New CBB

I'll see what I can do about including some audio samples.



They're glottalic/ejective consonants. I wasn't sure if I was to use a 'ʔ' or an apostrophe for a phonemic contrast between voiceless and glottalic. I'm guessing it's the latter.



I'm not sure I understand what you're confused about. They're clicks with a uvular affricated rear articulation. And again the 'ʔ' should be an apostrophe.





Btw. How do you include someone's name in a quote?

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"We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever."

I was not sure I could recognise the notation.

And also, could you pronounce them?

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constructedlanguages.net

May the Lord have mercy!
That's a buttload of consonants! I thought MY consonant inventories were huge...
Well, that's a lot of distinctions...More than I have so far dared.
I hope you understand I'm not slandering in any way, only showing my amazement. Kudos!
I also would like some sound samples!

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___________________ I am the Great Rabbit. Fear me, O Crabs!

Standard kitchen-sink nooblang inventory that is far too regular and complex to ever exist.

Go back to the drawing board.

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Dracusam Yg tol svrola zen gym mau
bitch-PL 1SG GEN swag DEST know NEG

As I've already stated, those phonemes that appear in parenthesis are phonemes I'm likely not to include, but have an unconscious desire to keep smacking on. There are only 49 consonants (believe me, that's an huge improvement from what I used to include) and 11 vowels. If I include those in parenthesis, then there would be 112 consonants and 24 vowels which I would tend to agree is a bit much. I absolutely love having a plethora of various sounds to choose from. WALS states that there are 54 natlangs of 563 that have a large consonant inventory (34 or more). That's about 9.5 % of languages. So, yes, it's unlikely that it would have so many phonemes, but most certainly not unheard of. Aside from that, the original intent of posting this was to see what people would remove or add.



If you don't have any tangible critique to post, why post anything at all?

If you can show me how this inventory won't work, by all means do so, but do so with specific examples and hard evidence.

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"We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever."

I was pondering whether I should call the language 'KS' or not, but I decided to withhold my judgement for a while. It's not necessary the number of phonemes that makes a lang KS, but the lack of systematicity. Judging a language only from the number of phonemes, is like to judging a painting from the number of colours used. I should give the lang a try before I label it KS.

There are nevertheless some troubling things in the phoneme inventory. I don't know if it's likely to have both retroflex, paleto-alveolar, alveolo-palatal and palatal fricatives, or both alveolar, postalveolar and palatal lateral fricatives as separate phonemes.

IMO a rule of thumb is that one should be able to pronounce those phonemes one is using in one's conlang, and be able to tell them apart. This is especially important to have in mind when one is using home-made labels like 'imfricates'.

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constructedlanguages.net

Don't Ubykh, Qiang, and Abkhaz contrast alveolars, postalveolars, alveo-palatals, and retroflexes?

Also, what do you mean by "...the lack of systematicity?"



I completely agree. I have the audio samples for you, both in series according to manner and individual phonemes before and between vowels so the differences can be heard. Although, I have to wait until tomorrow afternoon to upload them as my computer's usb ports are completely destroyed.

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"We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever."

Look at this.

/i iː ĩ ĩː a aː ã ãː u uː ũ ũː/<i ii ĩ ĩĩ a aa ã ãã u uu ũ ũũ>

/p t tʷ k kʷ ʔ ts̻ ts̺ tɕ s̻ s̺ ɕ h m n ŋ r l w/<p t tw k kw tz ts tx z s x h m n g r l w>

Allophony
-High vowels are devoiced word-finally
-t, tw are flapped intervocally into [ɾ,ɾʷ]
-Fricatives are voiced intervocally.
-h becomes [ɸ] before u
-h becomes [ç] before i
-w becomes [β] after a consonant in the syllable coda.

Phonontactics
There is a fairly complicated syllable structure.
(C)C(S)V(C)(C)
Where S is any continuant.
Geminates are allowed, but act as two consonants.
Affricates pattern as plosives.
Certain Clusters are prohibited:
-ʔ+C
-z+s
-s+z
-l+Nasal

Pitch Accent
The Accent usually falls on the penultimate syllable. If it does not, it is marked with an acute accent. The pitch accent is sometimes switched as a derivational device, changing nominals into verbs.

