syllables made me throw out the RRB, RBBB, BBBBB, RRR, RRBB, RBBBB, BBBBBB, RRRB, RRBBB, RBBBBB, and BBBBBBB templates.
(From now on I'm just going to omit any all-consonantal rime-templates.)
(I'm also going to allow the reader to work out for him/herself that "VV" in the template could stand for either a long vowel or a pair of consecutive vowels, so I won't be writing any more "V:"s.)
But I also didn't want codas with more than four consonants in a row, so I omitted the VBBBBB template as well.
And I didn't want more than three sonorants in a row, nor more than three obstruents in a row. So I omitted the VBBBB rime-template as well.

The possible templates for the rimes of superheavy syllables were:
2 and 2/3 morae: VVRB, VVBBB
2 and 5/6 morae: VVVB, VRRR, VRRBB, VRBBBB, VBBBBBB
3 morae: VVRR, VVRBB, VVBBBB
3 and 1/6 morae: VVVR, VVVBB, VRRRB, VRRBBB, VRBBBBB, VBBBBBBB
3 and 1/3 morae: VVVV, VVRRB, VVRBBB, VVBBBBB

But as I said above I left out all the five-or-more-consonant coda-clusters, so the VRBBBB, VBBBBBB, VRRBBB, VRBBBBB, VBBBBBBBB, and VVBBBB rime-templates get omitted.
And as I said above I didn't want more than three obstruents in a row, so the VVBBBB rime-template gets omitted too.
And I also didn't want more than three sonorants in a row. But VRRRR would have been 3 and 2/3 morae and that was too heavy for me to generate; and RRRRR, RRRRB, and RRRR are all-consonantal rimes, so I'd already left them out.

That's why I got:

Light syllables' rimes' templates:
2/3 of a mora: R
5/6 of a mora: V
1 mora: RB
7/6 of a mora: VB
4/3 of a mora: RR

Heavy-but-not-superheavy syllables' rimes' templates:
1.5 morae: VR or VBB
5/3 of a mora: VV or V(:)
11/6 of a mora: VRB or VBBB
2 morae: VVB or V:B
13/6 of a mora: VRR or VRBB
7/3 of a mora: VVR or V:R or VVBB or V:BB
2.5 morae: VVV or VV: or V:V or VRRB or VRBBB

Superheavy syllables' rimes' temlates:
2 and 2/3 morae: VVRB, VVBBB, V:RB, V:BBB,
2 and 5/6 morae: VVVB, VV:B, V:VB, VRRR, VRRBB
3 morae: VVRR, VVRBB, V:RR, V:RBB
3 and 1/6 morae: VVVR, VVVBB, VV:R, VV:BB, V:VR, V:VBB, VRRRB
3 and 1/3 morae: VVVV, VVV:, VV:V, V:VV, V:V:, VVRRB, VVRBBB, V:RRB, V:RBBB
)

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PostPosted: Wed May 12, 2010 9:44 pm    Post subject: Re: Superheavy Syllables Reply with quote

Quote:
/streNkTs/ has a VRBBB coda. It's a CCCVCCCC syllable, with a three-consonant onset cluster (sBR) and a four-consonant coda cluster (RCBs). IIRC all English three-consonant onsets are sBR (first sound has to be /s/) and all four-consonant codas in English are RCBs. And English doesn't allow four-consonant onsets nor five-consonant codas.

I pronounce it as /stre(i/j)NTs/, so that's V(V/R)RBB, but still superheavy.

Quote:
But maybe the five-consonant limit is correct; it's just that if that is so I've never seen any proof.

I wonder how Salishan languages count. I know they use non-sonorants as syllable nuclei, but I wonder if there's any single syllable with a notably large number of non-nucleic sounds.

It'd be interesting to test if any language has a whole-syllable limit, where it allows both onset and coda to have 5 consonants but limits the whole syllable to 9 or less total.

I think a lot of the question about tetraphthongs could be clearer if it was decided whether V: counts as VV or not. If it does, you could call VV:V a tetraphthong, if not, I don't think any single syllables fit the criteria.

(And indeed, I think it's impossible to decide whether an off-glide or on-glide is an approximant or a part of an X-phthong. You just kinda have to say it's both or either.)


Quote:
Tolkien_Freak wrote:
So VRRBB would become VR RBB, even if RBB isn't technically allowed.
That I'm not sure about. Wouldn't English allow a rime like /-arnts/? I can't think of an English word that actually ends in VRRBB, but I think it's possible, and also I think it could be tautosyllabic. <ironed" is VRRRB in my 'lect; [ajrnd]. Or maybe it's VVRRB, [airnd].

