Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread [2011–2018]

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wintiver
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by wintiver »

DesEsseintes wrote:I like the idea of allophony between velars and palatals, because it's so widespread in NA languages. Blackfoot for instance has a palatal realisation of /k/ after front vowels which I think is neat. Alternatively, have pharyngeal frics instead of uvulars, since there is no contrast in the stops at those PoAs. That's only if you decide you want to merge some of those. [:)]
I agree, I will get rid of the uvular POAs entirely. I am going to maintain the palatal-velar underspecification. And I'm going to do some trimming as well. I also am going t get rid of the ejectives too, as much as I like them. Also, I am going to clip labial stops (I'm going to say the changed into the labial velars, the fricatives and the labial nasal by various phonological processes)

Nasals /m n ɲ/ m n ň
Voiceless Stops /t̪ t͡s t͡ɬ t͡ʃ k kʷ ʔ/ t c tl č k kw '
Voiced Stops /d̪ d͡z d͡ɮ d͡ʒ g gʷ/ d dz dl j g gw
Voiceless Fricatives /f s ɬ ʃ x xʷ ħ h/ f s ł š x xw ḥ h
Voiced Fricatives /v ɮ ɣ ɣʷ ʕ/ v l ɣ ɣw ġ
Voiceless Sonorants /r̥ ʍ/ hr hw
Voiced Sonorants /r w/ r w

That brings me down to a much more reasonable 33 consonantal phonemes. Though not indicated explicity here anymore, the velars are often palatal in their POA depending on if there are front vowels before or after them.

But, with pharyngeals lying about I felt I should throw in some phonemic creaky voice along with length.

The vowels will be:
Short Modal Vowels /i e a o/ i e a o
Short Creaky Vowels /ḭ ḛ a̰ o̰/ į ę ą ǫ
Long Modal Vowels /iː eː aː oː/ í é á ó
Long Creaky Vowels /ḭː ḛː a̰ː o̰ː/ į́ ę́ ą́ ǫ́
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DesEsseintes
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by DesEsseintes »

Inspired by wintiver's Proto-Archipelagic, I'm now sketching a thing around this:

/t k kʷ q ʔ/
/θ x xʷ ħ h/
/l~ɾ ʟ ʟʷ ʕ/

I'm unsure whether to add sibilants (I probably should) and/or a lateral affricate. I quite like how the laterals are forming their own MoA series, so I might not want to mess with that.

The idea came to me because I wanted to change wintiver's /ɣ ɣʷ/ to the corresponding laterals*.
And I still think that would be an amazing thing to do in Proto-Archipelagic.
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Parlox
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by Parlox »

This phonology is based heavily off of Central Atlas Tamazight. Although i changed up the vowels.

Phonemes


/m n nˤ/
/b t d tˤ dˤ k g q qʷ/
/tɬ/
/s z sˤ zˤ ʃ ʒ/
/w f j xʷ ɣʷ ʁ ʁʷ ħ h/
/l lˤ/

/i u/
/o/
/ɛ ʌ/
/a/

Orthography

/m n ŋ/
/b t d ţ dţ k g q qw/
/ƛ/
/c z ç z̧ s ź/
/ u̧ f y x j r rw ħ h/
/l ļ/

/i u/
/o/
/e ú/
/a/

I'm not sure what i think of this orthography, i will likely change it.

Syllables
The syllable structure is (C1)(C2)V(C3)

Any consonant can appear in the C1 position
Only fricatives can appear in the C2 position
Any vowel can appear in the V position
Only m n nˤ b t d tˤ dˤ k g q qʷ l lˤ xʷ and ɣʷ can appear in the C3 position

Stress
Stress is placed on the last syllable of a word. Questions are partially formed by stressing the first syllable.

