Re: Some suggestions

[Andrew Smith <hobbit@mail.earthlight.co.nz>]

On Sat, 16 Jan 1999, Raymond A. Brown wrote:

> [INDEFINITE PLURAL]
> There seem to me three possible scenarios:
>
(a) is a rather hoary chestnut that I wouldn't want to sow again in this
discussion.  Its not elegant and belongs to the Esperanto fringe of
Romance languages.

(b) is the current indefinite plural in Brithenig unos/unas > yn (+H).  It
is a _very_ indefinite plural as it is confused with the singular.

(c)
>        SINGULAR                 PLURAL
>    fem.  ddla  [Fr. de la]    ) ddlo [Fr. des]
>    masc. ddill [Fr. du]       )
> 
These are the best option in my opinion, with a bit of practice I might
master pronouncing them without a schwa!  I wonder if Brithenig would go
as far as *da, *do?  These forms exist in Breathenach.

> Then the question is: Would these also denote possession?  ;-)
> 
I think that would be inevitable if we introduce them, at least in the
spoken language.

> I think I favor (c) most and (b) less so.  I rank (a) as least likely.
> 
> [FINAL AFFRICATES]
> >And
> >if anyone has any suggestions for spelling Feli[j] New An or resolving the
> >final affricate problem - let me know!
> 
> Now if final [ik] and [ig] never occur in Brithenig, then final -ic would
> be [(i)tS] and final -ig would be [(i)dZ].
>
Brithenig voices final stops consistantly where it was followed by a vowel
which was later lost.  This works happily for *brittanicu, brittanica >
brithenig, but is problematic for pacem, felicem > pag, ffelig where the
final -g should be affricate.

Final -c in VL seems to have simply disappeared in Brithenig, although
traces of it survives as aspirantation hoc, hac, lac > o, a, lla.

Final -c was borrowed back into Brithenig for such words as bric, brick.

I think I have managed to avoid using soft c as a final consonant off
hand.
 
> If Brithening does have final [ik] and [ig] as well as [itS] and [idZ],
> then we could start with final -ig = [(i)dZ] while final -igh = [ig] (since
> /g/ before /e/ and /i/ is spelt 'gh').  Thus we can see that final -g by
> itself denotes an affricate sound; we can then extend this so that -ic =
> [ik] and -icg = [(i)tS] (this might be encouraged in that Old English also
> used the combination 'cg' for an affricate sound, even tho there it was
> [dZ]). 

Although I had looked at Catalan several times I never thought of using
-gh as a final hard cluster!  This would mean we now speak Brithenigh -
can we live with that?  At least, within writing in Brithenig the final -h
would have to be compulsary, in English it would be optional.

I'm not sure about adapting -cg into Brithenigh.  I just have an antipathy
towards it from my neo-Old Englisc conlanging as one of the most
antipathic digraphs I can think of (without trying to hard!) but I will
keep in mind for further need.

- andrew.

Andrew Smith, Intheologus 			hobbit@earthlight.co.nz
Q. Why are there so many Smiths in the Phone Book?
A. Because they all have telephones!

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