Yay or Nay? [2011–2018]

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Davush
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Davush »

gestaltist wrote:
Davush wrote:I don't know whether I want to introduce /ŋ/ into Qutrussan? I would probably romanise it as <ṇ>. If yes, should I also allow it word-initially? I tend to put it in conlangs a lot, but it feels a bit out of place in Qutrussan. Words like ṇuthur /ŋuθur/ sound nice though. If I do, I think /i u/ will have centralised/merged with /ǝ/ before it in the not-so-distant past, so things like yŭṇ /jǝŋ/ and rĭṇ /rǝŋ/.
How about making [ŋ] the word-initial allophone of /g/?

That's a good solution. Perhaps they will be in free variation, or this allophone only occurs in certain dialects. I'm also thinking of romanizing /f/ as <ph> hinting that /f θ x~h/ came from earlier /pʰ tʰ kʰ/. I could also introduce <ch> /x/ as contrastive with <h> /h~ħ/, or perhaps this merger (x~h~ħ) happened early on leaving <ph, th, h> as the outcome.
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ixals
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by ixals »

So Cissian has the following sound changes that take place fairly late in the language's history (I'd say in about the 18th to 19th century):

Cʲij/Cʲ/_V
Cij/Cʲ/_V
Cj/Cʲ/_V

Now I don't know what to do with country names since they were mostly formed by adding -ija which turns into /ʲa/ in Cissian. I have two to three options:

1. Keep the changed form:
Ср́бя, Брази́ля, И́ндя, Ці́cя
/ˈsr̩.bʲa - braˈzi.lʲa - ˈin.dʲa - ˈt͡sʲi.sʲa/

2. Reborrow it as either -ия or -iя:
a. Ср́бия, Брази́лия, И́ндия, Ці́cия
/ˈsr̩.bi.ja - braˈzi.li.ja - ˈin.di.ja - ˈt͡sʲi.si.ja/

b. Ср́бiя, Брази́лiя, И́ндiя, Ці́ciя
/ˈsr̩.bʲi.ja - braˈzi.lʲi.ja - ˈin.dʲi.ja - ˈt͡sʲi.sʲi.ja/

The other alternative would be to use a Slavic alternative (-ско/-ска, e.g. Ср́бско /ˈsr̩.p͡sko/) like Slovak for example. But even Slovak doesn't use it for countries like India so I'd need one of the three options above anyway. Which one do you like the most? I'm really torn. I love -ско but I'm a fan of uniformity so it would bug me a bit to have two country forming suffixes.
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gestaltist
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by gestaltist »

ixals wrote:So Cissian has the following sound changes that take place fairly late in the language's history (I'd say in about the 18th to 19th century):

Cʲij/Cʲ/_V
Cij/Cʲ/_V
Cj/Cʲ/_V

Now I don't know what to do with country names since they were mostly formed by adding -ija which turns into /ʲa/ in Cissian. I have two to three options:

1. Keep the changed form:
Ср́бя, Брази́ля, И́ндя, Ці́cя
/ˈsr̩.bʲa - braˈzi.lʲa - ˈin.dʲa - ˈt͡sʲi.sʲa/

2. Reborrow it as either -ия or -iя:
a. Ср́бия, Брази́лия, И́ндия, Ці́cия
/ˈsr̩.bi.ja - braˈzi.li.ja - ˈin.di.ja - ˈt͡sʲi.si.ja/

b. Ср́бiя, Брази́лiя, И́ндiя, Ці́ciя
/ˈsr̩.bʲi.ja - braˈzi.lʲi.ja - ˈin.dʲi.ja - ˈt͡sʲi.sʲi.ja/

The other alternative would be to use a Slavic alternative (-ско/-ска, e.g. Ср́бско /ˈsr̩.p͡sko/) like Slovak for example. But even Slovak doesn't use it for countries like India so I'd need one of the three options above anyway. Which one do you like the most? I'm really torn. I love -ско but I'm a fan of uniformity so it would bug me a bit to have two country forming suffixes.
Option 1 is basically Polish, so it's fine. I don't quite see why you feel the need to mess with the natural result.
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Omzinesý
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Omzinesý »

I've being thinking about this vowel inventory fort a month, at least.