Diphthongs
There are a large amount of diphthongs.
i u o ɛ ʌ a
i iu iɛ iʌ ia
u uo uɛ uʌ ua
o oi oɛ oʌ oa
ɛ ɛu
ʌ ʌi ʌu
a ai au ao aʌ
:con: Gândölansch (Gondolan)Feongkrwe (Feongrkean)Tamhanddön (Tamanthon)Θανηλοξαμαψⱶ (Thanelotic)Yônjcerth (Yaponese)Ba̧supan (Basupan)Mùthoķán (Mothaucian) :con:
wintiver
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by wintiver »

DesEsseintes wrote:Inspired by wintiver's Proto-Archipelagic, I'm now sketching a thing around this:

/t k kʷ q ʔ/
/θ x xʷ ħ h/
/l~ɾ ʟ ʟʷ ʕ/

I'm unsure whether to add sibilants (I probably should) and/or a lateral affricate. I quite like how the laterals are forming their own MoA series, so I might not want to mess with that.
[/size]
I enjoy the symmetry a great deal here. A sibilantless conlang makes it sound, to my ears, more alien and/or exotic. What of your vowel system Des?
DesEsseintes wrote:The idea came to me because I wanted to change wintiver's /ɣ ɣʷ/ to the corresponding laterals*.
And I still think that would be an amazing thing to do in Proto-Archipelagic.
I have warmed up fully to this idea. I'm going to have /ʟ ʟʷ/ in Proto-Archipelagic.
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DesEsseintes
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by DesEsseintes »

wintiver wrote:I'm going to have /ʟ ʟʷ/ in Proto-Archipelagic.
[:D]
What of your vowel system Des?

I've no idea about the vowels as of yet. However, in order to keep things sane, the consonants will most likely be expanded to this:

/n/
/t k kʷ q ʔ/
/θ x xʷ ħ h/
/l~ɾ ʟ ʟʷ ʕ/
/w j/

I've got two conflicting ideas for the shape of the language: 1) a weird version of Iroquoian; 2) something vaguely Nilotic with lots of vowel lengths and tones. Making a successful Iroquoian-inspired lang and a Nilotic-inspired one are long-term ambitions of mine.

As a bonus, a joke:

The phonology of SampleHíí, the reduced form of the language I use when testing Híí morfofo:

/m n w h ʔ/ m n w h ’
/e i o/ e ı o
wintiver
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by wintiver »

A quick revamp on Proto-Archipelagic (PArch)

/m n/
/t̪ t͡s~s k kʷ ʔ/
/d̪/
/f θ x xʷ ħ h/
/l̥ ʟ̥ ʟ̥ʷ/
/l ʟ ʟʷ/
/j w ʕ/

With the help of Des, I have parsed this down quite a bit.

I really wanted to have a lateral fricative/unvoiced lateral approximant series in there too. Perhaps there is an underspecification between the velar laterals as approximants/fricatives and velar lateral affricates. ::Shrug::

I may just scrap the voiceless series if it's too much but I am rather happy with this. Once again, thanks to Des for giving me ideas to steal. ::bows graciously::
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by Nachtuil »

Porphyrogenitos wrote: Thanks! And you can pretty much just come up with your own examples, if you wish, by following the syllable rules I described - it's just an idea, so none of the words actually mean anything. But some more example with phoneme combinations I hadn't used yet include:

/maxalas/ [mahalaz]
/gog/ [gox]
/adral/ [addral̥]
/kinib/ [tsinif]
/aba/ [ava]
Do you think you'll do something with this inventory and its associated rules at some point? It makes me want to try something very similar, though maybe without the /f/ phoneme and having some voiced and voiceless aproximate pairs.
Porphyrogenitos wrote: Oh, oops. I forgot I'd need to deal with this. In fact, I thought I'd eliminated it by having a simpler syllable structure, but yeah, word boundaries. I might as well make the syllable structure full CVC then. So I guess not too much happens - postvocalic fricatives and voiced stops are still lenited, so /abpa/ and /aska/ will still be [avpa] and [azka]. Actually, let's say a following voiceless stop blocks fricatives (but not voiced stops) from leniting. So /aska/ will be [aska]. The change of pre-consonantal [ɣ] to [ː] will go ahead, so /agma/ will be [aːma]. Basically, all the allophones are ripe for phonemicization - all you need to do is delete the final vowels, and the difference between /aba/ [ava] and /ab/ [af] will no longer predictable - /av/ vs. /af/. And so on.
Interesting! I had not thought of final segment deletion being a vehicle for phoneme production from allophones before. Maybe I should have but yeah. Very cool.
Porphyrogenitos wrote:
It's the result of palatalization; it's actually quite typical - e.g. all of Gallo-Iberian Romance went through a /k/ > /ts/ shift before front vowels; Latin civitas became Spanish ciudad, French cité, Portuguese cidade, etc., all of which were once pronounced with an initial /ts/ before shifting to their modern pronunciations.
Oh ok! Very interesting. How tragically little I know of Latin's children. The /ts/ to /s/ part of that is extremely easy to imagine from there. I will have to include the /k/ to /ts/ before front vowel allophony into a future language.
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by Nachtuil »

