Quick Diachronics Challenge

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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by GamerGeek »

Of course; apologies. [:)]
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by sangi39 »

Spoiler:
I've tried to make a start on grouping the dialects together in terms of shared sound changes and this is what I've got so far:

Image

Black = *e and *o > *a
Grey = *ts > *s
Blue = *p > *f
Green = #_V > *0
Pink = *p and *ts > *b and *d (the latter presumably through *t?)
Red = V_# > *0
Yellow = *VfV and *VsV > *v and *z
Purple = #_C > *0
Brown = Voiced fricatives > voiced plosives

And there's obviously differences in terms of chronology as well. The yellow change must have occurred after the red change and similarly the pink change must have occurred before the green change, and the brown change before the purple change.

The Salty dialect is distinguished from the Sunrise dialect by *e and *o to *i and *u in final position respectively and the spirantisation of voiced plosives.

The Harbour and Short River dialects also share a #_*f > *p change which occurred after the blue change



I think that covers it for a start.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by Creyeditor »

So, three people answered, I'll give some hints, remarks and the current ranking.

Adarain did not add anything, so his score is still 12

GamerGeek: + 3 bonus points => 3/9 + 4 = 7
Spoiler:
GamerGeek wrote:1. *e and *o weaken to a most of the time
( [tick] ) though mentioned by Sangi before. Since you said, you reconstructed it from your first reconstruction, I'll believe you and give you the bonus point.
GamerGeek wrote:2. *p voices and/or fricates intervocalically
[tick]
GamerGeek wrote:3. One family dropped unstressed vowels
[tick] though position is actually more relevant than stress.
qwed117: 1 Bonus point = 1
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
qwed117 wrote: vogo
One predictable segment is not correct.
qwed117 wrote:zidʲu
One predictable segment is not correct.
Sangi39: + 24 Bonus point => 5/9 + 27 bonus points = 32
Spoiler:
sangi39 wrote:vuɣo
One reconstructable segment is not correct
sangi39 wrote:zitsu
One reconstructable segment is not correct
sangi39 wrote:lɛbu
One reconstructable segment is not correct
sangi39 wrote:nɛdo
One reconstructable segment is not correct
sangi39 wrote:1) The reduplication element is... hard to pin down:

1a) In the case of voiceless plosives it seems to result in the medial becoming a fricative, which kind of suggests the possibility that they were originally aspirated and follow something similar to Grassman's Law (the first one de-aspirated). *apu and *ipa are potential counter examples unless deaspiration occurred before some lenition process affecting on initial *pʰ as in Japanese (*f to start with, the *h everywhere before *u with *h then being dropped.

1b) For voiceless affricates the process seems to yield a voiced fricative as the initial. Could counter the idea that voiceless plosives were aspirated, though, since normally affricates pattern as stops.

1c) Voiced plosives might yield an initial nasal, but I wonder if there's a chance that the nasal is the underlying medial and there's some dissimilation going on, e.g. VnV > nVnV > nVdV. In the case of *labu I'd have a hard time seeing initial *m becoming *l so it might be a might more complex than that, e.g. *ɛmu > *w͂ɛmu > *w͂ɛbu > *wɛbu > *lɛbu and *ɛno > *ɾ̃ɛno > *ɾ̃ɛdo > *nɛdo.

1d) *vuɣo (or whatever the correct form is) might show initial reduplication with before *u becoming, or there could be no reduplication (or some form of reduplication that doesn't survive, like initial *h) and *v is merely epenthetic as in some Slavic languages.
Maybe my first comment was misleading. None of this is actually very close to what I had in mind.
sangi39 wrote:2) There seems to be something more complicated going on with the vowels. There are no instances of aCV except in apu, but *teho yields *teh in the Lower River dialect and *vuɣo yields *bo. The vowel in *nVdo must be distinct from that of *teho, though, because it yields *a in some dialects and *e in others and it doesn't appear to be conditioned, so it seems likely that there's at least six vowels in initial syllables and only five in final ones.
This is again scratching on the surface of a change, but not the right explanation.
sangi39 wrote: The condition is seemingly predictable, but only really going by what's actually different between *apu and *lVbu, i.e. that the following consonant differs in voicing.
[cross]
sangi39 wrote:*labu
[tick] the last vowel is not actually reconstructable. And Adarain already reconstructed the form.
sangi39 wrote: *nado.
[tick] And Adarain already reconstructed the form.

