Zompist Bboard Again

KathTheDragon wrote: ↑Tue Jan 18, 2022 6:56 pm "Featural" makes perfect sense to me, though, as denoting a script where each glyph is made up of components corresponding to the denoted phoneme's features, and in particular where components are common (up to modifications to accomodate them) to all phonemes with that feature. So there might be a component that means "labial" and is shared across all labial consonants.

Edit: this is probably a bit imprecise for a proper definition, as non-component modifications like doubling are also perfectly licit.

Just that.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Mon Jan 17, 2022 6:59 pm

Not sure what point you think you're making. I don't have a mental list of the gender of board members. Sometimes I make assumptions based on handles (I assume that "KathTheDragon" identifies as a woman, but for all we know "Kath" is from their conlang meaning "strong male warrior"), but in general I have no idea (except for those people that have hung around here for ages and partook in the photos thread on one of the older boards).

Moose-tache wrote:This happens to some small extent in almost every writing system (e.g. Latin G comes from C plus a distinguishing mark), but never with perfect regularity/predictability (except where it's been added later, as in the tenten voicing marks on hiragana).

WeepingElf wrote:Many orthographies use diacritics or digraphs in phnonologically consistent ways such that the diacritic marks the presence of a specific feature. German uses two dots above for front vowels resulting from the umlaut rule; Czech and other languages use caron for palatal consonants; Old Irish uses dot above (and Modern Irish uses a following h) for spirantization.

I think these are different things. "G" vs. "C" is just that - there's an extra line to distinguish two sounds that otherwise get confused. Also "W" vs "U" and "K" vs "I". But that's not featural at all. There's no systemic application of a horizontal bar to denote voicedness. While what WeepingElf says is applying systemically a diacritic to denote a specific phonetical feature.

Come to think of it, maybe you were referring to the hiragana part. I think I initially overlooked that, and also I'm not familiar with hiragan, so I don't know if it's comparable to what WE said.


JAL

jal wrote: ↑Wed Jan 19, 2022 10:20 am Come to think of it, maybe you were referring to the hiragana part. I think I initially overlooked that, and also I'm not familiar with hiragan[a], so I don't know if it's comparable to what WE said.

Hiragana are simplfied forms of Kanji, and consequently don't have any sort of featural character to their shapes (か き く け こ are "ka ki ku ke ko", but there isn't anything in them that signifies the presence of a velar stop, which has no standalone sign, nor any of the vowels, which are, as standalones, respectively あ い う え お). Their forms derive generally from characters whose Middle Chinese readings (or sometimes Old Japanese native word reatings) approximated the syllables of Old Japanese. This said, the consonant-modification diacritics are regular: two little verticle strokes (a dakuten) produces voicing (archaically, voicing and prenasalisation) — が ぎ ぐ げ ご are "ga gi gu ge go"; with a circle (handakuten) in the same place, は ひ ふ へ ほ (ha hi fu he ho) become ぱぴぷぺぽ (pa pi pu pe po) (note Proto-Japonic */p/ was probably [ɸ] by Middle Japanese, but a /p/-sound persisted medially, and was reintroduced as a distinct phoneme in some later Sinitic borrowings, consequently the h-series becomes the b-series when the dakuten is applied). The circle has some other nonce uses when transcribing dialectal speech, but I don't believe they're considered standard.

Yes, Hiragana (nor Katakana) is not featural, but dakuten is a good example of the kind of diacritic used in "phonologically consistent ways" I talked about on Monday.

Hiragana, on this note, also have numerous archaic variants from different Kanji. Their encoding on most fonts I've used is, however, unfortunately poor, so their use for playing around with Japonic orthographies in a way you can type is limited (there also isn't any convenient input method for them, at least of which I'm aware).

Also of some possible interest on the subject of Kana — historical Kana usage:

jal wrote: ↑Wed Jan 19, 2022 10:20 amI assume that "KathTheDragon" identifies as a woman

You would be correct, "Kath" is shortened from my first name.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:04 pm Hiragana are simplfied forms of Kanji, and consequently don't have any sort of featural character to their shapes

Right. Still, I find it amusing that katakana ウ クス ヌ フ (u ku su nu fu) kinda do share a shape (the フ).

zompist wrote: ↑Thu Jan 20, 2022 12:00 am

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:04 pm Hiragana are simplfied forms of Kanji, and consequently don't have any sort of featural character to their shapes

Right. Still, I find it amusing that katakana ウ クス ヌ フ (u ku su nu fu) kinda do share a shape (the フ).

Having in mind that many Kanji/Hanzi have phonetic radicals, I wonder if that quintuplet was derived from the same phonetic radical and influenced each other in the simplification process.