Monophthongs
y i u
e o
æ ɒ

Diphthongs
æi, æy, ɒu~ou
ei, yi

The question is about its diachronic development and the writing system mirroring it. I like both diphtongization of long low vowels (a), which happens in Icelandic,
æ -> æi
ɒ -> ɒu

and backing of the long low vowel (b), which happens in Farsi.
a -> æ
a: -> ɒ: -> ɒ

Could they still be somehow combined. How would the original vowel inventory of the pre-language be, especially the low vowels?
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Davush
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Davush »

I like /æ ɒ/ a lot - this also occurred in several Gulf Arabic dialects where /a a:/ > /æ ɒ:/ (in all positions), especially Bahraini (possibly under Farsi influence) so a length difference is possible in the proto-lang vowels?

Perhaps diphthongisation only occurred in certain environments, say before voiced consonants, and then the voicing distinction was lost?
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ixals
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by ixals »

gestaltist wrote:Option 1 is basically Polish, so it's fine. I don't quite see why you feel the need to mess with the natural result.
I thought it might look too different from other Slavic languages that use the Cyrillic script. Plus, I always thought the Polish ending was pronounced as /i.ja/ but just wasn't written like that. I probably messed that up in my mind somehow. So if Polish does it, I'll definitely use the first option.
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Davush
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Davush »

I'm thinking of allowing /ɾ/ to occur initially in clusters (in Qutrussan) romanised with a below-dot, so things like ṛthíma, ṛpar, ṛména. It will be considered 'semi syllabic' in that it is realised [almost] as a full syllable, but considered a normal cluster for purposes of stress.
Initial clusters are quite rare and are almost all stop + fricative so this would look like 'the odd one out'. Initial S- And Ṛ- clusters don't appear in roots and only appear due to morphology.
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Lao Kou
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Lao Kou »

Davush wrote:I'm thinking of allowing /ɾ/ to occur initially in clusters (in Qutrussan) romanised with a below-dot, so things like ṛthíma, ṛpar, ṛména. It will be considered 'semi syllabic' in that it is realised [almost] as a full syllable, but considered a normal cluster for purposes of stress.
Initial clusters are quite rare and are almost all stop + fricative so this would look like 'the odd one out'. Initial S- And Ṛ- clusters don't appear in roots and only appear due to morphology.
You could leave it there as a morphologically silent letter which informs stress from the past. Yay to orthographic odd-one-out quirkiness.
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Davush
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Davush »

Lao Kou wrote:
Davush wrote:I'm thinking of allowing /ɾ/ to occur initially in clusters (in Qutrussan) romanised with a below-dot, so things like ṛthíma, ṛpar, ṛména. It will be considered 'semi syllabic' in that it is realised [almost] as a full syllable, but considered a normal cluster for purposes of stress.
Initial clusters are quite rare and are almost all stop + fricative so this would look like 'the odd one out'. Initial S- And Ṛ- clusters don't appear in roots and only appear due to morphology.
You could leave it there as a morphologically silent letter which informs stress from the past. Yay to orthographic odd-one-out quirkiness.
Thanks - that's a nice idea, and fits in with Classical Qutrussan now being 400-500 years old. ṛ- is used to make passives, but is now generally realised as /ǝC/ where C represents gemination of following consonant, except in very formal speech or by purists where it might still be /ɾ/. It doesn't receive stress, however, contrary to the general rule that the first heavy/closed syllable receives stress.

ṛthímaqqa gilga /ǝθˈθi:maqqa ˈgilga/ - the spoken language

par ṛsha ṛdáqsaḥ /par ǝʃˈʃa~dˈda:qsaɦ/ - the man who was hit (or alternatively: ṛdáqsaqqa par)
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Frislander
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Frislander »

So I'm trying to derive a two-way phonation opposition in a language related to O Kanã. The marked (that is to say, non-modal) phonation would be either creaky or breathy, and for each I have an idea how to derive it from historical resources.

For breathy voice first the coda nasal *n (also the only coda consonant) would be lenited to *h, which would then be lost along with original initial and intervocalic *h, leaving breathy voice behind. I would denote this in the romanisation using an acute accent.

For creaky voice on the other hand, first originl *h would be nasalised to h̃ via rhinoglottophilia, and both that and coda *n would be lost leaving nasalisation, with a subsequent phonetic change to ceaky voice. I'm not sure how I'd represent it: my first instinct would be with a tilde, though other suggestions would be welcome.

Which route/outcome do people prefer?
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gestaltist
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by gestaltist »

Frislander wrote:So I'm trying to derive a two-way phonation opposition in a language related to O Kanã. The marked (that is to say, non-modal) phonation would be either creaky or breathy, and for each I have an idea how to derive it from historical resources.

For breathy voice first the coda nasal *n (also the only coda consonant) would be lenited to *h, which would then be lost along with original initial and intervocalic *h, leaving breathy voice behind. I would denote this in the romanisation using an acute accent.

