The CBB

What I claim is that no language distinguishes between [pʲ], [pj] and [pʲj]. If I've correctly understood Pirka's 500 lectures on Russian over at the IRC channel, this is in fact what Russian does. Well, I'll believe it when I hear it. I mean, I may certainly be wrong, but I don't understand what t...

In the same manner no language (that I'm aware of) distinguishes between [kʷ] and [kw]. IIRC Russian distinguishes between /pʲ/, /pj/, and /pʲj/. /pʲa/, /pja/, and /pʲja/ are written <пя>, <пъя>, and <пья>, respectively. The first one (a palatalized consonant before a vowel) is pretty common, but I...

I think what Ephraim says is quite right. Phonetically I don't think there can be much difference between [Ɂʲ Ɂʷ] and [Ɂj Ɂw]. In the same manner no language (that I'm aware of) distinguishes between [kʷ] and [kw]. However, there is a huge difference between /Ɂʲ Ɂʷ/ and /Ɂj Ɂw/, that is, the phonolo...

You're referring to Iau , aren't you? I think the people on the ZBB agreed that no natlang has ever had a stranger phonology. [O.o] Conlangers will never be as creative as natlangers.. The change CVCV>CVC with a change in vowel quality in Rotuman is marvellous. So true. It's a commonly assumed to b...

Also, borrowings could be pronounced as faithfully to the original language as possible, even if this is totally at odds with the anti-auxlang's phonology, in order to prove how educated and urbane the speaker is. Haha, yes! /sawna/ for sauna in the UK! But this sounds like a fun idea, they should ...

So cluster onsets and cluster codas have inverse sonority, but the plural is formed by reduplication of an onset, couldn't that create instances of wrong sonority? Let's say L=low sonority and H=high you could have words like: CVC.LHV which with reduplication would give: CVC.LHV-LH which would be il...

I use this one (didn't see it listed). You can feed in the phonemes, attatch a value (V, C, etc.) and define phonotactics. You can even adjust the frequency of a phoneme, and quite a few other settings. The free version can't output more than ten words at a time, but it is still very neat. http://ww...

(3) there's also lots of ambiguities in English and other languages (words that are spelt the same, but pronounced differently, or words that can be either nouns or verbs depending on context, etc), Yes, but interestingly Geoffrey Simpson in "Writing Systems" argues that the Hebrew script...

It sounds more like /f/ than it does "a 'simultaneous [ʃ] and [x]'." But either way, you go gurl. Aye, it sounds something more like "hfwa" than it does "skhha". But the sound is possible to pronounce, isn't it? Wether it actually is used in any language (especially Sw...

How efficient would it be to create a triconsonantal root language from its non-triconsonantal descendant language? To create roots and words for Vṛḵaẕīy, I have to work backwards and take roots from Arkéan, though Arkéan is the descendant language. Arkéan: Ūḵavnya - to kill Vṛḵaẕīy: Ḵ-V-N - to kil...

Then I would use A-agentive, B-proximate and C-obviate. The only problem is that the patientive inan. takes B, which would mess a bit with the prox./obv.-system. Maybe mark it as an exception? Tricky one... The only somewhat similar thing I've seen (and where prox./obv. comes from, I think) was when...

denarii wrote: Óndwix hayaqa.
man-B see-PRS-PFV
"The man sees (he is actively looking)."

This should be A, yes? And I feel your question is firstly a question of labeling? Maybe just agentive, patientive and obviate? Or proximate, agentive and patientive? Those are my suggestions at least :)

The language construction kit (http://www.zompist.com/kit.html) is a good place to start. Also, this should be in the beginners' corner.

Biblical Hebrew has a pattern for imperatives, e.g. ti-shma' (you.sg.m.imperf-hear.imperf) shma' (you.sg.imp.hear) ti-shme'-u (you.m.imperf-hear-pl.) shim'-u (you.imp.hear-pl.) They also have this optative thing: 'e-lmad (I.imperf.-learn) 'a-lamd-a (I-learn-opt.) There's that for reference at least...

My main conworld started through language history. I started with one language and where geographically it split. Then I wrote some stories about the city where it is mainly spoken now, and working my way through the different languages and how they influenced eachother, the history and geography de...

That is quite a lot. Which is why you should probably have some affixes or auxiliaries or something as well. But you can still rely more heavily on patterns ;)

well, I plan on containing these features: Tenses: Habitual Past Past Present Future Aspect: Perfective Imperfective Causative Reflexive Affirmative Inceptive/inchoative Terminative/Cessative Intensive Attenuative Moods: Imperfect Potential (cognate to "could") Perfect Potential (cognate ...

Of course you should group your grammatical features, but you don't have to group everything under "binyanim". You don't need to represent different aspects through different binyanim. (Though you could). Maybe each binyan could represent a mood or a tense. And variations or patterns withi...

You might already know this, but these are the hebrew binyanim: qal (pa'al) - regular (indicative) pi'el - intensive hif'il - causative hitpa'el - reflexive nif'al - passive of qal pu'al - passive of pi'el huf'al - passive of hif'il And then (in biblical) you have different "patterns" (giz...

I like this. It is not a pure copy of Hebrew, which is a good thing. The feature of having different plurals on the different derivations is neat. Hebrew has only two plurals on the nouns, fem: -ot and m: -im (or -ey for constructs) as well as a dual. And I don't quite agree with Znex, there is no r...