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

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http://soundcloud.com/quantumwraith/sets/conlang-sound-samples

Plosives: VOICE1-3
Nasals: VOICE4
Fricatives: VOICE5-7
Lat. Fricatives: VOICE8-10
Affricates: VOICE11-13
Lat. Affricates: VOICE14-16
Taps: VOICE17-18
Trills: VOICE19
Approximants: VOICE20
Lat. Approximants: VOICE21

Implosives: VOICE27
Imfricates: VOICE28
Some Velar Clicks: VOICE29-32
Some Uvular Clicks: VOICE33-34

Oral Vowels: VOICE22-26

The clicks all sound the same in their respective recordings, so I'll have to find an alternative recording device. The quality is just awful.

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"We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever."

If a conlang's phoneme-inventory is the full Cartesian product of some set of sets of features, that's too "systematic" or "regular" to be naturalistic; though some natlangs' phoneme-inventories are that systematic/regular.

OTOH if a random sample of phonems is chosen for a conlang's phoneme-inventory, that is almost always too "unsystematic" or "irregular" to be naturalistic.

Natlang's phoneme-inventories tend to be close to Cartesian-products, but with exceptions. There are almost always at least a few exceptions, and there are almost never so many that the hypothetical underlying regularity cannot be discerned.



I think this is great! I agree with Xing's "rule of thumb", and congratulate you on being one of the first (or, one of the few-so-far) conlangers to post such recordings. Thanks!

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I am not responsible for the accuracy of my sources; they're responsible for their own mistakes, if any, and also responsible for defending their own statements if you disagree with them.

Taa is much different: it's inventory isn't as logic-stretching as that nooblang's and it's far more interesting.



It's stupidly big, (/ɬ,ɬ',ɬ̙,ɬ̙'/? Fuckin' seriously?) and ridiculously regular. It's stuffed with a bunch of filler like all those laterals just to pump up the phoneme number ticker. It's painfully regular--ejective forms of ALL the fricatives, affricates, and plosives? What the hell? And to finally seal the deal, you came up with some crazy-ass "imfricate" ridiculousness.

Your lang is a KS noob-lang, deal with it and don't get mad at me for pointing out the truth.

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Dracusam Yg tol svrola zen gym mau
bitch-PL 1SG GEN swag DEST know NEG

I would have to agree with Chagen that QuantumWraith’s phonology is rather unnatural. I’m not aware of any natlang that is known to contrast alveolo-palatal with palatal consonants. Several of the unusual features of the language’s phonology are fine on their own, but the presence of so many unusual features all occurring together is a bit much. The consonant system is also unnaturally regular. The large number of contrasting places of articulation, the presence of ejective fricatives, the huge number of lateral obstruents and approximants, the labio-dental tap, lateral alveolar tap, bilabial, alveolar, retroflex and uvular trills, implosives, “imfricates”, and so many exotic clicks all occurring together is a bit much in my opinion. No natlang has such a high level of regularity and such a large range of unusual features all present together in its consonant inventory. And then comes the vowel system. The presence of five qualities of high vowels, three of which are rounded (y ʉ u), is rather a lot, although I guess you could get away with it as in Southern Sami there are five high vowels. The presence of a phonemic contrast between /ɘ/ and /ə/, two very close sounds, is also strange. Obviously there's nothing wrong with having an unnaturalistic phonology, as this is conlanging afterall, although I personally prefer naturalistic conlangs.

What's the phonotactics?

Are all phonemes contrastive in all environments?

Are there any allophony?

Do you have any sample words?

_________________
constructedlanguages.net

I'm really one of the first? Well, there's something to proud about I guess. So, no, thank you!



Okay, you've made your point. I'm sorry if I came off as somewhat harsh. It's just that you're being unnecessarily derogatory by using terms like 'nooblang'. Or I at least read it as being derogatory. Why can't you just post 'conlang'?


Anyway, here's a revisal of my inventory. I've tried to make it a bit less regular in phonation and POA and have completely removed the clicks, implosives, as well as my 'imfricates'. I've also removed the rounded front vowels as well as the nasal closed and front vowels.