sangi39 wrote:I've tried to make a start on grouping the dialects together in terms of shared sound changes and this is what I've got so far:
Image
sangi39 wrote:Black = *e and *o > *a
The change definitely occured. [tick]
You included only dialects where the change happened. [tick]
There is actually one dialect where the change kind of happened, too. [cross]
sangi39 wrote:Grey = *ts > *s
The change occured. [tick]
The proto-sound is not correct though. [cross]
You only included languages where the sound change happened. [tick]
You inlcuded all the languages where the sound change happened. [tick]
The change was not unconditional [cross]
sangi39 wrote:Blue = *p > *f
The change occured [tick]
You only included languages where the sound change occured. [tick]
There are actually languages where the more general change occured, but it was blocked by other chages. [cross]
The change was not unconditional [cross]
sangi39 wrote:Green = #_V > *0
The change occured, but it's actually #V > 0 or V > 0 /#_ [cross]
You only included languages where the sound change happened. [tick]
There are actually other languages where the change happened, but it was obscured/blocked by other changes. [cross]
sangi39 wrote:Pink = *p and *ts > *b and *d (the latter presumably through *t?)
The change occured [tick]
You only included languages where the sound change happened. [tick]
You inlcuded all the languages where the sound change happened. [tick]
The change was not unconditional [cross]
sangi39 wrote:Red = V_# > *0
The change occured, but it's actually V# > 0 or V > 0 /_# [cross]
You only included languages where the sound change happened. [tick]
There are actually other languages where the change happened, but it was obscured/blocked by other changes. [cross]
sangi39 wrote:Yellow = *VfV and *VsV > *v and *z
The change occured [tick]
You only included languages where the sound change happened. [tick]
You inlcuded all the languages where the sound change happened. [tick]
sangi39 wrote:Purple = #_C > *0
The change occured, but it's actually #C > 0 or C > 0 /_# [cross]
You only included languages where the sound change happened. [tick]
You inlcuded all the languages where the sound change happened. [tick]
sangi39 wrote:Brown = Voiced fricatives > voiced plosives
The change occured [tick]
You included a language, where the change did not actually happen [cross]
You inlcuded all the languages where the sound change happened. [tick]
The change was not unconditional [cross]
sangi39 wrote:And there's obviously differences in terms of chronology as well.
The yellow change must have occurred after the red change
[cross]
sangi39 wrote:and similarly the pink change must have occurred before the green change,
[tick]
sangi39 wrote:and the brown change before the purple change.
[tick]
sangi39 wrote:The Salty dialect is distinguished from the Sunrise dialect by *e and *o to *i and *u in final position respectively and the spirantisation of voiced plosives.
[tick] [tick]

sangi39 wrote:The Harbour and Short River dialects also share a #_*f > *p change which occurred after the blue change.
[tick] [cross]

Sangi is the new first rank. I think there is still a lot to guess, if you are interested, but if you want me to reveal the results, just tell me.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by qwed117 »

I figure I'm stealing someone's thunder here.

Since both vogo and vuɣo have a single mistake, and vugo is ruled out, that means voɣo is the correct answer.

Next: Attempting to fix some of sangi's diachronics,

For black, maybe Lower Mouth, Lower River, should be included, especially Lower River, due to the similarities in cognates 8 9. I suspect that u>a in limited circumstances, and this was either lost, or became o again.
Spoiler:
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by Creyeditor »

qwed117 wrote:Since both vogo and vuɣo have a single mistake, and vugo is ruled out, that means voɣo is the correct answer.
Sorry to jump in so early, but it seems that I changed my mind about which vowels are reconstructable along the way. The consonant is still the problem. The first vowel is very difficult to reconstruct. No one has yet gotten it right and this might be a systematic error actually.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by qwed117 »

Creyeditor wrote:
qwed117 wrote:Since both vogo and vuɣo have a single mistake, and vugo is ruled out, that means voɣo is the correct answer.
Sorry to jump in so early, but it seems that I changed my mind about which vowels are reconstructable along the way. The consonant is still the problem. The first vowel is very difficult to reconstruct. No one has yet gotten it right and this might be a systematic error actually.
Oh my god, I'm stupid! One branch experienced a Grimm's law, but the others experienced Verner's law.

