Saturday, 5 February 2011

Rhoticism in an Eclectic Tongue.

I had been wondering what to do with this languages R-sound when word-final or before a consonant. Like a number of natural languages the R-sound has become silent or swallowed in these positions. It had inherited a sound change that made this accompanied by vowel lengthening following rules from Pidgin English. I wondered how this rule applied in the current form of the language which has become heavily inflected following the adoption of new rules into this language.

Then the other day I realised that there is no problem. In the forms of words where the R-sound is word final, such as can happen in the nominative / accusative form of the masculine adjective, then the R-sound is dropped leaving the form of the word ending in a vowel. Where it is followed by an ending beginning with a vowel, such as the feminine gender ending -a and the neuter ending -on then the R-sound is restored. This might even lead to hypercorrection in the language.

Hopefully this means problem solved.

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