Consonants



Vowels





Here's what I have of phonotactics so far:

Phonotactics

[(C1){S](C2)}

[x] –Prefix form
{x} –Suffix form

C1 can be any consonant or one of the following:

PLOS + PLOS/FRIC (excluding C’C clusters) (+ NAS, APPROX), NAS, APPROX, TAP, TRI
i.e. pk'-, pm-, pr-, ptn-, ptr-, pd-, prr-; but not: p’t-
NAS/APPROX + OBS, Non-vocalic SON (excluding geminates, TAP or TRI)
i.e. mtç-, my-; but not: nn-, ṇb-, mll-
FRIC/AFFRIC + NAS, APPROX, TAP, TRI
i.e. şy-, šr-, tsm-, qhl-, çd-, hrr-

C2 is any non-vocalic sonorant or (excluding affricates) voiceless consonant.

S can be any sonorant. If C1 has a sonorous release or C2 is a sonorant, S will be vocalic.

Vowel lengthening is accomplished through affixing an ‘-i' to front vowels or a ‘-u’ to back vowels.
i.e. ii, ei, ou, au, etc.

A consonant can only take one sonorant.

A final syllable can never terminate with a central vowel.

Stress

Stress falls on the penultimate in triple or quadruple syllable words or on the primary within double syllable words. It is used only on affixes.

(CS)CSC(SC)(SC), (CS)(CS)CSC or (CS)CSC

Where C is a consonant or consonant cluster, S is a sonorant, and () mark optional affixed syllables.


---------------------------------------------

As for being contrastive and allophony, there are only a few (so far) indicated in the above table. /ʙ/ changes to [ѵ̘] intervocalically, /χ/ changes to [h] in a coda, and /ʁ/ changes to [ʟ] when either preceding or proceeding a lateral consonant.

And no, I don't have any words as of yet. I only have a rough idea of where I want my phonology to go let alone my morphosyntax.

_________________
"We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever."

Your revised inventory is much more naturalistic in my opinion. I don’t see why you needed to remove the implosives though, and it wouldn’t hurt to leave in a few of the clicks. There are just a few things about it that are still a bit odd though, such as the presence of a retroflex, palatal and velar lateral fricative but no dental/alveolar lateral fricative, and the presence of a phonemic contrast between two voiced uvular rhotics, which I'm not aware exists in any natlang. The vowel system is looking a lot better. The only suggestion I would make is to change the central /ɐ/ to a front /æ/ to make your vowel system more balanced and to maximize the contrast with /ɑ/.

Thanks! In all honesty I think I need a bit more practice pronouncing the clicks. So, to make things a bit easier for me and anyone that ever decides to take a gander at my lang I decided to remove them. I always thought that implosives only usually occur in languages with clicks, so I decided to remove them as well. By the two rhotics I assume you're referring to the /ʀ/ and /ʁ/. They may not occur in any natlang simultaneously, but I think I pronounce them distinctly enough to include them both. UH! NO! I hate /æ/ with a fiery passion. English has completely turned me off from it.

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"We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever."

Or maybe a simple, open front /a/. Both /æ/ and /ɐ/ are non-cardinal, and thus, in a sense, rather 'weird' vowels. /æ/ could also, possibly, be confused with /ɛ/.



First I'd like to say that I think your phonology is quite interesting, and a good start for a conlang. As you proceed with your conlang, you may decide that you want to scrap a few phonemes, or maybe add some, or do some other changes.

As for implosives, there are far more common than clicks. There are lots of languages that have implosives, but that don't have clicks.

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constructedlanguages.net

About the low vowels, Khmer has /ɑ/ and /ɐ/ without /æ/, although the /ae/ diphthong is allegedly pronounced that way by some. Doesn't Portuguese have /ɑ/ and /ɐ/ as a tense-lax pair also?

/i y e ø ə æ a o u/
/p b ɓ t d ɗ k g q f s ʃ h m n ɲ ŋ l ʎ j w/

Allophony
/g/ becomes [ħ] between vowels.
/o/ becomes [ɐ] in unstressed syllables.

Stress
Stress constantly falls on the final syllable.

Tone
There are 4 tones: High, Mid, Low, and Rising.

Phonontactics
The basic syllable structure is:
CV(C)
Furthermore, certain consonants cannot appear in the coda:
-/k f s ʃ n j/

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

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