Omaha fricative set

[Rory M Larson]

John Koontz wrote:
> The laminal pronunciation you mention or anything more apical and less
> alveolar are likely.

>> I'm confused by what you mean by "apical" here.  Do you mean the tip of
the
>> palate ahead of the alveolar ridge?
>
> Apical refers to the tongue tip.

Good, that's what I thought.  In that case, my confusion is over the
apparent contrast between apical and alveolar.


> The less
> fiddling with the existing "popular" schemes the better, I think.  It
> should only be done where it is absolutely necessary.

The projects we're working on (textbook and eventually revised dictionary)
should be as linguistically well-founded as possible, but since they are
intended largely for the Omaha community, the legacy "popular" scheme needs
to be treated with respect.  That's the balancing act here.  It isn't just
about the linguists, but their concerns are important, as well as the Omaha
community's.  That's why I asked the Siouanists for advice.


>> This is fine for the Siouanist list, though I am inclined to favor
marking
>> the x as x^, simply to make sure we really intend it to mean the sharp
and
>> forceful form.  The x has been used for either or both velar fricatives
so
>> much in Omaha that I really don't trust anything written with x as
>> necessarily being distinctive.
>
> There's some point to that, but by the same logic you should carefully
> write tt vs. tH (or th), and not t vs. tH (or th), and so on.  But again
> that tramples on a carefully arranged compromised that appeals strongly
to
> Omahas and Poncas.  I'm inclined not to mess with it.

I do carefully write tt vs. tH, and not t vs. tH.  I learned this
convention from you years ago, and I've been following it pretty
religiously.  I'm entirely convinced that any native speaker of English
using loose t or x to transcribe Omaha will frequently put down t
indifferently for tt or tH, and x indifferently for x^ and g^, and go right
on without realizing anything is amiss.  If you force yourself to use only
the marked form, then you seldom make that kind of mistake.  I know I don't
have much support for this view at this end, and I don't know how the final
copy will go down, but I do feel strongly about this, and I'm inclined to
push for unambiguious marking both of the voiceless stops and of the velar
fricatives.


>> For Macy, the issue is touchy.  They have some investment in the old La
>> Flesche system, and there could be fallout from trying to revise it.
With
>> a push, they might accept using gh for the mute form, though that would
be
>> painful for the very common 'make'/'do' verb, which would then have to
be
>> written gaghe instead of gaxe.
>
> But the same logic applies to writing xitha as x^itha.

No.  In that case, you've still got an x, and people who want to see it
that way can simply ignore the diacritic.  The actual spelling doesn't have
to change.  This is just like adding accent marks to Greek, or macrons to
Latin, or vowel points to Hebrew.  The traditional spelling is still there,
nobody who is used to the old scheme is forced to use the diacritics,
everything written in the original scheme is still valid, and at the same
time we add a convention that preserves known phonological features that
the old scheme doesn't distinguish.  It starts out as a teaching and
reference aid for people learning Omaha as a second language, and it may or
may not spread beyond that arena.


> As I recollect it, gaghe is 'to make' and gaxe is 'branch', perhaps only
> in the context of a riverine system.

You mean a branch of a river, not the branch of a tree growing by a river,
right?  :)


>  There's a form for 'comb' that is
> somewhat similar that's not coming to me.

Would that be gahe' ?  (I'm not sure if we ever got the pronunciation of
this word pinned down.)


> As for bighoN and bixoN, one was something like 'make a farting noise',
> but I'll have to look this pair up.  What, you want meanings, too?

For elicitation purposes, that would sure help!

Rory
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