[lojban] zo ki'a .e zo .y

[Pierre Abbat <phma@bezitopo.org>]

http://huh.ideophone.org/
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0078273

An article appeared a few days ago comparing interjections used for other-
initiated repair in various languages. All the languages they looked at have a 
word consisting of a null, glottal stop, or glottal fricative onset followed 
by a low-to-mid front-to-central unrounded vowel with a questioning 
intonation.

Lojban words do not begin with a glottal fricative (it's found only between 
vowels), but some words begin with a glottal stop (which is not distinct from 
null at the beginning of an utterance). Of the one-syllable words beginning 
with a glottal stop, four are conjunctions, one (which is high) is the 
sentence separator, and the remaining one (which fits the pattern) is the 
hesitation word.

A glance at Wiktionary suggests that a majority of languages have a hesitation 
word which fits a pattern: English "er" and "uh" (the latter sounds just like 
Lojban "y"), French "euh" (not listed but it's one of my languages), Greek 
"ε", Danish "øh", etc. The pattern is different from the OIR word ("euh" is 
rounded, whereas "hein" isn't), but they overlap.

Our OIR words are "ki'a" and "ke'o". The second syllable of "ki'a" does fit the 
pattern for OIR words, but the fact that it has two syllables does not. I 
suggest that "ki'a", when said by itself, should be stressed on the "a" with a 
questioning intonation (whatever that is) so that it's closer to the pattern 
for OIR words. "ki'anai" should be stressed on the first or third syllable, and 
"moki'a" and "maki'a" can be stressed however you want, as the listener 
already knows when the "ki'a" starts that it's not a bare "ki'a".

Pierre
-- 
The Black Garden on the Mountain is not on the Black Mountain.

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