AvivaShimelman
commented
8 years ago - In the northern interior (see below), we can get intermediate level. Probably in Venen Taute, too. If we want to target that level of difersity for analysis, it would probably take more recodings than I have for any language now. Not hard to get, but still a matter of getting.
- Phonetic peculiarities. No, nothing Giovanni hasn't already gotten his ears on. The Pangkumus are worth a listen, if Giovanni thinks there is something interesting going on there (their closest counterpart is Unua). Lots of academic traffic about R1 2 3 4 5 ... For Giovanni to judge whether the linguo-labials (Vao and Venen Taute) are interesting. Another tight group (lower prioroty than the first two) is UWRA. Could be hypothesized that Wowo/Alavas previously had them.
- The only new one will be the ever-elusive Larevat, which, actually, should be interesting, because it "corners" with Venen Taute and the norther center.
The greatest remaining diversity is in the interior, among two very tight groups: North: Malua Bay, Espiegel's Bay, Siviti, Batarxopu, and (most distant menmber of the set) Tirax South: All the "Letembois" (already covered), Nombotkote, Novol, Nasarian, Angave, and, a bit more marginally, Natangan, Navwien.
We can actually date the break-up of the Mandri/Nisvais (50 years), so that could make getting a handle on diversity there interesting (or not).
Here's the very low-level variation that can be observed pretty much across the board. l.
Giovanni would have been spared a lot of this because he was hearing just one of the two samples. The alternations I refer to below are all between the two samples of any single speaker for any single word.
Native-speaker samples as a result of any of: vowel lowering/raising, voicing/devoicing, "fricative motility" (bilabialization of labio-dental fricatives, post-alveolarization of alveolar fricatives, uvularization velar fricatives, and substitution velar plosives for velar fricatives), in addition to variation in place of articulation of nasals, elision of glottal stops, retraction of linguo-labials (relevant only for Venen Taute and Vao), and a couple of other "parameters" (see spreadsheet sheet "Notation - transcription")
On 10/12/16, Paul Heggarty notifications@github.com wrote:
Giovanni has now nearly finished transcribing the 66 best candidate words for high pan-Malakula cognacy in all of the varieties selected for him to cover.
He writes: "However, I'm not transcribing all the recordings (they are really a lot...) but only those ones that Aviva selected for detailed transcription (basically one for each "language").
Things may have moved on since then, however, with some new recordings, so I think we should use this page to keep track of which varieties are to be transcribed, and where we are with them. Aviva and/or Laura would probably be best to prepare the list, using the - [ ] format for check boces, and the SndComp filenames for each language variety.
The main outstanding question is: which other varieties do we want detailed transcriptions for nonetheless? That depends on what these transcriptions are for in the first place, of course, and what will be done w them.
Again, that is basically a question for Russell, so I’ll try again to get a clear answer. But I presume the utility of very fine transcriptions is:
- For quantifications of phonetic distance between varieties. To this end, higher detail transcriptions are most important for distinguishing finer dialectal-level differences. On that scrore, so it would seem to make sense to go a bit beyond just the full "languages".
- For Austronesian specialists to explore, perhaps through a separate mirror version of www.soundcomparisons.com/Malakula with Giovanni's transcriptions. To that end, very broad dialectal coverage is arguably less important.
So, some questions for Aviva:
- Do you have an intermediate level of 'major dialect' that you think it might be worth moving to for these transcriptions?
- Are there other language varieties not yet transcribed by Giovanni but which, even if they’re dialects of a "full language" already transcribed, happen to have interesting phonetic peculiarities, in which case it would also be valuable to have detailed trancriptions?
- Are there new "full languages" to add to the list for Giovanni?
You are receiving this because you were assigned. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/lingdb/Sound-Comparisons/issues/408
Aviva Shimelman, PhD
GAbete
Giovanni has now nearly finished transcribing the 66 best candidate words for high pan-Malakula cognacy in all of the varieties selected for him to cover.
He writes: "However, I'm not transcribing all the recordings (they are really a lot...) but only those ones that Aviva selected for detailed transcription (basically one for each "language").
Things may have moved on since then, however, with some new recordings, so I think we should use this page to keep track of which varieties are to be transcribed, and where we are with them. Aviva and/or Laura would probably be best to prepare the list, using the - [ ] format for check boces, and the SndComp filenames for each language variety.
The main outstanding question is: which other varieties do we want detailed transcriptions for nonetheless? That depends on what these transcriptions are for in the first place, of course, and what will be done w them.
Again, that is basically a question for Russell, so I’ll try again to get a clear answer. But I presume the utility of very fine transcriptions is:
So, some questions for Aviva: