Pronunciation Questions

[Matthew Montchalin]

| At 04:41 PM 2/21/2007, you wrote:
| >I prefer to use *uppercase* letters to mark syllables whose
| >quantities are long, rather than syllables bearing primary or
| >secondary stress.  Words in Nawatl take on different senses
| >depending on whether they have long or short vowels.  The
| >same thing can't be said of words whose sole differences
| >are the locations of their syllabic stress.
| >
| >For that reason, it is far more important to dwell on the matter
| >of vocalic length than syllabic stress.
|
|
| Two things.
| 1.  You are absolutely correct that vowel length is more important
| than secondary stress, although with classical texts where vowel
| length was not noted, we have to do the best we can.

Do you think there was anything similar to the Classical Latin
caesura?

| 2.  The convention that we use here on the list is to place a colon
| following the long vowel (since many computer mail programs do not
| allow us to use character sets that include a macron), and use
|CAPS for stress.
|
| Examples:
| te:-MO-a: [long e, long a, stress on the mo] - to seek something
| or
| te-MO:-hua [long o, stress on the mo] - for descent to take place

Hmmmm.  Well.  Okay.  Still, I think I've seen the colon used for a
stop, such as the glottal stop, for instance.  I guess I'll have to
keep track of your usage so I don't confuse it with anybody else's.
Somehow, I'd much rather use an uppercase 'Q' for the glottal stop,
if not a colon.

But I think the important thing is, you can't go wrong if you just
issue a series of spondaic like syllables, and so long as the vowel
lengths are right, it ought to have been understandable back in the
days of Classical Nawatl.  I just don't think syllabic stress is
as important as vowel length.


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