Sca2 and stress-based rules?

If you're new to these arts, this is the place to ask "stupid" questions and get directions!
Post Reply
Davush
greek
greek
Posts: 672
Joined: 10 Jan 2015 14:10

Sca2 and stress-based rules?

Post by Davush »

Hello,

I often use sca2 to apply sound changes to my languages, however I run into problems when the sound changes depend on stressed/unstressed syllables, or other factors relating to stress. Is there a work around to dealing with stress in sca2, or do I need to mark every stressed syllable? (My conlangs usually have regular stress and it is therefore unmarked).

Thanks.
User avatar
Frislander
mayan
mayan
Posts: 2088
Joined: 14 May 2016 18:47
Location: The North

Re: Sca2 and stress-based rules?

Post by Frislander »

Unfortunately there is no way of not marking it, unless you're in for creating very specific environments (e.g. for a CV(C) language with penultimate stress then a stressed-vowel change would take place in _(C)CV(C)).
User avatar
Creyeditor
MVP
MVP
Posts: 5091
Joined: 14 Aug 2012 19:32

Re: Sca2 and stress-based rules?

Post by Creyeditor »

Davush wrote:Hello,

I often use sca2 to apply sound changes to my languages, however I run into problems when the sound changes depend on stressed/unstressed syllables, or other factors relating to stress. Is there a work around to dealing with stress in sca2, or do I need to mark every stressed syllable? (My conlangs usually have regular stress and it is therefore unmarked).

Thanks.
If stress is regular and syllabification is also regular, you could use rules to introduce both and delete them afterwards. Here is an example:

Imagine a CV language where stress is always on the penultimate syllable. In the daughter language, all stressed vowels become diphthongs.
Spoiler:
Classes
V=aoui
C=hlwgd
D=æȣꜷij


Input:
halo
duda
wigadi
da

Rules:
/./V_C
/ˈ/_CV.CV#
/ˈ/#_CV#
V/D/ˈC_
.//_
ˈ//_
æ/ai/_
ꜷ/au/_
ȣ/ou/_
ij/ei/_

Output:

hailo
dauda
wigaidi
dai
If the language is more complex, the rules would be more complex, but the idea is the same. This means that you would not have to mark syllable structure or syllabification for all input words.
Creyeditor
"Thoughts are free."
Produce, Analyze, Manipulate
1 :deu: 2 :eng: 3 :idn: 4 :fra: 4 :esp:
:con: Ook & Omlűt & Nautli languages & Sperenjas
[<3] Papuan languages, Morphophonology, Lexical Semantics [<3]
Curlyjimsam
sinic
sinic
Posts: 221
Joined: 01 Sep 2010 15:31
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: Sca2 and stress-based rules?

Post by Curlyjimsam »

The fact that it's such a bother to do stress-based rules means that, quite unrealistically, stress basically never plays a part in sound change in any of my conlangs ...

Creyeditor's idea of marking stress via rule is a good one. If there are exceptions to the regular pattern you'd probably want to have them marked in your lexicon anyway, so they needn't mess things up.
The Man in the Blackened House, a conworld-based serialised web-novel
Post Reply