Shemtov wrote:This is a relative of Fuheko and Karèwaho:

/p p: b t t: d ts t:s dz k k: g/ <p pp b t tt d c tc z̟ tch k kk g>
/ θ ð s z h/ <th dh s z h>
/m m: n n: / <m mm n nn >
/j ʋ/ <y v>
/l/ <l>


/i y u ɯ/ <i ü u ǔ>
/e ø ɘ o/ <e ö ě o>
/œ ɔ/ <ȍ ò>
/æ ɑ/ <ä a>

It has Front and Rounding harmony, with /ɘ/ being the unrounded back vowel for the mid-vowels, and /œ ɔ/ being the rounded version of /æ ɑ/.
Very nice!

Also, welcome back Frislander!
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Shemtov
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by Shemtov »

Nachtuil wrote:
Shemtov wrote:This is a relative of Fuheko and Karèwaho:

/p p: b t t: d ts t:s dz k k: g/ <p pp b t tt d c tc z̟ tch k kk g>
/ θ ð s z h/ <th dh s z h>
/m m: n n: / <m mm n nn >
/j ʋ/ <y v>
/l/ <l>


/i y u ɯ/ <i ü u ǔ>
/e ø ɘ o/ <e ö ě o>
/œ ɔ/ <ȍ ò>
/æ ɑ/ <ä a>

It has Front and Rounding harmony, with /ɘ/ being the unrounded back vowel for the mid-vowels, and /œ ɔ/ being the rounded version of /æ ɑ/.
Very nice!
I'm thinking the Proto-Lang looked something like this:
/p pʰ p: t tʰ t: t͡s t͡sʰ t:s t͡ʃ t͡ʃʰ t:ʃ k kʰ k:/
/m m: n n: ɲ ɲ:/
/s ʃ h/
/ɾ/
/l w j/

/i y u/
/e ø o/
/ɛ œ ɔ/
/æ ɑ/
With front-back harmony with /i e ɛ/ being neutral.

In this piticular language, the rounding harmony, and the back unrounded vowels come from a substrate language that used to be spoken by the language's speakers, but a dialect of this family was adopted due to political pressure/intermarraige.
The voiced series comes from the fact that in this language, non-geminated stops became voiced intervocalically, and low vowels were lost from the end of multisyllabic words, with geminated stops at the end becoming plain stops.
Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.
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Frislander
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by Frislander »

/t k ʔ/
/b d ɟ g/
/f s ɬ ʃ ʂ x h/
/m n ŋ/
/w r j/

/i u/
/a ɒ/

Syllably structure is C(C)V(C), where initial clusters consist of oral stop + sibilant and oral obstruent + approximant/trill.

Stress is lexical and free to occur on any root syllable, though this may be affected by affixes.
Auvon
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by Auvon »

A vowel inventory looking for a consonant inventory to hang out with (which perhaps has dental-palatal (both patterning as laminal) harmony):

/i ɨ ʉ u/
/ɛ ɛ̃ a ã ɔ ɔ̃/
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DesEsseintes
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by DesEsseintes »

Frislander wrote: /s ʃ ʂ/

Syllably structure is C(C)V(C), where initial clusters consist of oral stop + sibilant and oral obstruent + approximant/trill.
Are all of /sr ʃr ʂr/ distinct?
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Frislander
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by Frislander »

The phonology of a distant sisterlang to O Kanã

/p t k ʔ/ <p t k ‘>
/s ʂ ɕ h/ <s sr x h>
/m n/ <m n>
/w r ɻ j/ <w rr r y>

/i ɨ u/ <i ɨ u>
/a ɔ/ <a o>
/aɪ̯ aʊ̯ ɔɪ̯ ɔʊ̯/ <ai au oi ou>

Syllable structure is (C)V(n), where only /i u/ occur as word-initial vowels and vowel-initial syllables do not occur word-internally.