Zju wrote: ↑Thu Jan 20, 2022 11:47 am

zompist wrote: ↑Thu Jan 20, 2022 12:00 am

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:04 pm Hiragana are simplfied forms of Kanji, and consequently don't have any sort of featural character to their shapes

Right. Still, I find it amusing that katakana ウ クス ヌ フ (u ku su nu fu) kinda do share a shape (the フ).

Having in mind that many Kanji/Hanzi have phonetic radicals, I wonder if that quintuplet was derived from the same phonetic radical and influenced each other in the simplification process.

That isn't really how that works. The phonetic elements of the radicals aren't themselves featural; instead, they're usually derived from semantic ones (or the simplifications of them). Katakana are also deliberately-selected pieces of Kanji (a few are nearly identical to existing Kanji, too), it's the Hiragana that are cursive simplifications.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Thu Jan 20, 2022 9:43 pm

Zju wrote: ↑Thu Jan 20, 2022 11:47 am

zompist wrote: ↑Thu Jan 20, 2022 12:00 am

Right. Still, I find it amusing that katakana ウ クス ヌ フ (u ku su nu fu) kinda do share a shape (the フ).

Having in mind that many Kanji/Hanzi have phonetic radicals, I wonder if that quintuplet was derived from the same phonetic radical and influenced each other in the simplification process.

That isn't really how that works. The phonetic elements of the radicals aren't themselves featural; instead, they're usually derived from semantic ones (or the simplifications of them). Katakana are also deliberately-selected pieces of Kanji (a few are nearly identical to existing Kanji, too), it's the Hiragana that are cursive simplifications.

The phonetic radicals aren't featural, but they mostly hint rhyme pronunciation, don't they? And it's the rhyme that those five similar looking katakana share.

Zju wrote: ↑Fri Jan 21, 2022 1:48 pm The phonetic radicals aren't featural, but they mostly hint rhyme pronunciation, don't they? And it's the rhyme that those five similar looking katakana share.

It's a coincidence. Note that they're derived from the Kanji with little resemblance to each-other:

ウ (u)：宇 (from the top part) "eaves" (MC */ɦɨo/, Middle Chinese */ɨo/ seems often borrowed into Japanese as */u/)
ク (ku)：久 (from the left section) "long in duration" (MC */kɨu/; the character also has an on'yomi kyû)
ス (su)：須 (from the "feet") "mandatory, necessary; moment, short while" (MC */sɨo/, the later Kan'on reading is shu)
ツ (tsu)：川 (not a match) "river" (MC */t͡ɕʰiuᴇn/; a curious case, the on'yomi is normatively sen)
ヌ (nu)：奴 (from the right side radical) "servant" (MC */nuo/, the later Kan'on is, however, do)
フ (fu)：不 (from the side left of the downward vertical stroke) "not" (MC */pɨu(t)/, has on'yomi both fu and hochi, later Kan'on fû, futsu, Kan'yō-on bu)
ム (mu)：牟 (from the top part, also not a match) "moo" (MC */mɨu/, the older Go'on is mu however the Kan'on reading is bō)
ユ (yu)：由 (from part of the bottom, maybe a marginal match) "cause, reason" (MC */jɨu/, has Go'on yu, Kan'on yû, Kan'yō-on yui)
ル (ru)：流 (from the "feet" again, also not a match) "rapids, current" (MC */lɨu/; the Go'on ru is now apparently less-common than the Kan'on ryû)
ラ (ra)：良 (from part of the top, different rime) "good, all right" (MC */lɨɐŋ/; Go'on rō (historical rau), Kan'on ryō (historical ryau); curiously, the Middle Chinese velar nasal seems to have been borrowed into Old Japanese as a glide or vowel, most usually some sort of */u~w/, but sometimes */i~j/; this coalesces with the preceding vowel to produce a long vowel in the modern language)
ワ (wa)：和 (from part of the box, different rime) "peace, harmony" (MC */ɦuɑ/, Go'on wa, Kan'on ka, historical kwa, Tō'on o, historical wo; also a part of the present Era name in Japan, 令和 Reiwa
ヲ (wo)：乎 (from part of the top) "in, at,on" (not on the standard Jōyō list; MC */ɦuo/, Go'on go or o (historical wo), Kan'on ko)

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Fri Jan 21, 2022 6:38 pm ツ (tsu)：川 (not a match) "river" (MC */t͡ɕʰiuᴇn/; a curious case, the on'yomi is normatively sen)

州 seems phonetically more likely (MC */t͡ɕɨu/).

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:11 pm

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Fri Jan 21, 2022 6:38 pm ツ (tsu)：川 (not a match) "river" (MC */t͡ɕʰiuᴇn/; a curious case, the on'yomi is normatively sen)

州 seems phonetically more likely (MC */t͡ɕɨu/).

That would make more sense. Looking at a table of man'yōgana, 洲 and 州 both appear as characters used for su. 川 may have been a typographical error.

(Edit: It might also have been an intermediate scribal simplification.)