#underlying form

[ssmatthews]

Driftwood

A ceaseless current rolls its course as surface oscillations- archetypes of the human mind, in endless fascination, seek the swifter water where the elemental flows. Barnacles bleached and drying cling to underlying form, all my expectations wash like driftwood to the shore, tossed to beach and dying in the aftermath of storm- One more piece of flotsam set adrift from isle to isle, powers…

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[leftwristtwist-blog]

Feminine to Masculine Form Transition in Catalan

UF (underlying/ feminine form)                fəkundə             puruɤə              durə     

 1.     ə -> ø/(+son)(-son)__#                      fəkund              puruɤ               dur

(schwa deletion after sonorant/obstruent clusters)

2.     (-stri) -> (-cont)/__#                          N/A                   purug                N/A

(fortition of all non-stridents (s/z))

2.1          ž -> [+voice,+dorsal]/__#              N/A                   N/A                   N/A

(distribution widening of rising-tone voiced stridents) 

3.     (-son) -> (-voice)/__#                        fəkunt               puruk               N/A

(devoicing of word-final obstruents)

4.     [+cor,+son] -> ø/__#                         N/A                   N/A                   du

(deletion of coronal sonorants word-finally)  

5.     (-son) -> ø/(+cor)__#                        fəkun               N/A                   N/A

(deletion of word-final obstruents following coronals)                  

This is what I've spent my day on. People think language is so random and arbitrary and passionate, but every language follows a strict and rigid set of rules that dictates how words can be constructed and spoken in the millisecond that it takes them to get from your brain to your mouth. Look at this gender transformation in Catalan. Every time someone switches the gender of the subject of an adjective, their mind goes through this process infinitely fast and with the capability of going through it for every single word that they know. Now imagine what your brain has to go through to comprehend an entire sentence with multiple parts of speech and respond to that sentence. It's a wonder we don't go into a coma every time we speak correctly.