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| ==Aelya Phonology== | | ==Aelya Phonology== |
| What is known of the phonology of Aelya was taken from a [http://archives.conlang.info/pa/goelgaen/shoebarvhaun.html message board post] from 2000. It follows. | | What is known of the phonology of Aelya can be found in a [http://archives.conlang.info/pa/goelgaen/shoebarvhaun.html message board post] from 2000. It follows. |
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| <pre>
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| I've finalized Aelya Phonology, and like others, I'm freezing it so I'll
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| stop twiddling with it. I wrote up the phonology entry (mostly - there
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| are some phonological rules - like mutation - that I have yet to get to)
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| and thought I'd post it for comments, questions, clarifications, etc. I
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| want this to be "surprise the experts" quality. Let me know if there are
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| better phrases, explanations, disucssion order, etc. I can use, and so
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| on as well, please. Hopefully, my formatting will stay...
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| 1. The Phonology of Aelya
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| 1.1. Vowels and Diphthongs
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| Aelya possesses a typical six-vowel system, as shown in the table below.
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| Front Mid Back
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| High i u
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| Mid e y o
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| Low a
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| The vowels a, o ,u, e, i have standard European values (as in father,
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| for, food, fed, and feet, respectively). Exceptions include final i,
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| often pronounced closer to the value of e, and final u, closer to o.
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| Final e and a are often pronounced as in about. They are often dropped
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| in speech when followed by a vowel beginning another word: na dhuina
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| eila 'the other people' (oblique plural) pronounced [na Dwin ej'la].
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| The vowel y is notable in that it acts as both a vowel and a diacritic.
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| It can represent, depending on dialect, either the schwah sound of
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| about, or the syllabification of a following sonorant. In addition, y is
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| also a consonant, representing the [j] glide.
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| Whenever y is present before another vowel, it represents this [j]
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| glide. The [j] glide in diphthongs (i.e. finally) is always represented
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| by i. It also causes palatization of a preceding consonant, so that the
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| uncommon digraph dy represents a sound not unlike that of English 'j'
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| [dzh] as in joy. The back glide [w] is represented by u, and is also
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| present in diphthongs and glide clusters.
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| There are a number of diphthongs in addition to those with the glide. To
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| be exact, they are not diphthongs, but entirely different sounds, which
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| are written with two vowels in conjunction, and are therefore
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| orthographically diphthongs. The Aelya diphthong library thus includes
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| the following 17 pairs:
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| ao [e]
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| au (as in cow)
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| ae (as in cat)
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| ai [aj]
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| ou (as in boat)
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| oe (as in G. schoen)
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| oi [oj]
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| ua [wa]
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| uo [wo]
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| ue [we]
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| ui [wi]
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| eu [ew]
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| ei [ej]
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| ya
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| yo
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| yu
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| ye
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| Vowel length corresponds to duration rather than tenseness. As in
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| Finnish or Japanese, long vowels are pronounced with extra duration,
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| usually approximately one and a half times longer than short vowels.
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| An orthographically important rule with vowels concerns length. Long
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| vowels (and diphthongs) are never followed by a geminate consonant.
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| Short vowels are always followed by a geminate, if the consonant is
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| followed by another short vowel or it is final. For example, sonn [son]
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| 'word' with a short vowel versus son [so:n] 'stake, post' with the long.
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| There are never long final vowels, as they have all become diphthongs or
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| shortened earlier in Aelya's development.
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| 1.2. Consonants
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| Aelya has twenty one consonants:
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| bilab labdent dent alv postalv pal velar
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| stop p/b t/d c[k]/g
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| nas m n ng
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| fric f/v th/dh s sh h ch
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| app rh/r y
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| lat app lh/l
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| Most of these consonants have normal phonetic values (as in IPA) - these
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| include p, b, m, t, d, n, g, f, v, and s. As in English, these
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| consonants are all aspirated, except when geminated. Thus, the
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| difference between the hypothetical words pata [pa:tha] versus patta
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| [pata].
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| Of the monographs, the consonant c has the IPA value of [k], as
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| elaborated in the table above. Y has been discussed above, due to its
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| dual role as both consonant and vowel. The letters r and l are similar
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| to those of English, and h is identical to either the Ich-laut of
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| German, or to the puff of air it represents in English. It would be
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| comforting to say that the two sounds are dialectal variations, but this
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| is not the case, and both sounds can occur in the speech of a single
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| individual. There does not see to be any pattern to their use. Either
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| sound may be elided before an unvoiced stop, s, or y (as consonant). All
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| of these elisions happen at word junctures, or in compounds.
