The CBB

Creyeditor wrote: ↑12 May 2021 15:59 I was just wondering what time travel would mean for diachronic language change. Would languages become more stable, due to transtemporal levelling? Less stable, die to transtemporal mass migrations? Would people become multilingual in several stages of one and the same language?

I suspect it's even worse for American listeners, who don't have the advantage of having heard Irish, Scottish, West Country, Norfolk, etc accents...

Creyeditor wrote: ↑29 May 2021 00:15 You should look at the dissertation of Syllak-Glassman on post-velar consonants. He definitely has all the data. Here is a link.

Ahzoh wrote: ↑29 May 2021 00:41

Creyeditor wrote: ↑29 May 2021 00:15 You should look at the dissertation of Syllak-Glassman on post-velar consonants. He definitely has all the data. Here is a link.

Thanks, an interesting read on its own virtue to be sure! Although I don't really have the kind of time right now to sift through this rather large paper to look for an answer to this rather minor question.

Sylak-Glassman wrote:The most common effect [of post-velars on vowels] is lowering, which can apply systematically to all the non-low vowels in a language’s inventory. Lowering can occur next to all post-velar consonants. Backing is also attested, but is less common than lowering and tends to occur more next to uvulars than pharyngeals. Lowering and backing effects are typically non-neutralizing and occur at the phonetic level, presumably as a result of co-articulation, both anticipatory and perseveratory.

elemtilas wrote: ↑28 May 2021 16:02

I suspect it's even worse for American listeners, who don't have the advantage of having heard Irish, Scottish, West Country, Norfolk, etc accents...

Well, we're not quite thát parochial. Melting pot and all that. But accent I agree plays into it.

To be honest, what makes this particular rendition more ungothroughsome than the language itself is the rushed delivery. Or at least, it sounds rushed to me. Like he's trying to get all the words out before time runs out or something. There are oodles of CT readings on the Youtubules that are more measured, and I think ME would be much more comprehensible for the time traveler if his interlocutor brought it down from 78 to 33 1/3.

Dormouse559 wrote: ↑29 May 2021 02:28

Sylak-Glassman wrote:The most common effect [of post-velars on vowels] is lowering, which can apply systematically to all the non-low vowels in a language’s inventory. Lowering can occur next to all post-velar consonants. Backing is also attested, but is less common than lowering and tends to occur more next to uvulars than pharyngeals. Lowering and backing effects are typically non-neutralizing and occur at the phonetic level, presumably as a result of co-articulation, both anticipatory and perseveratory.

c.i)  /a aː e eː i iː o oː u uː/ > /ɑ ɑː e eː e eː o oː o oː/ adjacent to /q₁ χ₁/
c.ii) /a aː e eː i iː o oː u uː/ > /æ æː i iː i iː u uː u uː/ adjacent to /q₂ χ₂/

d.i) /ɑ ɑː æ æː e eː o oː / > /ɒ ɒː ɛ ɛː ɛ ɛː ɒ ɒː/

Original > /ʔ h/  ; /ʡ ħ/
/a aː/   > /ɒ ɒː/ ; /ɛ ɛː/
/e eː/   > /i iː/ ; /ɛ ɛː/
/o oː/   > /u uː/ ; /ɒ ɒː/
/i iː/   > /i iː/ ; /ɛ ɛː/
/u uː/   > /u uː/ ; /ɒ ɒː/

Ahzoh wrote: ↑28 May 2021 22:23 I can't remember, but can pharyngeals lower vowels? I know that they advance the tongue root, in contrast to uvulars that retract it, but I'm not sure if that means they couldn't lower vowels. Or conversely, could they raise vowels?

Davush wrote: ↑29 May 2021 02:50

Ahzoh wrote: ↑28 May 2021 22:23 I can't remember, but can pharyngeals lower vowels? I know that they advance the tongue root, in contrast to uvulars that retract it, but I'm not sure if that means they couldn't lower vowels. Or conversely, could they raise vowels?

I don't have any academic sources, but from my own experience, Arabic /ʕ ħ/ tend to raise the adjacent vowels (or at least /a/), especially in dialects where /ʕ/ is more stop-like- e.g. /ʕan/ is [ʕæn~ʕən~ʕɛn] but never [ʕɑn] in these dialects. Similarly /fataħ/ is [fætæħ]. In contrast, /Xall/ is often [Xɑll] (also with pharyngealization of /l/).

Salmoneus wrote: ↑30 May 2021 18:25 ...how do you 'palatalise' a vowel without 'raising' it?

Ahzoh wrote: ↑30 May 2021 20:08

Salmoneus wrote: ↑30 May 2021 18:25 ...how do you 'palatalise' a vowel without 'raising' it?

In this case, it is merely fronting it, but also I think ATR causes "lax" vowels to become "tense" vowels, which can result in some raising. But that isn't necessarily the same as turning /e/ into /i/ or /o/ into /u/.

Salmoneus wrote: ↑30 May 2021 20:11 But ATR also isn't the same thing as palatalisation!

Salmoneus wrote: ↑29 May 2021 02:37 This Chaucer sounds faster to you because you don't understand him, not vice versa - we perceive speech we understand to be slower than speech we don't (as we all probably know from having heard a conversation in a foreign language and marvelling at the machine-gun syllables!).