For creaky voice on the other hand, first originl *h would be nasalised to h̃ via rhinoglottophilia, and both that and coda *n would be lost leaving nasalisation, with a subsequent phonetic change to ceaky voice. I'm not sure how I'd represent it: my first instinct would be with a tilde, though other suggestions would be welcome.

Which route/outcome do people prefer?
I like the former better.
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Thrice Xandvii
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

Perhaps you could use an ogonek for the latter?
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Frislander
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Frislander »

Thrice Xandvii wrote:Perhaps you could use an ogonek for the latter?
Perhaps, but then that leaves the problem of the ogonek-y and the fact that I don't know the keyboard shortcuts for that diacritic anyway (though to be fair I don' know the one for tilde-y either).
gestaltist wrote:I like the former better.
Yeah, I think I'll go for that one, it's what I had originally planned to go for before I had the idea to use creaky voice instead.
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esoanem
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by esoanem »

Not sure what the alt code is, but there's definitely a combining ogonek which can attach properly to a y as y̨. I've got a custom keyboard layout installed with most common diacritics available in combining form; you can make one of your own without too much difficulty using this (if you're on windows), if you're on linux I think it's pretty easy but I don't know how to do it, and I have no clue how doable it is on OSX
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Ælfwine
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Ælfwine »

Should I make Mannish pro-drop?

I've talked before on how the language uses initial mutations as a grammatical device, which makes the language quite non-concatenative. I'm thinking the same rules that affect the vocative in the nouns would also affect person marking in the verbs. It's highly likely that speakers would simply begin using the mutated forms without the personal pronouns, in the same way they use the vocative without an accompanying "ó!"

For example, taking the verb "callar" /ˈkʰalːər/ to call:

ég callar > callar "I call"
tú callar > challar /ˈxalːər/ "You call"
hann/hun callar > gcallar /ˈgalːər/ "He/She calls"

and so on.
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Ahzoh
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Ahzoh »

^I'd say yay

----------
Yay or nay?
Proto-Haxyakian should have a closed class of motion verbs from which descendants will derive a whole flurry from.
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gach
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by gach »

Ælfwine wrote: 10 Nov 2017 00:26For example, taking the verb "callar" /ˈkʰalːər/ to call:

ég callar > callar "I call"
tú callar > challar /ˈxalːər/ "You call"
hann/hun callar > gcallar /ˈgalːər/ "He/She calls"

and so on.
Depends very much on the "and so on" bit. If you can make all the key person/number distinctions by the means of mutations. nothing stops them from grammaticalising as the new person marking device. On the other hand, if there are forms in the paradigm that can't be distinguished by mutations alone (or if some onsets don't support all the mutations), the speakers will want to continue using pronouns when clarity is needed. If this happens too often, it puts pressure to the forms with distinct mutations to retain their pronouns as well.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't find it too strange at all that your singular paradigm would drop its pronouns, even if the plural paradigm would function as a single block with the same mutation as one of the singular forms. Continuing to use the plural pronouns a bit longer could eventually lead to them eroding into some form of new plural affixes.

So the best thing to do depends on what the plural paradigm does and if you have any onsets that break the mutation pattern. However, even then I'd say go for it, since whenever problems arise they force you to be creative.
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

Relatedly, Ælfwine, do you have a thread or some page about Mannish? It looks interesting; I'd like to see more about it.
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Ahzoh
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Ahzoh »

Ahzoh wrote: 14 Nov 2017 23:08 Yay or nay?
Proto-Haxyakian should have a "closed" class of motion verbs from numerous others will be derived from.
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eldin raigmore
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Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by eldin raigmore »

Ahzoh wrote: 17 Nov 2017 08:50 Yay or nay?
Proto-Haxyakian should have a "closed" class of motion verbs from numerous others will be derived from.
IIRC you want Proto-H to have a small closed class of motion verbs, from which many Haxyakian (motion?) verbs will be derived??
I'd say "yay", particularly since it's Proto-H that will have the small closed class of motion verbs. (A con-proto-lang or proto-con-lang doesn't have to be as neat as a conlang.)
------
Will you use them as if light verbs, so that the Haxyakian verbs which derive from them will be (quasi-transparently, I suppose) lightverb+contentword compounds? (Or contentword+lightverb compounds?)
Will you use them as if auxiliary words, so that the Haxyakian verbs which derive from them will be (quasi-transparently, I suppose) auxiliaryword+mainverb compounds? (Or mainverb+auxiliaryword compounds?)
Or both?
Or also some third possibility?
Or what?
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