/k/ is highly restricted in occurence; it is only founf intervocalically, and doesn't occur before /i/. /ɕ/ is also fairly restricted, occurring mostly before /i a/ and not at all before /o/, though unlike /k/ is may appear word-initially and after a coda nasal.

For morphopho, the most notable process is that when a coda nasal comes into contact with a vowel-initial root/suffix, the nasal mutates to /k/. There is also some limited vowel assimilation, whereby /uɨ iu ɨu iɨ/ become /ɔɪ̯ u u ɨ/.

----
DesEsseintes wrote:
Frislander wrote: /s ʃ ʂ/

Syllably structure is C(C)V(C), where initial clusters consist of oral stop + sibilant and oral obstruent + approximant/trill.
Are all of /sr ʃr ʂr/ distinct?
I think so yes, though I'd have to start a language using this phonolog before I could completely sort out that question.
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by Auvon »

Auvon wrote:A vowel inventory looking for a consonant inventory to hang out with (which perhaps has dental-palatal (both patterning as laminal) harmony):

/i ɨ ʉ u/
/ɛ ɛ̃ a ã ɔ ɔ̃/
/m n̪ n ɲ ŋ/
/p t̪ t c k ʔ/
/s/
/l̪ l ʎ/
/w j/

<i ɨ ʉ u
e ẽ a ã o õ
m nh n ñ g
p th t t̰ k h
s
lh l l̰
w y>
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Thrice Xandvii
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

Tell me how implausible this is, and/or ways to improve it or make it "more interesting" (unless you feel it is actually pretty cool, but to me it just doesn't seem right yet?). (I will leave "interesting" up to your interpretations. Also, I haven't a clue how to represent the vowels in a romanization that I like... especially since I want an excuse to use both the "horn" diacritic found in Vietnamese and/or the ogonek, somehow... likely with the nasals.)

Here it is:

/m n ŋ/ <m n ň>
/p ɓ t ɗ k~q ɠ ʔ/ <p/b ḅ t/d ḍ c/g ġ '/Ø>
/β~v ð ɣ/ <v đ j>
/ɾ r/ <r rh>

/i ɪ eː ĩ/ <?>
/a ɛ aː ã/ <?>
/o ɔ uː õ/ <?>
/aɪ̯ oɪ̯~ɔɪ̯/ <?>

(I'm unsure if I will use <b d g> in the romanization for finals or something else or nothing, but they are included for completeness' sake.)
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DesEsseintes
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by DesEsseintes »

Thrice Xandvii wrote:Tell me how implausible this is, and/or ways to improve it or make it "more interesting" (unless you feel it is actually pretty cool, but to me it just doesn't seem right yet?). (I will leave "interesting" up to your interpretations. Also, I haven't a clue how to represent the vowels in a romanization that I like... especially since I want an excuse to use both the "horn" diacritic found in Vietnamese and/or the ogonek, somehow... likely with the nasals.)

Here it is:

/m n ŋ/ <m n ň>
/p ɓ t ɗ k~q ɠ ʔ/ <p/b ḅ t/d ḍ c/g ġ '/Ø>
/β~v ð ɣ/ <v đ j>
/ɾ r/ <r rh>

/i ɪ eː ĩ/ <?>
/a ɛ aː ã/ <?>
/o ɔ uː õ/ <?>
/aɪ̯ oɪ̯~ɔɪ̯/ <?>

(I'm unsure if I will use <b d g> in the romanization for finals or something else or nothing, but they are included for completeness' sake.)
Are there any complementary distributions between /i a o/ and /ɪ ɛ ɔ/? I don't see anything particularly unnatural about the inventory, and I think the four-way nasal-stop-implosive-fricative contrast is fun. Definite morfofo potential there. Romanising vowels is possibly my least favourite part of conlanging, so I'm afraid I won't be helping you there.

