The Esseintial Núta Blog

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DesEsseintes
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Re: The Esseintial Núta Blog

Post by DesEsseintes »

Redefining Glides
They turned out to be (semi)vowels after all...

This is probably not worth it’s own post, but I feel the need to clarify the status of w y in Núta before going on to the next stage in this thread.

It is probably unnecessary to posit phonemic /w j/ in Núta as all surface glides can be explained according to the vowel sandhi rules outlined before. I’ll repost the table here for ease of reference:

Code: Select all

    a   e   ı   u   ı2
a   a   e   e   ye  ye
e   ya  e   e   yu  wı
ı   ya  e   ı   yu  wı
u   wa  we  wı  u   ye
ı2  wa  we  yu  u   ı
But what about intervocalic glides? Where do they come from? Those can be explained by positing two further morfofo rules:

{e ı} → y / V_V
2 u} → w / V_V

As an example, the prefix nıw- has the allomorph nwı-. To understand why that is so, it is useful to understand that the underlying form of the prefix is |nıı2| from Proto-Núta *niu. Before a vowel, ı2 → w operates, while between two consonants, the sequence |ıı2| yields , as can be seen in the vowel sandhi table above.

Example:

nıı2 + ater → nıwá·ter
nıı2 + sehse → nwí·sėhse

We will soon see that analysing the glides as (semi)vowels will also be helpful when we tackle Vowel Dissimilation and Reduplication.

In this interpretation, the phoneme inventory of Núta is as follows:

/n/
/t k ʔ/
/s h/
/r/

/a e i i2 u/

Seven consonant phonemes and five vowels. That feels quite satisfying.
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Re: The Esseintial Núta Blog

Post by Khemehekis »

DesEsseintes wrote: 17 Dec 2017 04:35
shimobaatar wrote: 15 Dec 2017 02:31What does this language consider a "voiced environment"?
Probably this: when neither adjacent segment is ‘ s h or word-final position. As a result, the stops would only be voiceless in clusters with those sounds or in word-final position./
What about /k/ and /t/? Aren't they voiceless too?
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DesEsseintes
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Re: The Esseintial Núta Blog

Post by DesEsseintes »

Khemehekis wrote: 18 Jan 2018 07:43
DesEsseintes wrote: 17 Dec 2017 04:35
shimobaatar wrote: 15 Dec 2017 02:31What does this language consider a "voiced environment"?
Probably this: when neither adjacent segment is ‘ s h or word-final position. As a result, the stops would only be voiceless in clusters with those sounds or in word-final position./
What about /k/ and /t/? Aren't they voiceless too?
Yes, or rather, they are unspecified for voicing. But that’s irrelevant, because stops don’t cluster with other stops in Núta.
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Re: The Esseintial Núta Blog

Post by DesEsseintes »

Proto-Núta

My current ideas for Proto-Núta look something like this:

*m *n
*p *t *k
(*f?) *s *x (*H?)
*r
(*j *w)
*a *i *u *ə

*j *w
are largely just positional allophones of *i *u.

As you can see, I’m not sure about the fricative inventory as of yet. However, there was probably a laryngeal phoneme of some sort that disappeared at a later stage leaving a lot of vowels in hiatus (I need this for the subsequent development of vowel sandhi). I wonder if *H was actually /h~ɦ/ that elided, and *f *x debuccalised to generate Modern Núta /h/? Feel free to bury me in your wildest ideas.

Proto-Núta *m *p became /w ʔ/. The vowels system underwent a number of changes resulting in the Modern Núta inventory of /a e i i2 u/ where /i i2/ display different morfofo behaviours.

I will be posting more soon on my recent overhaul of Núta vowel diachronics.
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Re: The Esseintial Núta Blog

Post by Zekoslav »

I like your conlangs a lot - there's something appealing in a minimalistic phoneme inventory coupled with complex phonotactic rules. I don't know why, but it just seems "artistic" to me, like a painting carefully constructed from a small colour palette.

There's also not many polysynthetic conlangs around - eagerly awaiting some info on grammar. [:)]
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DesEsseintes
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Re: The Esseintial Núta Blog

Post by DesEsseintes »

Zekoslav wrote: 27 Jan 2018 11:45 I like your conlangs a lot
Thank you very much for saying so! [:D]
there's something appealing in a minimalistic phoneme inventory coupled with complex phonotactic rules. I don't know why, but it just seems "artistic" to me, like a painting carefully constructed from a small colour palette.
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been playing with language sketches with under 10 consonant phonemes for several years, and I feel Núta is one of my more successful attempts.
There's also not many polysynthetic conlangs around - eagerly awaiting some info on grammar. [:)]
Yes, I’m going to try and get to that soon. I’m frantically piecing together a (not-too) coherent morphology in preparation for the relay.
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DesEsseintes
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Re: The Esseintial Núta Blog

Post by DesEsseintes »

Glide Elision Revisited

I’ve made some additions and adjustments to glide elision processes in Núta. These are threefold.

A. Glide Elision in between Two Unstressed Vowels

I have decided to extend glide elision to glides between unstressed vowels according to the following principles:
  • w y elide before a homorganic vowel u ı except if both the preceding and following vowel are homorganic; i.e. the sequences uwu ıyı do not simplify.
  • All glides elide between two non-identical high vowels; i.e. the sequences uwı ıyu - that notate bene are not covered by rule 1. - simplify to uı ıu
The full list of simplifications is as follows:

awu → au
ewu → eu
ıwu → ıu
uwı → uı

ayı → aı
eyı → eı
ıyu → ıu
uyı → uı


As an example, consider the noun á‘tayu friend - which has the stem á‘tay - when the suffix -ıwa is attached to it:

á‘tay + ıwa → á‘taıwa


Or the stem ní·new of the word mother when the proximate marker is added to it:

ní·new + u → ní·neu


A Slight Complication

Word-final aı eı diphthongise to ay ey. Words like ítnay now exist.

B. Glide Elision before a Stressed Vowel

Glide elision occurs in a limited set of cases where the preceding vowel is unstressed and the following vowel is stressed. The rule is as follows:
  • w y elide before a homorganic stressed vowel ú í if preceded by a non-high vowel a e.
Therefore, only the following contractions occur:

awú → aú
ewú → eú

ayí → aí
eyí → eí

An example here is the word aí·syuru Híí/member of the Híí tribe from ayıs + yuru.

C. Adjustment to Glide Elision Following a Stressed Vowel

I have adjusted the rules regarding the original glide elision outlined here as follows:
  • Glide elision does not occur if both the preceding and following vowel are homorganic with the glide, i.e. ú·wu í·yı.
An excellent example of this is the noun kí·yıs knife from kıyıs ← kıı + ıs. Compare kí·at ← kıyat ← kıı + yat, where glide elision still applies.

This means I no longer have overlong vowels*. Sad.

Excepting those that result from h-elision, but even that’s under reconsideration.
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