The West Saxon Scratchpad (Formerly the West Saxon Thread)

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Here's a re-written version of the stress chapter of the West Saxon Reference Grammar. I think it's a bit short, but it's also not a huge topic. If anyone could tell me where I'm being a bit unclear, or where it could use some elaboration, I would appreciate it muchly!

6 - STRESS
Stress in West Saxon is a somewhat complicated topic, due to the development of the so-called "West Saxon Bounce", during the Early MiWS period. Most analyses of the language say that there are four stresses in the language, traditionally called Tonic, Emphatic, Atonic, and Inflectional, which manifest in differences in amplitude, vowel lenght and quality, and pitch. Some, however, posit the existence of a fifth and sixth stress called Semi-Tonic and Pretonic respectively. This work, however, treats these as variants of the Atonic stress. The characteristics of these stresses are as follows:

6.1 Tonic
Syllables with a Tonic stress are those which, in other Germanic languages, would be considered simply "stressed". Its distinguishing characteristics ar an increase in amplitude of the syllable, a somewhat higher tone than Atonic and Inflectional syllables, and a "tonic" vowel realization (see 2.4.2).

All monosyllabic words (with the exception of function words) have this stress level. For polysyllabic words native to the language, this stress level occurs on the first syllable of the word root. Most borrowings from English, German, Dutch, and other Germanic languages also follow this stress pattern as well. In many words from other languages (especially French), the final syllable is Tonic, or the penultimate syllable if the final syllable is a vocalic resonant.

Only one syllable in a word may recieve tonic stress, and it cannot occur in a word which also has an emphatic syllable.

6.2 Emphatic
The emphatic stress level is the product of the West Saxon Bounce; a phonological phenomenon which is believed to have begun by the early 14th Century. Originally it entailed both a change in stress and a breaking into diphthongs of many of the vowels on which it occured. The breaking portion of the rule has since become unproductive, and in many instances its effects have been leveled by analogy. The intonation portion of the rule, however, is still quite productive, and is deeply incrained into the overall "sound" of West Saxon, and is usually one of the most pronounced markers of a West Saxon accent in other languages.

The rules governing the Bounce are actually quite simple. Any West Saxon word which has a final syllable which a)has inflectional stress, b)isn't a syllabic resonant, and c)has no syllable coda, recieves Emphatic stress on the final non-inflectional syllable.

The characteristics of a syllable with Emphatic stress are as follows: first, like Tonic syllables, Emphatic syllables have a "tonic" vowel realization and increased amplitude. Second, it is realized as longer than any other stress grade. Finally, it has a falling tonal contour, in contrast with the somewhat higher tone of a tonic syllable, and the neutral tone of the other stress grades. It is this drop in tone, and subsuquent rise back to neutral, which gives the Bounce its name.

In the inflection of some words, the rules of the Bounce will place Emphatic stress on a syllable which may already have Tonic stress, in which case the Emphatic stress overrides the Tonic stress. A syllable with Tonic stress cannot occur in the same word as one with Emphatic stress. When a word could concievably have both, the Tonic syllable to "lose" its stress, and be realized as Atonic.

6.3 Atonic
The Atonic stress is what appears on any syllable in a content word that is not a prefix, and doesn't have either Tonic or Emphatic stress. Its characteristics are an "atonic" vowel realization and a neutral tone. As explained in Chapter 2, vowels in Atonic syllables can undergo reduction, if they are also realized as lax.

As mentioned above, this work considers the Atonic stress to include what some consider a sixth distinct stress, the "Semi-Tonic" stress. This stress is limited to words which are compounds, and is found on what would be the tonic syllable of the secondary element of the compound. It is realized as a slight increase in amplitude, though not so much as is found in the Tonic stress.

The supposed "Pretonic" stress is found on three types of syllables: on those which are parts of prefixes (hence the name "Pretonic"), on grammatical function words, such as conjunctions and prepositions, and on the weak forms of pronouns. The realization of syllables with Pretonic stress is, in the modern language, no different than those with "regular" atonic stress. The arguments for the existence of a distinct Pretonic stress are chiefly historical, as syllables which would be subject to this stress underwent several sound changes that other Atonically stressed syllables did not, such as the shift of /D/ to /d/. Most scholars of West Saxon, however, consider the Pretonic stress to be a feature of Middle and Early Modern West Saxon; a very real historical feature with noteworthy linguistic significance, but no longer existing in the contemporary language.

6.4 Inflectional
The final stress is inflectional. Its name is rather self-explanatory, and it is by far the least distinct of the the four stresses. Only three pure vowels may appear in inflectional syllables, /I/,/U/, and /@/ (in some dialects /6/), as well as vocalic resonants /r\=/ and /n=/. Inflectional syllables with codas (and thus don't trigger the Bounce), have a marked tendency to lose their syllabic nature whenever phonologically possible. Additionally, in some dialects the syllabic resonants are starting to become simple vowels, with /r\=/ becoming /6/, and /n=/ becoming /@~/.

