(Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]
- Dormouse559
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
With French anyway, /ə/ is merging with /œ/ or /ø/ (or both; depends on your dialect/analysis). The point being, the language already had front rounded vowels, so the rounding/fronting of schwa isn't entirely spontaneous.
The process calylac has described, I could imagine as a kind of dissimilation. That's what I'd chalk up the reduction in unstressed syllables to.
The process calylac has described, I could imagine as a kind of dissimilation. That's what I'd chalk up the reduction in unstressed syllables to.
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Dormouse559 wrote:The process calylac has described, I could imagine as a kind of dissimilation. That's what I'd chalk up the reduction in unstressed syllables to.
That actually makes sense! May have to rethink the rounding of the front vowels though, or just forget it and make /y/ and /œ/ distinct phonemes*. Thanks a lot for the help!Wiki wrote:...a phenomenon whereby similar consonants or vowels in a word become less similar.
*actually on that note, any interesting ideas for how to represent /y/ and /œ/? I'm already using y for /j/ (since j is /ç/); I feel like ü and ö are the most obvious options but also kind of overused, plus I'm already using ä (albeit for /a/) so I don't want to start looking too German or anything :P
- eldin raigmore
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Thank you, Creyeditor.Creyeditor wrote:For Kobardon the answer is (1). Roots are category neutral and inflection/derivation makes them become verbs (transitive and intransitive), nouns, adjectives and adverbs.eldin raigmore wrote:How are your conlangs' root-morphemes or word-roots distributed among various word-classes?
According to the OED,
a bit more than half of English's almost-180,000 word-roots are noun-roots;
about a third are adjective-roots;
about a seventh are verb-roots;
and the remaining forty-second are other kinds of roots.
If your conlang is very different from that, how and why?
I can imagine several reasons:
(1) the question isn't relevant to your conlang because the distinctions between parts-of-speech don't apply at the word-root level; it applies only at the finite-word level.
(2) there's no difference between adjectives and nouns in your conlang, so that part of the question is either irrelevant or trivial.
(3) there's no difference between adjectives and verbs in your conlang, so that part of the question is either irrelevant or trivial.
(4) your conlang has very few lexical verbs (e.g. twelve or fewer?), and almost all (e.g. two-thirds or more) of its verbs are phrases consisting of a light-verb plus a content-word.
(5) it's easy for me to believe there are other obvious possibilities that just aren't all that obvious to me, at the moment.
Omlueuet is similar to English I guess. Most conlangs of mine do not yet have enough root to make any statistically significant statements about the categories of roots.
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Do you think I should ask this question on its own thread?
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- Creyeditor
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
/œ/ <œ, ø, eu, oe, oi>calylac wrote:Dormouse559 wrote:The process calylac has described, I could imagine as a kind of dissimilation. That's what I'd chalk up the reduction in unstressed syllables to.That actually makes sense! May have to rethink the rounding of the front vowels though, or just forget it and make /y/ and /œ/ distinct phonemes*. Thanks a lot for the help!Wiki wrote:...a phenomenon whereby similar consonants or vowels in a word become less similar.
*actually on that note, any interesting ideas for how to represent /y/ and /œ/? I'm already using y for /j/ (since j is /ç/); I feel like ü and ö are the most obvious options but also kind of overused, plus I'm already using ä (albeit for /a/) so I don't want to start looking too German or anything :P
/y/ <ᵫ, û, uu, ue, ui>
Yes, especially because there are also interesting natlangs precedents.eldin raigmore wrote:Thank you, Creyeditor.Spoiler:
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Do you think I should ask this question on its own thread?
Creyeditor
"Thoughts are free."
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"Thoughts are free."
Produce, Analyze, Manipulate
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Ook & Omlűt & Nautli languages & Sperenjas
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Sorry if this question is too complicated to ask, but are there any good ways to get a good phoneme frequency for a conlang inventory. I've been playing around with awkwords for my conlang Lyran, and I can't figure out what order all the phonemes should be in. Help would be much appreciated.
Here's what I've worked out so far, but I still need to add more phonemes.
I've been using a formula called Zipf's law for the frequencies, but the order is the thing I'm struggling with the most.
For reference, here's the inventory of my conlang.
Here's what I've worked out so far, but I still need to add more phonemes.
Spoiler:
For reference, here's the inventory of my conlang.
Spoiler:
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
This is one of those "art, not science" deals. Just mess with the numbers until the output is something you like.