That's interesting. I know I pronounce <ironed> as two syllables (/ai.r=nd/), though the syllabified consonant isn't the one I predicted. I think English would allow a rime like /ar\nts/, but I think it would quickly become /ar\.n=ts/ - I know people who pronounce just <aren't> as two syllables.

Quote:
Can anyone here actually pronounce a three-sonorant cluster, or does anyone here know who can? Because I think maybe I can't.
[jlm], [jln], [jr\`m], [wlm], [wln], [wr\`m], and [wr\`n], all are tough for me; and the [wr\`m] and [wr\`n] ones seem to make the [r\`] nuclear (syllabic), resulting in [wr\`=m] and [wr\`=n].

I can get /wlm/ and /wln/, but the rest split into two syllables.

Quote:
However there is the archaic and dialectal word <bairn> [snip]

I think the question on that one is whether /4/ is a sonorant - Scottish English would pronounce that as something like /be:4n/. I know I can do it in GA (as /be:r\n/), but I wonder if the fact that it's not really part of GA affects the interpretation (i.e. I'm changing the pronunciation to fit my dialect, it's not natively pronounced that way).
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PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2010 5:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Can anyone here actually pronounce a three-sonorant cluster, or does anyone here know who can? Because I think maybe I can't.
[jlm], [jln], [jr\`m], [wlm], [wln], [wr\`m], and [wr\`n], all are tough for me; and the [wr\`m] and [wr\`n] ones seem to make the [r\`] nuclear (syllabic), resulting in [wr\`=m] and [wr\`=n].

I can't quite get any of those, but I can pronounce [mlw] and [mnw], which are RRR.
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PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2010 10:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

@Tolkien_Freak, @Hemicomputer:
I am quite shocked that you can pronounce those three-sonorant clusters.
Surprised Shocked Cool
I've wondered, though, whether Ylem was meant to be pronounced /jlm/.

--------------------------------------

As for long obstruent-clusters in English; English hast /teksts/ <texts>.

But how many Irkutsks and Yakutsks can there be, anyway?
(For that matter, how many Arkhangelsks, Omsks, Tomsks, and Pinsks? Though those aren't all-obstruent codas.)

Any other English four-obstruent clusters?

--------------------------------------

In some dialects of English, under some circumstances (that is, in some phonological environments), an epenthetic voiceless stop/plosive gets inserted between a nasal and an immediately-following voiceless fricative. The epenthetic stop is homorganic with the nasal.

Example: <once> /wVns/ --> [wVnts] (some dialects, --> [wVntst])
(perhaps the vowel should be [3] or [7\] instead of [V].)

Example: <strengths> /strINTs/ --> [str\`INkTs]

Example: <omphalos> /Omf{los/ --> [Ompf{los]
([O] for "short o", [o] for "long o")

Any other examples?

So would [wVntst] be considered superheavy? I think probably so.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

English has four six sonorants: /j l m n r w/. So there are 150 possible clusters of three sonorants (120 if you exclude those containing one sonorant twice).

In many languages there are rules that: (1) if two consonants in the same syllable are on the same side of the nucleus, then the one closer to the nucleus must be the one with greater sonority; and, that: (2) if two consonants in the same syllable are the same distance from the nucleus, then the one in the coda must be the one with greater sonority.

So, in a coda, we'd need all semivowels to come before all liquids and nasals, and we'd need all nasals to come after all liquids and semivowels.

So the three-sonorant clusters to worry about are the eight I've already mentioned, and these:
/jwl/ /jwr/ /jwm/ /jwn/ /wjl/ /wjr/ /wjm/ /wjn/
/jmn/ /wmn/ /lmn/ /rmn/ /jnm/ /wnm/ /lnm/ /rnm/
/jlr/ /wlr/ /jrl/ /wrl/ /lrm/ /lrn/ /rlm/ /rln/

I can't pronounce /lr/ syllable-initially nor syllable-finally nor indeed tauto-syllabically at all; and I can't pronounce /rl/ in the onset.

With /jw/ and /wj/ similar problems have I.

If you guys can, I'm impressed. Shocked Surprised Confused
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PostPosted: Fri May 14, 2010 1:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

eldin raigmore wrote:
@Tolkien_Freak, @Hemicomputer:
I am quite shocked that you can pronounce those three-sonorant clusters.

^_^

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I've wondered, though, whether Ylem was meant to be pronounced /jlm/.

Entirely without vowels?
(Wikipedia page says it's from Greek /hylem/ though.)

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As for long obstruent-clusters in English; English hast /teksts/ <texts>.

Oh wow. That one's a mess.
I might go as far as to call that one /teks.ts=/, or something like that. If that's one syllable, that practically defines superheavy simply by the length of time it takes to say it!

Quote:
But how many Irkutsks and Yakutsks can there be, anyway?
(For that matter, how many Arkhangelsks, Omsks, Tomsks, and Pinsks? Though those aren't all-obstruent codas.)