[Bristel]

What tends to be the preferred prosody in WS?

Supposedly French is iambic and anapestic, but English is suited to trochaic and dactylic... so would WS sound like "da-DA da-DA da-DA" or "DA-da DA-da"?

(Couldn't word this any more technically or less simplistic)

[Herra Ratatoskr]

I really wouldn't know at this point, tbh. I would have to look at it later, when I've built up some significant texts. Going off of my most recent multi-sentence translation, (from the Inigo Montoya thread), it seemed to have the rhythm:
"haLO. min NAme beþ iNIgo monTOya. d'ast iCWELD mi VEder. zi JEAre to DEADne".
Judging from this, I'd say that it seems to favor amphibrachs. If the lengthening due to the Bounce is taken into consideration, and we let two short syllables after a "bounced" one count together, it starts to look more iambic, I guess. As I said, it's kind of tough to analyze right now, but I think that, with the bounce, it trends towards iambic or amphibrachic.

[Warmaster]

Just to say, as someone who lives in the heart of what was Wessex (Exeter, or Exanceaster to our OE buddies) This is certainly a really fun project. I have long thought what English may have ended up like if a certain william decided to trip over his shoelace and cracked his head open at some point - and this is a nice feel for that.

[Curan Roshac]

Herra Ratatoskr's West Saxon has me pondering what the effects would have been had the sons of Canute the Great reigned for longer and thus a Danish dynasty had come to rule England and Scandinavia for a more extensive period of time (say, early to mid-1000's thru the 12th and 13th centuries, prehaps even to be older and longer lasting than the Habsburgs.).

[Jashan]

Y'know, I just realized that, should Lowan and West Saxon co-exist in the same universe, they'd be neighbors. Maybe even roommates. Presuming that the Christianization and invasions of the Isle of Wright still took place under the West Saxon universe, and the Vikings still invaded England (and the timelines remain roughly the same -- i.e. the Vikings didn't invade 300 years earlier or somewhat).

Do you think they're compatible alt-histories? Any interest in working the two into a larger 'Alt-England' linguistic landscape?

[TomHChappell]

the Isle of Wright

It's a nit, but, could you have meant the Isle of Wight?

And which invasion are you referring to? It's been invaded at least four times in recorded history -- Romans in 43, Jutes in 534, Mercia in 661, Wessex in 685. There was also a bloody and temporarily partially successful French attempt in 1545 (July 21st), a Scottish plan sometime between 1648 and 1649, a French plan in 1759, and (or maybe not) a later French plan in the 1860s.

Are you meaning one of the real-life invasions, or some alt.hist invasion?

BTW anything to say about the Isle of Man or the Isle of Dog?

[Jashan]

the Isle of Wright

It's a nit, but, could you have meant the Isle of Wight?

Yes, I meant Isle of Wight lol

The invasions and such I was talking about were the ones discussed in the Lowan history thread, which I know Herra has read/followed on (so unspoken assumption that he knows which ones I'm talking about). Specifically, in this case, it was Mercia and Wessex.

[TomHChappell]

The invasions and such I was talking about were the ones discussed in the Lowan history thread, which I know Herra has read/followed on (so unspoken assumption that he knows which ones I'm talking about) (emphasis added by THC).

Oh, right.

Specifically, in this case, it was Mercia and Wessex.

Thanks!

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Interesting idea; it could be fun. Sadly, West Saxon has gone into a bit of a hibernation mode as other things come up, but let me think about it a bit.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Iiiiiit's baaaaack!

I'm resurrecting this thread again (I swear, this thing is getting to give Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers a run for their money) to add links to the newly updated chapter on determiners. I'm also fixing the now-rather-out-of-date spelling page, and will be uploading the notes I've made earlier in this thread earlier Real Soon.

[TaylorS]

Looks nice!

[roninbodhisattva]

Instead, it shows a three-way "generic/specific/definite" distinction in its noun phrases. A generic noun phrase is characterized by a lack of any article, while specific and definite noun phrases are marked by their respective articles.

Are noun phrases marked with the specific article necessarily indefinite or can they also have definite readings?

[Herra Ratatoskr]

I'll be honest, I'm not sure if the terminology I'm using is all that accurate. The idea I'm trying to get across (and will be explaining in the grammar eventually) might best be shown like this:

If, in West Saxon, I were to say "I zeice Wijfe" (lit. "I seek woman"), I'm using the generic form. I'm not thinking about any specific woman. Anyone with boobs and and a crotch-alogical innie rather than an outie will do.

If, on the other hand, I say "I zeice an Wijfe." (lit. "I seek a certain woman"), then I have a particular woman in mind. I do not, however, presume that you already know the woman I'm talking about.