What are you thinking phonotacticswise?
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Thrice Xandvii
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

The /ɪ ɛ ɔ/ triple would be the shortened/lax versions of the /i a o/ triple. This gives us just a touch of asymmetry as floats through the rest of the vowels.

I can't say that I've given much thought to the morphophonology at all yet. (Which DOES seem to be an area you take a liking to, Des.)

And for phonotactics? I'm thinking a very isolating lang with implosives only in initial position, an initial glottal stop if a vowel would appear alone (and should I allow multisyllabic words, the apostrophe would only be used if the second syllable starts with a glottal stop to help prevent issues of ambiguity across syllable boundaries with regard to finals), voicing of final consonants (which could be any non-rhotic non-fricative) some allophony with k->q / _V[+back]... and now I am debating if there should be any clusters of consonants... at the moment I am thinking maybe, but my original thought was no. I am unsure what some good choices would be there. Use of <r> and <rh> would be obvious, for clusters. So, maybe a structure like: (C)(R)V(N, S)?

Theoretical vowel romanization (same order as above):
<i ư é į>
<a e á ą>
<o ơ ú ǫ>
<ay oy>

Hmmmm?
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by DesEsseintes »

Thrice Xandvii wrote:The /ɪ ɛ ɔ/ triple would be the shortened/lax versions of the /i a o/ triple. This gives us just a touch of asymmetry as floats through the rest of the vowels.

I can't say that I've given much thought to the morphophonology at all yet. (Which DOES seem to be an area you take a liking to, Des.)

And for phonotactics? I'm thinking a very isolating lang with implosives only in initial position, an initial glottal stop if a vowel would appear alone (and should I allow multisyllabic words, the apostrophe would only be used if the second syllable starts with a glottal stop to help prevent issues of ambiguity across syllable boundaries with regard to finals), voicing of final consonants (which could be any non-rhotic non-fricative) some allophony with k->q / _V[+back]... and now I am debating if there should be any clusters of consonants... at the moment I am thinking maybe, but my original thought was no. I am unsure what some good choices would be there. Use of <r> and <rh> would be obvious, for clusters. So, maybe a structure like: (C)(R)V(N, S)?

Theoretical vowel romanization (same order as above):
<i ư é į>
<a e á ą>
<o ơ ú ǫ>
<ay oy>

Hmmmm?
Morfofo is my raison d'être. [:P]

And I've got an idea for yours. In compounds, the vowel of a word is "reduced" to ư e ơ if the following word starts in an implosive. This applies regardless of intervening coda consonants. (And makes this rule cool!). So

tim ḅactưm ḅac

This might only apply if the two words are in the same NP or in a compound or sth. I don't know enough about your language to venture further.

Just an idea. :mrgreen:
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by DesEsseintes »

Híí 5.2

I've largely rejected Híí 7.0, but I've salvaged a phoneme from that version. Behold:

/m n/ m n
/b t k g ʔ/ b t k g ’
/t͡s t͡ɬ t͡ʃ/ ts tł ch
/ɸ s θ ɬ (ʃ) h/ f s þ ł sh h
/z (r) l (w)/ z r l w

/e i o/ e ı o + length and diphthongs

The major change from Híí 5.0 and 5.1 is the addition of /g/, which has the following realisations:
- Intervocalically it is a voiced velar stop [g] or a voiced velar fricative [ɣ] in free variation
- In word-initial position or following one of /z l h ’/ it is always [g]
- Following any other consonant (including s ɬ and any affricate), it is pronounced [x]
- Coda /g/ merges with /h/
- /g b/ may be descended from Proto-Híí *q *qw as voicing and fronting of uvulars is well attested. This does mean I now have to find another source for glottal stops in Híí.

I think I like this. For now. I think. I'm particularly fond of /b t k g/ as a stop series.
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Re: Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

Post by Click »

I think I like this Híí better than the last version, /b t k g/ is especially nice! [:)]
DesEsseintes wrote:- /g b/ may be descended from Proto-Híí *q *qw as voicing and fronting of uvulars is well attested. This does mean I now have to find another source for glottal stops in Híí.
Would it be possible that word-initial glottal stops are epenthetic and the rest come from *d?
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