An Introduction to Deevie

[Sevly]

Just started reading this, so sorry if I'm commenting on old stuff that's already been dealt with. Oh wait, apparently I have read this before. @_@

Yeah... it's been a while. Imagine my (pleasant) surprise when this thread was resurrected from the grave.

You don't allow a /nr/ cluster intermorphemically, but allow it intermorphemically. That's odd...

I assume that second one is supposed to be "intra", and yes, now that I'm rereading it I agree that it's quite odd. I can't quite remember what I was thinking, but allowing /nr/ intramorphemically doesn't match what I've actually been doing, since there isn't a single word in the lexicon that has /nr/. I think on the one hand I wanted to make a more consistent rule, i.e. [+alveolar +nasal/trill][+alveolar], but on the other hand I really hate the sound of /nr sr/, which is why I made the trilling rule.

I think what I'll do is that I'll "allow" /nr/ both intra- and intermorphemically, but then I'll make the trilling rule allophonic so that it's actually pronounced as /rr/ anyways.

Speaking of the long trills, wasn't there a post here yesterday about it being possibly attested or am I just imagining it?

On the other hand, because /t+d/ and /t.d/ are not a legal medial clusters, neither are /mɛst+daə/ or /mɛst.daə/.

Those last two examples are identical.

I mean to say that /td/ is illegal between morphemes, so no /t+d/ where "+" marks a morpheme boundary, and it's also illegal within a morpheme, so no /t.d/ where "." marks a mere syllable boundary. Perhaps I should rephrase?

[Nortaneous]

Of course a length distinction in trills is attested. Finnish!

And <d> in some dialects is [ɾ], so there's a three-way contrast of [ɾ r rː].

[Qwynegold]

• Intervocalic Epenthesis
  ø → C₁ / C₁VV__VV

An epenthetic consonant is inserted between two diphthongs, where this consonant duplicates the preceding consonant.

Do you have any words that consist of just VV? Because then there would be no consonant to copy.

I like the simplistic elegance of your phonology and morphophonology.

[Qwynegold]

You don't allow a /nr/ cluster intermorphemically, but allow it intermorphemically. That's odd...

I assume that second one is supposed to be "intra"

Yes. >.<

Speaking of the long trills, wasn't there a post here yesterday about it being possibly attested or am I just imagining it?

Long trills being attested? What's wrong with that? As Nort said, Finnish!

varas (thief) - varras (skewer)
poras (drill-PST-3SG (spoken Finnish)) - porras (flight of stairs)
muru (crumble N.) - murru (crumble-IMP)
käry (smell of burnt food) - kärry (wagon)

On the other hand, because /t+d/ and /t.d/ are not a legal medial clusters, neither are /mɛst+daə/ or /mɛst.daə/.

Those last two examples are identical.

I mean to say that /td/ is illegal between morphemes, so no /t+d/ where "+" marks a morpheme boundary, and it's also illegal within a morpheme, so no /t.d/ where "." marks a mere syllable boundary. Perhaps I should rephrase?

Oh, sorry. I didn't see that there was a + there.

[Qwynegold]

I like the idea of verb stems which do not follow the phonotactic rules and thereby can't be used alone.

Psst, it's called diminutive.

Improper stems present a slightly more difficult. The perfective is formed identically to proper stem perfectives. The imperfective, on the other hand, involves the two-part process of

1. deleting any stem-final consonants, which by the nature of improper stems are unpermissible in the coda.
2. adding an –e–, or in speech, a schwa, to all stem-final monophthong vowels to create a centering diphthong. This process applies to any monophtongs created by the previous step.

• 

Why does the k in mauk need to be deleted?

• 

But sokae isn't monosyllabic.

[Sevly]

I like the simplistic elegance of your phonology and morphophonology.

Thanks!

Of course a length distinction in trills is attested. Finnish!

Long trills being attested? What's wrong with that? As Nort said, Finnish!

Good to know. It's a keeper, then.

Do you have any words that consist of just VV? Because then there would be no consonant to copy.

Wow, you're right. There's nothing prohibiting VV, and indeed we have eu "leave; exit; depart". Let's consider

• eu-uunt
  /ɛʊ+ʌʊnt/
  exit-complicated
  "entrapping; difficult to escape"

What shall we do? I suppose the simplest solution is to have a default epethentic consonant, but which one? Or, another idea that's just occured to me: suppose we pick the closes semivowel to the initial vowel and pretend that the word begins with that semivowel. Hence for the previous example and a few other hypothetical ones,

• /ɛʊ+ʌʊnt/ > [jɛʊjʌʊnt]
  /ʌʊ+ʌʊnt/ > [wʌʊwʌʊnt]
  /aʊ+ʌʊnt/ > [waʊwʌʊnt]

Of course, this solution is a bit tricky since [j w] are not phonemes, so I'm not sure how this would be analyzed at the phonemic level.

I like the idea of verb stems which do not follow the phonotactic rules and thereby can't be used alone.

Thanks again! It's a nice little oddity.

Psst, it's called diminutive.

What? What witchcraft is this? *Rushes to dictionary.com* Ahem. I see.

Why does the k in mauk need to be deleted?

Well, /k/ is not a legal coda consonant. Unless you're asking about the orthography?

But sokae isn't monosyllabic.

Yeah... I noticed that when I was rereading through the grammar earlier. I have to fix that diagram, since its actually all monosyllabic and some disyllabic stems ending in -ae.