Finally, if I say "I zeice di Wijfe" (lit. "I seek the woman"), then not only do I have a specific woman in mind, but I also expect that you know what woman I'm talking about as well, probably because we've already been discussing it.

Does that help explain it? Sorry if I'm being confusing. Also, does anyone the proper terminology for such a system, if I'm messing it up?

[Bristel]

I'm thinking that it all falls under "definitiveness", although the first example doesn't use a definite or indefinite article...

It seems that all the cases are the same as well, so it is a semantic definitiveness, not morphological but grammatical. (am - I - even describing it correctly?)

I like that system, but it might run into some difficulties without a separate case marker on "Wijfe", in my opinion.

[roninbodhisattva]

It just seems like a generic/indefinite/definite distinction to me, too.

[Astraios]

Lakota does that, and calls them "indefinite hypothetical/non-specific/irrealis", "indefinite specific/realis", and "definite". If that is at all useful...

[Salmoneus]

I've used it in a conlang before, and I called it "indistinct" (the 'any', 'some' article'), "distinct" (the 'a certain' article) and "definite" (the 'you know the one' article). Perhaps better would be indeterminate, determinate and definite.

If I were doing it again today, though, I'd put a lot more thought into how this system interacted with the topic/comment system...

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Thank you all for the response. I think I'll be sticking with generic/specific/definite terminology, for now at least.

@Bristel: I'm not entirely sure what you're meaning when you talk about cases. All three examples were in the feminine accusative case, as Wijfe is feminine and is the direct object of the sentence, but the nominative forms of the specific articles (an/deo) could also be used, as could the genitive or dative (both of which would be ar/der). I'm also not sure why Wijfe might cause trouble without a case marker. Would you mind going into a bit more detail? Thanks.

@Salmoneus: Good thought on the issue of topic. West Saxon does have optional topic fronting, and I'll probably make definite usage mandatory for fronted topics.

PS. The chapter on stress is now up.

[Salmoneus]

I think Bristel meant that they thought the cases looked not to be marked on the nouns - and that in that case, having a situation where you couldn't mark case on indefinite nouns might be tricky.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Ah, I see. Case is marked somewhat morphologically on nouns, but it also has some syntactic rules that help show the syntactic functions of each noun phrase. Actually, I have been debating introducing a sort of German-style monoflection into noun phrases, where nouns lose their case markings if they are preceded by a case marking determiner. I'm still quite up in the air about it, both whether or not to do it, and how formalized it should be (formal, colloquial, or just dialectical), but it's something I'm thinking on.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

This post shan't be too structured, just some notes and such on things I've been thinking about.

First off, I've had some ideas for the "future" of West Saxon. As in, what are some linguistic trends that might suggest how the language might develop in the coming centuries. This was done more for the purpose of developing a more vernacular, everyday form of the language, in addition to the written standard.

The biggest thing is that West Saxon seems to be developing true grammatical voice inflections. Currently, the reflexive voice is marked by the reflexive pronoun zel in the third person, and the regular oblique pronouns for the first and second person. Zel, however, as been analogically expanded to all persons in all but rather formal speech (at least in most dialects), and currently the use of mi/di/us/jo reflexively is about on par with English's use of "whom". It shows up, but not all that commonly. Also, the plural form of zel, zeln is used to mark the reciprocality. Two concurrent developments are, however, complicating things.

The first is that the reflexive is becoming more and more frequent used to mark a sort of medio-passive voice. This is actually rather similar in use and origin to the "-s passives" in the mainland Scandinavian languages. This is believed to have originated in the rural dialect outside of Winchester at the end of the 18th century, and came into the urban areas during the industrial revolution. Originally it was limited to Ekspeace, the lower class dialect of the working poor (Ekspeace is a worn down form of Ekers Speace, meaning "farm speech"). The construction has risen in use, especially during the last 50 years, and is now considered a bit "rough" but not wrong).

The second development (and the one that is much less common) is that zel and zeln are becoming reduced and affixing to verbs as 'el and 'eln. The pronoun's affix nature can be seen in that it will occur between a verb and its subject when inversion takes place. Here's an example. Imagine a bully smacking a kid in the head with the kid's own hands saying "stop hitting yourself! stop hitting yourself!" (an odd example, I'll grant you, but it was the first simple phrase I came up with). In "standard" West Saxon, the bully would be saying "Ni zle du zel! Ni zle du zel!". However, if 'el is used, it would be "Ni zle 'el du! Ni zle 'el du!". ('el is written separately, but phonologically it is bound to the verb, and the pair is pronounced /zlel/)

This example might not be the best, as this construction is less common when purely reflexive - zel being used the more frequently - but I hope it gives a decent demonstration. This construction is still quite rare and looked down upon in more formal writing as very sloppy, if not downright wrong, sort of like the use of "ain't" or double negatives in English. Despite this, it is becomingly noticeably less rare, and may eventually become a fully inflected voice marking system in the standard language.