Is it vuko?

This would make Lower Mouth and Lower River completely unreconcilable with the black grouping (sangi's grouping), meaning that my theorization there is over. TBH the first vowel is completely unreconstructable as anything other than *u without looking at deep diachronic analysis
Spoiler:
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by sangi39 »

Spoiler:
voɣo
zitu
labu
nado

You've marked things like "#_V > *0" as incorrect, with the correct forms being "#V > 0 or V > 0 /#_" but isn't that just a notational difference since they all mean "initial vowels drop"?

Grey = *t > *s before *u (through intermediate *ts), or *t > *s between vowels (through intermediate *θ)

Blue = *p > *f between vowels

Pink = *p and *t > *b and *d between vowels

Brown = Voiced fricatives > voiced plosives word initially

Red also includes Lower River and Lower Mouth (missed them in editing)

Brown doesn't include Noon Source

The loss of initial vowels seems to have occurred in Noon Source and Rising Source as well.

GRAH! It's yellow before red (intervocalic voicing [yellow] then loss of final vowels [red])

Green occurs before grey in areas affected by both
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by Creyeditor »

qwed117 + 1
Spoiler:
qwed117 wrote:Is it vuko?
[tick] This is as close as you will proably come. The first vowel is difficult as I said. Not reconstructable, either at all, but certainly not from this form alone.
sangi39: +10
Spoiler:
sangi39 wrote:voɣo
[cross] one reconstructable segment is not correct.
sangi39 wrote:zitu
[tick]
sangi39 wrote: labu
[tick]
sangi39 wrote:nado
[tick]
sangi39 wrote:You've marked things like "#_V > *0" as incorrect, with the correct forms being "#V > 0 or V > 0 /#_" but isn't that just a notational difference since they all mean "initial vowels drop"?
True. I was a bot confused at first, because I read it as 'everything that is before the first vowel is dropped.' Your score is probably even higher then.
sangi39 wrote:*t > *s between vowels
[tick] Correct condition
sangi39 wrote:Blue = *p > *f between vowels
[tick] Correct condition
sangi39 wrote:Pink = *p and *t > *b and *d between vowels
[tick] Correct condition
sangi39 wrote:Brown = Voiced fricatives > voiced plosives word initially
[tick] Correct condition
sangi39 wrote:Red also includes Lower River and Lower Mouth (missed them in editing)
[tick]
sangi39 wrote:Brown doesn't include Noon Source
[tick]
sangi39 wrote:The loss of initial vowels seems to have occurred in Noon Source and Rising Source as well.
[tick]
sangi39 wrote:GRAH! It's yellow before red (intervocalic voicing [yellow] then loss of final vowels [red])
[tick]
sangi39 wrote:Green occurs before grey in areas affected by both
[tick]
So all Proto-Words have been guessed. The earliest point I will find time to post the solution is probably more than 7 days from now, so feel free to guess some more details.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by sangi39 »

Going by the forms given, *vuko really is about as close as we can get. Since every dialect has /u/ as the first vowel, the sample size leaves no reason to assume any other vowel as the proto-form.

I'm going to keep working on the sound change map if there's some more time going [:)]

EDIT: I think I've worked out a rough timescale for the various sound changes that's a bit more in-depth than my earlier ones, but honestly a couple still have me stumped, but that could just be me looking at the geography a bit wrong.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by sangi39 »

Just having a goat something:

Image

This makes the geographic distribution of groupings a lot more apparent, with many changes involving what seems to be a series of divisions along coasts and/or rivers.

The first division of the dialects seems to be between the pink group and everything else, with the pink group showing intervocalic voicing of intervocalic plosives.

From what I can gather, the next change involved the loss of word-initial vowels (the green group) which would pave the way for another division amongst the western, non-pink group.

