New CBB

I've been working on several conlangs for a while, but none of them have gotten very far. This one is actually the one I started most recently, but I'm having the most fun developing it, even though it's not my favorite. It's a tonal, isolating language with no particular inspiration, but probably greatly influenced by my knowledge of Chinese and a little bit of Vietnamese. The phonology is my best attempt to pull something pleasant out of Hangul, which I want to steal for the writing system.

Consonants:


Vowels:


/a, e, o, u/ but not /i, ə/ have "high" versions /á, é, ó, ú/. (More on tone later.)

There are also the following dipthongs/tripthongs:

/aɪ, eɪ, wa, waɪ, wi/. Of these, the only high versions are /áɪ, éɪ/.

Phonotactics:
Syllable structure is CV(C). Any consonant can be an onset, but initial /ʔ/ has been dropped in most dialects. (So I could analyze it as (C)V(C), but I chose CV(C) because the writing system works like this.) Possible codas are /ʔ h n m l s z/. No coda is allowed when the vowel is /ə/. The codas often change or cause changes in the following consonants. Here is a listing of all the possible changes:

/ʔk/ > [kː]
/ʔg/ > [gː]
/ʔx/ > [kx]
/ʔt/ > [t̪ː]
/ʔd/ > [d̪ː]
/ʔθ/ > [t̪θ]
/ʔp/ > [pː]
/ʔb/ > [bː]
/ʔɸ/ > [pɸ]
/ʔs/ > [ts]
/ʔz/ > [dz]
/ʔʃ/ > [tʃ]
/ʔʒ/ > [dʒ]

/hC/ > [C] Final /h/ is pronounced only utterance finally (or not at all in some dialects), but it always influences the syllable's tone.

/nk/ > [ŋk]
/ng/ > [ŋg]
/nx/ > [ŋkx]
/nθ/ > [nt̪θ]
/ns/ > [nts]
/nz/ > [ndz]

/mɸ/ > [mpɸ]

/sg/ > [zg]
/sx/ > [xː]
/st/ > [st]
/sd/ > [zd]
/sθ/ > [θː]
/sb/ > [zb]
/sɸ/ > [ɸː]
/sz/ > [zː]
/sʃ/ > [ʃː]
/sʒ/ > [ʒː]

/zk/ > [sk]
/zx/ > [ɣː]
/zt/ > [st]
/zd/ > [zd]
/zθ/ > [ðː]
/zp/ > [sp]
/zɸ/ > [ɸː]
/zs/ > [sː]
/zʃ/ > [ʃː]
/zʒ/ > [ʒː]

Tone:
There are four tones (mid, rising, low, and high):

1. /ka/ > [ka˧]
2. /ká/ > [ka˧˥]
3. /kah/ > [ka˩] (when followed by another syllable, otherwise [kah˩])
4. /káh/ > [ka˥] (when followed by another syllable, otherwise [kah˥])

Syllables with no coda, or that end in /s/ will have tone 1 or 2, depending on the vowel. Syllables with any other coda will have tone 3 or 4, depending on the vowel. Thus, the only time that all four will be contrastive is non-utterance-finally when a syllable has no coda or ends in /h, s, z/.

So far all I have for tone sandhi is this: 21 > 24, 23 > 21. If anyone has any better ideas, please let me know.

Orthography:
The primary writing system is Hangul from Korean, but there is also a romanization scheme.

ㄱ /k/ <k>
ㄲ /g/ <g>
ㅋ /x/ <kh>
ㄷ /t/ <t>
ㄸ /d/ <d>
ㅌ /θ/ <th>
ㅂ /p/ <p>
ㅃ /b/ <b>
ㅍ /ɸ/ <ph>
ㅁ /m/ <m>
ㄴ /n/ <n>
ㄹ /l/ <l>
ㅅ /s/ <s>
ㅆ /z/ <z>
ㅈ /ʃ/ <sh>
ㅉ /ʒ/ <zh>
ㅊ /j/ <j>
ㅎ /h/ <h>
ㅇ /ʔ/ <'> (The ' is not written as an initial except when separating two syllables in a multi-syllabic word.)

ㅏ /a/ a
ㅑ /á/ á
ㅓ /e/ e
ㅕ /é/ é
ㅗ /o/ o
ㅛ /ó/ ó
ㅜ /u/ u
ㅠ /ú/ ú
ㅡ /ə/ y
ㅣ /i/ i

ㅐ /aɪ/ ai
ㅒ /áɪ/ ái
ㅔ /eɪ/ ei
ㅖ /éɪ/ éi
ㅘ /wa/ wa
ㅙ /waɪ/ wai
ㅚ /wi/ wi

The initial, vowel, and coda are combined into a syllable block. For example, the name of the language is 캄쵸. When written in Hangul, spaces are not used and full-width punctuation and numerals should be used to keep the characters lining up nicely in blocks.

Grammar, Vocabulary:
Coming soon!

Any particular reason why there isn't a voiced bilabial or dental fricative?

I like it. We need more isolating languages.

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"Wait for the starvation of glaciers, chicken hamburger Noel Weber Arthur."

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What is the rationale for analysing (3) and (4) underlying /kah/ and /káh/, respectively?

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constructedlanguages.net

Because Hangul doesn't have jamo for those.


Here is my (probably implausible) diachronic explanation: The high vowels were originally palatalized vowels (as they are in Korean). This is why they don't occur with /w/ and /i/. So there was a simple high/low tone system. Then final /h/ got dropped and final /s/ and /z/ started all their assimilation processes. The tone on codaless syllables drifted toward the center to keep up the distinction (because they are far more common than ones with /h/). A similar thing happened with /s/ because of the voicing difference. (Maybe this is just my own bias, but I find it easier to pronounce a syllable ending with [z] at both the far extremes of my tonal range. [s] is easier toward the middle.)

So, it's basically a historical notation? I would prefer to have the phoneme inventory listing the current (synchronic) phonemes, without regard to the history of the phonemes.

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constructedlanguages.net

Well, kind of. Final /h/ is still pronounced at the end of an utterance, and the voicing distinction in /s/ and /z/ is also preserved there. (My example of /kah/ > [ka˩] is assuming that there is a following syllable, which I guess is a bit misleading. I will update that.)