Another incipient change is a tend towards dropping distinct case endings when a noun is preceded by a case marking determiner. Examples of this can be seen in phrases like "Deo Familie des Kyng" ("the family of the king") instead of the more proper "Deo Familie des Kynges". Essentially whenever an adjective would appear in the weak form, the noun takes the marking for the nom/acc form, either singular or plural, depending on number. Therefore, while Wagner's opera Götterdämmerung is translated officially as Dor Godne Gloum ("The Gods' Twilight"), a much more informal version would be simply Dor Gods Gloum. If not case marking determiner is used, then the standard case endings are retained. Therefore, Christ's title of "King of Kings" would be rendered as Kyngne King regardless. This is considered very sub-standard and is heavily looked down upon, but is still showing up with slowly increasing frequency.

Another thing I've been working on is the phonology and spelling system. On the latter, I was hoping to get some presentation advice, but I'll get to that in a minute.

The main change has been to the vowels. Originally, West Saxon had the Old English long vowels undergo either diphthongization, or simply merge with their short counterparts. While this is still somewhat the case, I've had the long high vowels remain distinct from the short ones. Therefore, the old 7 vowel, 3 height inventory of <i, e, y, 2, o, u, a> has instead become a 10 vowel, 4 height system: <i,I,e,y,Y,2,u,U,o,a> (though the vowels <e,2,o> show a tendency to lower closer to <E,9,O>). In addition to this change, there is still the complication of tense/lax and long/short realization. These are two realization rules can be considered allophonic, or phonemic, depending on how tolerant you are of underlying phonemic realizations differing from their surface realizations. The underlying realizations are still shown in spelling, and this leads me to the issue I'm having with the spelling system's presentation.

Basically, I've got two things I need to figure out. First of all, I'm having trouble deciding between a grapheme-centric or phoneme-centric approach. I could either say "grapheme x can be pronounced as a, b, or c, in these these specific environments", or I could say "phoneme a is spelled as x, y, or z, in these specific environments." Deciding between the two is complicated in that I'm not sure how "allophonic" I should be in my description of my system. Here's an example of what I mean:

Take the West Saxon words Win, Winn and Wind (meaning "win"(the noun, borrowed from English), "joy" and "wind"). They are pronounced [wIn], [wen], and [wIn:] respectively. The reason for the difference between Win and Winn's vowels is that /e/ is the lax realization of /I/. Vowels are lax if they are followed by one or more voiceless consonants or two or more voiced ones, except for the "lengthening" two consonant clusters "mb", "nd", "ng", "ld", "rd", and "rl". Historically, Winn was realized as [wen:] phonetically, and /wIn:/ phonemically. The surface realization, however, has changed in that geminate consonants have been shortened and are no longer, on the surface, distinguished from single consonants (though they still affect the realization of the vowel).

I thought it might be easier to just say that the vowel changes are phonemic, but this is complicated by the fact that the lax/tense rules are still productive. For instance, the genitive singulars of Win and Winn are Wins and Winns. These are both pronounced, however, as [wenz], since in both cases it's more than two consonants after the vowel. I could simplify the spelling system, but it would make the morpho-phonology rules just as messed up and hard to systematically describe. Also the tense/lax values of vowels can overlap, so [ I ] can either be the tense version of /I/, or the lax version of /i/; [e] can be either a lax /I/ or a tense /e/. This adds further complications.

I've thought about just simplifying the system so it isn't so troublesome, but I actually really like them. I think it gives the language more depth and verisimilitude. And the thing is, I understand how the system works, and could tell you exactly how any word would be pronounced, and why. I just am having trouble figuring out how to codify it in a way that isn't as rambling as what I've just done. Can anyone help me out on this?

[roninbodhisattva]

Historically, Winn was realized as /wen:/ phonetically, and [wIn:] phonemically.

You've mixed up your brackets there: it should be [wen:] and /wIn:/.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

So I did. Fixed.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Damn, this thread just turned three years old, and it's been almost a year since I've updated it. I guess it's time for an update, if anyone was still interested in the lang.

I've been rebuilding the site for it (not much visual change, but the structure of the grammar has been tweaked), and have been updating it with all the latest changes to the language. It's still pretty empty, sadly, and if you look through, you'll see a bunch of "Coming soon!"'s, outlines-via-headers, and tables still lacking commentary. There is some actual content there, however, with the noun and verb chapters having some decent content to them, though parts are still rather sketchy. I'm going to be integrating some of my notes back into this over the next little while, and I promise it won't be 11 months before another update.

In the mean time, does anyone have any requests for me to prioritize getting done?