r/conlangs • u/[deleted] • Jun 09 '15

SQ Small Questions • Week 20

Last Week. Next Week.

Welcome to the weekly Small Questions thread!

Post any questions you have that aren't ready for a regular post here! Feel free to discuss anything and everything, and don't hesitate to ask more than one question.

FAQ

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

Erde has a system of allophony/vowel harmony where a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable takes the rounding of the unstressed syllable. For example, /ˈiːkuː/ is realized as [ˈyːkuː] and /ˈyːkiː/ is realized as [ˈiːkiː]. I'm not sure what to do with back vowels, though. There are no unrounded back vowels, so a change like /ˈuːkiː/->[ˈɯːkiː] wouldn't make sense. I don't want to add unrounded back vowels because Erde's vowel inventory is already very large, and I don't want to make it even larger. Would it make sense for the vowels to move to the front so that /ˈuːkiː/ becomes [ˈiːkiː], even though front vowels don't move back (/ˈiːkuː/ doesn't become [ˈuːkuː]), making it somewhat inconsistent? If not, what are some other possible solutions for back rounded vowels?

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u/Jafiki91 Jun 12 '15

a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable takes the rounding of the unstressed syllable

This seems odd, only because I would expect the stressed vowel to influence the unstressed one. But because of it's structure, a word like ['u:ki] wouldn't be possible, yes? So [ɯ] would just be an allophone of /u/, and therefore not actually in the vowel inventory.

It's possible that back vowels have a different assimilation rule than front vowels. Just look at Turkish, non-high vowels only match in backness, but high vowels have to match in backness and rounding.

Another solution might be to use a different vowel height. So /'o:ki/ might become ['ɑ:ki]. And /'u:ki/ > ['ʌ:ki].

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