A change occurred in the west, spreading up the coast and partially into the green group in which intervocalic voiceless plosives became voiceless fricatives, and as part of a similar shift, proto-form *h was deleted.

In the pink group, two further divisions occurred: a) the voicing of intervocalic voiceless fricatives (forming the yellow group, which also shows the loss of intervocalic *h seen in the green group, marked here as a light grey extension of the grey group) and which was followed by the loss of final vowels (forming the red group).

Along the western coast, dialects forming the black group merged non-high vowels into /a/ (although I wonder if this might have occurred before the loss of intervocalic *h in those areas).

Palatalisation of *k before *i appears to be a shared feature of the neighbouring Short River and Upper River dialects, but without any other changes present it's difficult to tell when this change might have occurred.

The blue group is still noted on the map above, but this actually doesn't appear to be a valid grouping if you assume that, within the Dry and Mid River dialects, the grey shift took hold after the green shift.

The loss of initial consonants forming the purple group seems to be a shift that spread through the interior of the main island.

East of the yellow group seems to be where the raising of some instances of *a took place, but I can't actually work out the timing or the condition, only that that's the border.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by Creyeditor »

sangi39 wrote:The first division of the dialects seems to be between the pink group and everything else, with the pink group showing intervocalic voicing of intervocalic plosives.
True [tick]
sangi39 wrote: From what I can gather, the next change involved the loss of word-initial vowels (the green group) which would pave the way for another division amongst the western, non-pink group.
It is the next change, fromt the ones you gathered, though it's not actually the next one that happened ( [tick] ).
sangi39 wrote:A change occurred in the west, spreading up the coast and partially into the green group in which intervocalic voiceless plosives became voiceless fricatives,
This is an areal affect. Correct [tick]
sangi39 wrote: and as part of a similar shift, proto-form *h was deleted.
This change actually happended earlier.
sangi39 wrote:In the pink group, two further divisions occurred: a) the voicing of intervocalic voiceless fricatives (forming the yellow group
It is true that this change only occured in the pink languages. [tick]
sangi39 wrote:, which also shows the loss of intervocalic *h seen in the green group, marked here as a light grey extension of the grey group)
Again, this change actually happended earlier. But all the languages you mentioned have indeed undergone this change.
sangi39 wrote:and which was followed by the loss of final vowels (forming the red group).
(True) [tick] though there might be an intervening change.
sangi39 wrote:Along the western coast, dialects forming the black group merged non-high vowels into /a/
True [tick]
sangi39 wrote:(although I wonder if this might have occurred before the loss of intervocalic *h in those areas).
Not true. [cross]
sangi39 wrote:Palatalisation of *k before *i appears to be a shared feature of the neighbouring Short River and Upper River dialects, but without any other changes present it's difficult to tell when this change might have occurred.
True [tick]
sangi39 wrote:The blue group is still noted on the map above, but this actually doesn't appear to be a valid grouping if you assume that, within the Dry and Mid River dialects, the grey shift took hold after the green shift.
These languages are very similar, but they are not a group [tick]
sangi39 wrote:The loss of initial consonants forming the purple group seems to be a shift that spread through the interior of the main island.
True [tick]
sangi39 wrote:East of the yellow group seems to be where the raising of some instances of *a took place, but I can't actually work out the timing or the condition, only that that's the border.
If you mean raising of mid vowels you are correct.

I think this is as close as you can come. I will reveal part one of the results now.

The proto words were:
Spoiler:
apu
teho
kise
fufe
ipa
veko
zitu
labe
nado
There was a closed set of 19(?) sound changes, that took place. I gave each of them a letter as an identifier (sca2 format). Some of the changes are virtual in the sense that they should have occured but never had the right environment or that there effects or non-application was obscured by other circumstances.
Spoiler:
A
B
T/D/V_V
C
F/B/W_
D
h//V_V
E
a/e/R_
F
V//#_
G
S/Z/V_V
H
k/c/F_
I
S/T/#_
J
B/F/_(C)F
K
a/o/W_
L
V//_#/#C_
M
T/S/V_V
N
Z/D/#_
O
[eo]/a/_
P
k/c/_F
Q
F/B/_(C)B
R
M/H/x_
S
D/Z/V_V
T
C//#_