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| The digraphs are a more complex matter. Ng represents the sound in sing
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| [N], never as in finger. That sound would be written ngg; further, n
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| before a velar consonant (c or ch) is pronounced like ng. The two
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| digraphs th and dh represent the initial sounds in thing and that,
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| respectively ([T], [D]), and sh is pronounced as in English [S] (as in
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| shoe, for example). The digraph ch is always pronounced as in Scots
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| Gaelic loch [x]; that is, it is farther back in the throat and rougher
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| than h. It is never pronounced as in church, which is written ty in
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| Aelya (another uncommon digraph). Finally, rh and lh are unvoiced
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| variants of r and l, similar to Welsh rh and ll. These sounds are often
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| difficult for English speakers, and can be approximated by pronouncing a
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| slight puff of air before the liquid, as if they were written *hr or
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| *hl. Ch is elided before [w] (written u or mh).
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| Digraphs are seldom geminated as orthography demands, but when it does
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| occur, it is accomplished by geminating the first consonant of the
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| digraph: th > tth, sh > ssh, ng > nng, and so on.
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| Note that this is the standard Latin transliteration for Aelya. It does
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| have an alphabet of its own, called oym [o'@m]. Curiously, the plural,
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| oma, means both 'alphabets' and 'voice'. In oym, all of the digraphs are
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| represented by a single letter. The combination nc in transliteration
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| would be written as {ng}+{c} in oym, true to its actual pronunciation.
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| Geminated transliteration digraphs are written with two indentical
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| letters as well: nng = {ng} + {ng}. There are numerous styles of oym -
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| all of them vastly different, and with different uses and connotations.
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| An examination of these styles is outside of the scope of this work.
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| 1.3. Clusters
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| Aelya does not allow final consonant clusters of any kind, although the
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| orthographical gemination rule is an exception (and followed both in
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| transliteration and in oym). Initially, a few clusters are allowed, and
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| medially, many more clusters.
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| Initial clusters are limited to: s + {r, l, n, m}, stop + {l, r}, fl,
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| fr, vl, vr, and mr. Medial clusters are restricted only in that voice
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| and nasal assmilation are alwayt s present. For example, c + v > gv by
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| voice assimilation. Fricative assimilation is common when the fricative
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| is ch or h, in which case it is lost: cht > th. Medial clusters are
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| also restricted to two letters: *str is never a valid cluster, but tlh
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| is, because it is really only two letters.
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| 1.4. Syllable structure and stress
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| Syllables in Aelya follow the following pattern: (C)(C)V/D(C/G), where D
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| represents a diphthong and G a geminate consonant in word final
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| position.
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| Stress is usually found on the first syllable. If, due to compunding or
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| other processes, the second syllable contains a long vowel or diphthong,
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| it carries the stress.
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| Syllablification is a simple matter:
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| - V, CV, VC, CD, DC, CVC, CDC, CCV, CCD are monosyllabic, where CC is
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| word initial.
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| - VD syllabifies as V.D: aya 'alas!' is pronounced as a.ya.
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| - DV is monosyllabic, where the final vowel of the diphthong must also
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| form a dipthong with the final vowel of the triad: miau 'cat' is
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| monosyllabic.
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| - VCV and DCV pronounced V/D.CV: o.ma 'voice; alphabets' or ei.na 'birds
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| (obl pl)'.
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| - VCCV or VCCD all syllabify as VC.CV: en.na 'name'.
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| </pre>
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|
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|
| ==Grammar of Aelya== | | ==Grammar of Aelya== |
| What is known of the grammar of Aelya was taken from a [http://ccil.org/~cowan/sessiwn/msg00755.html message board post] from 1999. It follows. | | What is known of the grammar of Aelya is in another [http://ccil.org/~cowan/sessiwn/msg00755.html message board post] from 1999. |
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| "Aelya has 9 cases (agentive, patientive, experiencer, allative,
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| ablative, locative. perlative, genitive, and instrumental). I'm having a
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| hell of a time assigning case characteristics, only age. (no marking) and
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| patientive (-(h)e) having been decided. Now, I want to follow Irish cases
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| somewhat, and Quenya somewhat too (-na, -se, -lo for lacation cases).
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| Anyone have any ideas of how things should be assigned? PLease feel free
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| to do whatever...
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| another thing, too. There is a class of noun in Aelya that
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| involves some fairly big changes, the -y- class. In oblique cases, the y
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| drops from these nouns. What I'm not sure of is how to handle clusters
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| after the y drops, or what to do with markings that create clusters. Some
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| examples:
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| <pre>
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| dawyn 'spider' > pl. dauna (dawyn-a>dawn-a>dauna)
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| tobyr 'well' > pl. tobra
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| bradyn 'salmon' > pl. bradna /brann@/
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| pat. bradne/pl. bradne or bradnen
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| all. bradnan?/pl. bradnannar? "
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| </pre>
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|
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| [http://archives.conlang.info/qau/khaurphei/fuerjhuarthein.html Another message] talks about the plural in Aelya. | | [http://archives.conlang.info/qau/khaurphei/fuerjhuarthein.html Another message] talks about the plural in Aelya. |
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| ==Texts in Aelya== | | ==Texts in Aelya== |