Of course, those are Russian names with English pluralization, so it's not that natural...

Quote:
Example: <once> /wVns/ --> [wVnts] (some dialects, --> [wVntst])
(perhaps the vowel should be [3] or [7\] instead of [V].)

What environment triggers that final /t/? If it's before a word starting with a vowel, I'd bet that that that /t/ could almost be analysed as epenthesised to the front of the next word.

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So would [wVntst] be considered superheavy? I think probably so.

Certainly, if the epenthesis is demonstrably on the end of that word and not the beginning of the next.

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I can't pronounce /lr/ syllable-initially nor syllable-finally nor indeed tauto-syllabically at all; and I can't pronounce /rl/ in the onset.

Somehow I can get those. IDK how.

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With /jw/ and /wj/ similar problems have I.

/jw/ comes out almost like /j=.w/ (it's somehow different from /i.w/). /wj/ is more of /w_j/ for me (palatalised).

Quote:
If you guys can, I'm impressed. Shocked Surprised Confused

^_^
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eldin raigmore
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PostPosted: Sat May 15, 2010 6:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tolkien_Freak wrote:
Quote:
Example: <once> /wVns/ --> [wVnts] (some dialects, --> [wVntst])
(perhaps the vowel should be [3] or [7\] instead of [V].)

What environment triggers that final /t/? If it's before a word starting with a vowel, I'd bet that that that /t/ could almost be analysed as epenthesised to the front of the next word.

Quote:
So would [wVntst] be considered superheavy? I think probably so.

Certainly, if the epenthesis is demonstrably on the end of that word and not the beginning of the next.
IIRC it's often utterance-final.
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eldin raigmore
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 24, 2011 4:44 pm    Post subject: More About Superheavy Syllables. Reply with quote

Here are some ideas.

(1) A word can't contain more than one superheavy syllable.

(2) Affixes can't contain superheavy syllables; superheavy syllables can occur only in root morphemes.

(3) Particles can't contain superheavy syllables; superheavy syllables can occur only in words that have been or can be inflected.

(4) Superheavy syllables can't occur in "function words"; they can only occur in words with "lexical content" or "semantic content".

(5) Superheavy syllables can't occur in words belonging to closed or small word-classes (parts-of-speech, syntactic categories); they can occur only in words belonging to open classes (words in which word-coining and word-borrowing are still productive, still going on).

(6)
6a. Maybe superheavy syllables can occur only in verb-roots, noun-roots, adjective-roots, and adverb-roots.
6b. Or, maybe superheavy syllables can occur only in verb-roots, noun-roots, and adjective-roots.
6c. Or, maybe superheavy syllables can occur only in verb-roots and noun-roots.
6d. Or, maybe superheavy syllables can occur only in verb-roots.
6e. Or, maybe superheavy syllables can occur only in noun-roots.

_____________________________________________________________

Given some of the above it makes sense to talk about what restrictions there may be on the phonological shapes of root-morphemes.

1. Maybe there are maximum and/or minimum numbers of phonemes per root.
1a. For instance maybe roots have to have at least four phonemes. (Or the minimum could be lower or higher.)
1b. For instance maybe roots can't have more than six phonemes. (Or the maximum could be lower or higher.)

2a. And/or, maybe there are maximum and/or minimum numbers of consonants per root.
2a'. For instance maybe roots have to have at least two consonants. (Or the minimum could be lower or higher.)
2a". For instance maybe roots can't have more than four consonants. (Or the maximum could be lower or higher.)

2b. And/or, maybe there are maximum and/or minimum numbers of vowels per root.
2b'. For instance maybe roots have to have at least one vowel. (Or the minimum could be higher.)
2b". For instance maybe roots can't have more than three vowels. (Or the maximum could be lower or higher.)

3. And/or, maybe there are maximum and/or minimum numbers of morae per root.
3a. Maybe roots have to be at least two morae (two light syllables or one heavy syllable). (Or the minimum could be lower or higher.)
3b. Maybe roots can't have more than four morae (two heavy syllables, a superheavy syllable and a light syllable, or two light syllables and a heavy syllable, etc.). (Or the maximum could be lower or higher.)

4. And/or, maybe there are maximum and/or minimum numbers of syllables per root.
4a. Maybe roots have to be at least two syllables (Or the minimum could be lower (one syllable) or higher (that seems unlikely).)
4b. Maybe roots can't have more than three syllables. (Or the maximum could be lower (e.g. two syllables) or higher.)
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 8:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was just about to post when I realized my last post to this thread already says what I was just about to post.
So I guess I'm bumping the thread instead. I don't know whether that's a good thing to do; but I don't do it much, so maybe it's at worst "not too bad".
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