Cybalist Phonetic Alphabet: A Modest Proposal [long]

I am going to post, in several instalments, a history of Albanian
consonants from PIE to Modern Albanian. I'll probably polish it off
after any discussion that may ensue and upload it to our Files area for
convenient reference. Most books on Indo-European (at least those
published in English) just acknowledge the existence of Albanian without
providing any details of its history. Beekes's appendix devoted to
Albanian sound changes is a mess; so is the table accompanying the
article on Albanian in the Encyclopaedia of Indo-European Culture.

While working on it, I found it necessary to adopt a consistent system
of phonetic transcription, especially because of the numerous
palatalisations, affrications and spirantisations that had to be
described (SAMPA is too clumsy for this particular purpose). The system
-- let's call it CPA (short for the Cybalist Phonetic Alphabet) -- is
laid out below (or at least its consonantal section is; I'll do the
vowels and suprasegmentals later). It's as consistent with the
time-honoured practice of this list as I could make it. It may come in
handy when we discuss some other groups of languages, such as
Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic or, say, Tocharian, where different shades of
coronal articulation have to be distinguished. Standard Albanian
orthography will be used for Modern Albanian words, and I'll employ a a
conventional notation for PIE, but all intermediate reconstructions will
consistently be given in CPA.

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PRELIMINARY NOTES: TECHNICAL TERMS AND PHONETIC SYMBOLS

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1. PHONETIC DESCRIPTION

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1.1. In the production of coronal and dorsal consonants the active
articulator is the tongue, divided into the following segments:

- The tip and the blade

There is no universally accepted cover term for all consonants
articulated with the front part of the tongue. I suggest MARGINAL
(MARGINO- when used in compound terms), from Lat. margo: 'edge'.
Depending on the precise configuration of the tongue tip and blade,
marginal articulations can be subdivided into APICAL, LAMINAL and
SUBAPICAL (= "retroflex"), but in many languages these features are not
distinctive. (They will not play any significant role in the discussion
of Albanian.)

- The PREDORSAL segment (the middle of the tongue)
- The DORSAL segment (the back part of the tongue)

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1.2. The roof of the mouth is divided into the following zones ("places
of articulation"):

- DENTAL
- ALVEOLAR

When the distinction between the dental and alveolar zones can be
ignored, the cover term ANTERIOR will be used.

- POSTALVEOLAR (regarded as synonymous with "prepalatal")
- PALATAL
- VELAR
- UVULAR

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2. TRANSCRIPTION

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2.1. I shall use the following symbols for the "basic" coronal obstruents.

[t], [d] (stops)
[T], [D] (non-sibilant or "wide" fricatives = [þ], [ð])
[s], [z] (sibilant or "narrow" fricatives)
[c], [3] (affricates)

If they occur without diacritics, they can all be defined as
margino-anterior (ignoring the apical/laminal and dental/alveolar
distinctions). In each pair the first sound is voiceless and the second
voiced. >).

The following diacritics will be used to modify the values of the basic
symbols:

[^] = margino-postalveolar ("palatoalveolar")
['] = predorso-postalveolar ("alveopalatal") or predorso-alveolar

The symbols are chosen so that irrelevant distinctions can be ignored.
Note that affricates are transcribed as single characters, not as
combinations of stop and fricative symbols.

For example, [c^] stands for a voiceless affricate similar to English
<ch> (lamino-postalveolar) or to Polish <cz> (apico-postalveolar).
Should it be necessary to distinguish between laminal and non-laminal
articulations, the diacritic [,] can be used for the latter (e.g. for a
"retroflex" series: [s,], [t,], etc.). [s'] may stand for a voiceless
predorso-postalveolar fricative, like those that occur in Polish,
Sanskrit and Chinese (spelt <x>).

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2.2. I shall use the following symbols for the "basic" dorsal obstruents:

[k], [g] (stops)
[x], [G] (fricatives)

If not accompanied by diacritics, they stand for dorso-velar sounds.

The following diacritics can be used to modify the values of the basic
symbols:

['] = dorso-palatal
[_] = dorso-uvular

For example, [k_] stands for a voiceless dorso-uvular stop (= IPA q),
and [x'] for a dorso-palatal fricative as in German <nicht> [= IPA ç].

Note that the exact interpretation of ['] is slightly different in the
case of coronals and dorsals, but in either case the diacritic indicates
an articulation that involves a continous area of the root of the mouth
(from the back of the alveolar ridge to the hard palate) and the body of
the tongue, i.e. its predorsal to dorsal segments. The transition from
[k'] to [t'] (= Hungarian <ty>) or from [x'] to [s'] is therefore
continuous. Dorso-palatal and predorsal stops tend to undergo
affrication, hence the frequent development of palatal [k'] into [c']
(and then into [c^] or [c], or into the corresponding fricatives [s'],
[s^] or [s]).

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2.3. Some other sounds

[N] = (dorso-)velar nasal (English <ng>)
[R] = dorsal rhotic (velar or uvular approximant, uvular trill)
[n'] = predorsal ("palatal") nasal (French or Italian <gn>)
[l'] = predorsal ("palatal") lateral (Italian <gl>, Castilian <ll>)
etc.
[h] = glottal approximant/fricative (English <h>)
[?] = glottal stop

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2.4. Other diacritics (always written after the basic symbol)

[W] = labialisation (especially in the form of lip-rounding)
['] = palatalisation (with symbols other than those mentioned so far)
[/] = velarisation (e.g. [l/] for a "dark" lateral)
[H] = aspiration (including breathy voiced phonation)
[.] = syllabicity of consonants
[:] = length

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3. TABLE OF SYMBOLS

anterior --postalveolar--- palatal velar uvular
labial ---------coronal---------- ---------dorsal---------
---marginal---- predorsal

stops p b t d t' d' k' g' k g k_ g_

fricatives f v T D x' G' x G x_ G_

(sibil.) s z s^ z^ s' z'

affricates c 3 c^ 3^ c' 3'

nasals m n n' N

laterals l l'

rhotics r R

semivowels w j (w)


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Questions and comments welcome.

Piotr