And here is the correspondence with (some version of) Sangi's map:
Black(O): eo>a
Grey (M): t>s
Blue (M): p>f
Green(F): #V->0
Pink (B): p>b, t>d
Red (L): V#>0
Yellow (G): fs>vz
Purple (T): #C > 0
Brown (N): voiced fricatives > voiced plosives
For each language I now give you an ordered set of sound changes.
Spoiler:
ACDFMO=dry dialect

ACDIMO=harbour dialect

ACDMO=sunset dialect

ACDMN=noon coast dialect

ABCEFHJL=lower mouth dialect

ABCDFGHJKLO=lower river dialect

ACDFMO=mid river dialect

ACDIMNP=short river dialect

ABCEHJLRS=midnight dialect

ABCDGKLPS=upper river dialect

ACDFMPT=noon source dialect

ABCEHRS=salty dialect

ABCEFHLST=rising source dialect

ABCDGKLT=little source dialect

ABCDGPT=long source dialect

ABCEH=sunrise dialect

ABCDGQ=island dialect
The next post will be about the population history and distinguishing between genetic and areal changes.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by eldin raigmore »

sangi39 wrote:Just having a goat something:
Could you have meant "Just having a go at something"?
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by Creyeditor »

eldin raigmore wrote:
sangi39 wrote:Just having a goat something:
Could you have meant "Just having a go at something"?
OMG. I thought it's a pun on 'a good something' [:D] [:D] [:D]
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by loglorn »

A might be able to posit a challenge a few days from now. I gather there would be interest?
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by qwed117 »

loglorn wrote:A might be able to posit a challenge a few days from now. I gather there would be interest?
Count me in.
Spoiler:
My minicity is [http://zyphrazia.myminicity.com/xml]Zyphrazia and [http://novland.myminicity.com/xml]Novland.

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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by sangi39 »

Wouldn't it depend on whether whoever Creyeditor declares the winner of the previous challenge gives up their turn or not?
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by Creyeditor »

Indeed and you are the winner, Sangi.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by sangi39 »

Ohhh, well okay then, yeah, I'd be happy to pass it on to Loglorn [:)] I like creating challenges every now and then but I much prefer playing on the research side of the game.

(I wasn't sure if Adarain was going to be declared the winner since they had the most point initially)
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by Creyeditor »

So I tried really hard, but I have to admit that a graphic representation of the population history is to time consuming for me to accomplish. I'll just give you a tabular representationGoogle sheet that I also used in creating the challenge. The different tables are ordered points in time and the cells are places on the island. The top row specifies which changes took place at that period. The letters again refer to the changes in the post above. You can infer genetic and areal grouping from the population history.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by Inkcube-Revolver »

I'm alive!

I haven't been playing much, or online much, with school and work keeping me busy, but even though I knew it was over, I I tried my own hand at solving your challenge, Crey. I was able to ce back with:
Spoiler:
1. */a'pu/
2. */'tehu/
3. */'kisa/ (I figured that the final [e] in the other forms came about due to fronting from , but [e] and [o] > [a] makes sense looking back at it).
4. */'pufu/ (I had trouble with the medial [f] in seeing if [p] always became [f] or if it was conditional (of course it was)).
5. */i'pa/
6. */'buku~'buko/ (Somehow didn't see *v > b as a possibility)
7. */'disu/ For this one, I actually considered that *disu > *dzizu > *zid(z)u~zi(d)zu happened, because I couldn't quite pin-point how the [z] and [d] both arised. I also considered an areal affect to drop initial and final vowels, like all the /zid/ and /id/ that showed up. All the forms deriving from *zitu, though, makes this much cleaner, and follows direct changes like the other branches.

8. */'labu/
9. */'nadu/


And there we have it, this one was perdy good!

Edit: With all the u > a transitions, I thought more in the lines of
u → ɯ → a
u → o → a

o → a works just fine, as I now see.
I like my languages how I like my women: grammatically complex with various moods and tenses, a thin line between nouns and verbs, and dozens upon dozens of possible conjugations for every single verb.
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