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Ok, thanks!Micamo wrote:This is one of those "art, not science" deals. Just mess with the numbers until the output is something you like.
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Ok, so I understand the basics of how tone systems form, but how could a language lose a tone system, aside from simply merging the tones?
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Tones may eventually become a prosodic element.Osia wrote:Ok, so I understand the basics of how tone systems form, but how could a language lose a tone system, aside from simply merging the tones?
I think Burmese does this where the low tone becomes creaky voicing (of course, it does seem more likely the other way around).
In addition tone may slowly gather additional elements associated with it if it becomes less clear which word has what tone. These elements may become more prominent, until they become the main descriptor of the element, and tone slowly fades out.
And then, tone may just merge.
Spoiler:
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
I've also wondered about this. Could you possibly give an example, either hypothetical or from a natlang, of this kind of scenario?qwed117 wrote: In addition tone may slowly gather additional elements associated with it if it becomes less clear which word has what tone. These elements may become more prominent, until they become the main descriptor of the element, and tone slowly fades out.
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Tone sandhi could be taken to an extreme degree as well, such that one syllable in each word comes to dominate the shape of all other tones in the word as a whole. IIRC, this is roughly what's happened in Shanghainese. This could then become a simple case of pitch accent which we can see from various Indo-European languages can be lost in favour of some other marker of stress.
You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
This is all hypothetical there.shimobaatar wrote:I've also wondered about this. Could you possibly give an example, either hypothetical or from a natlang, of this kind of scenario?qwed117 wrote: In addition tone may slowly gather additional elements associated with it if it becomes less clear which word has what tone. These elements may become more prominent, until they become the main descriptor of the element, and tone slowly fades out.
The change is essentially regularization
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
How does direction marking develop on verbs?
At the moment I'm working on a head-initial language that I want to feature directional prefixes, so I'm especially confounded by the way such prefixes can develop in a language where adverbial prepositional phrases generally follow the verb.
Solutions & explanations highly appreciated.
At the moment I'm working on a head-initial language that I want to feature directional prefixes, so I'm especially confounded by the way such prefixes can develop in a language where adverbial prepositional phrases generally follow the verb.
Solutions & explanations highly appreciated.
- Creyeditor
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
So this is just speculation based on German and Mee.
Directional adverbs can become obligatory and positionally fixed wrt the verb. This is similar to what happened with 'hin' (thither) 'her' (hither). They are now considered prefixes on some verbs. This would not work in your language because adverbs follow the verb.
Mee (head final) has directional suffixes that are homophonous to the verbs 'come' and 'go'. I assume that they developed from serial verb construction like 'give-come'. If you language allows serial verbs and they are head-initial, you might chose the second solution, so that 'come-take' is reanalyzed as verb with a directional prefix.
Directional adverbs can become obligatory and positionally fixed wrt the verb. This is similar to what happened with 'hin' (thither) 'her' (hither). They are now considered prefixes on some verbs. This would not work in your language because adverbs follow the verb.
Mee (head final) has directional suffixes that are homophonous to the verbs 'come' and 'go'. I assume that they developed from serial verb construction like 'give-come'. If you language allows serial verbs and they are head-initial, you might chose the second solution, so that 'come-take' is reanalyzed as verb with a directional prefix.
Creyeditor
"Thoughts are free."
Produce, Analyze, Manipulate
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"Thoughts are free."
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Ook & Omlűt & Nautli languages & Sperenjas
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
AIUI, prefixes in many IE languages (including Latin and Germanic) are reanalysed postpositions, due to changes in word order:
S[Ob-Pstp]V > S[PrpV]O [creating applicative verbs with prefixes simply by reanalysing what the old postposition attached to, and then moving it along with the verb].
This could in some cases create directional prefixes.
Or, you know, maybe the adverbs were just before the verb in the past and have moved.
S[Ob-Pstp]V > S[PrpV]O [creating applicative verbs with prefixes simply by reanalysing what the old postposition attached to, and then moving it along with the verb].
This could in some cases create directional prefixes.
Or, you know, maybe the adverbs were just before the verb in the past and have moved.
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
If a language has a basic 5 system of long vowels a:, e:, i:, o:, u: and they diphthongize, what diphthong could each of them become? I'm rather asking for suggestions than scientific answers.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
a: > au, oa
e: > ai, ei
i: > ai, ei, oi, iu
o: > au, eu, ou
u: > au, eu, ou, iu
All of these diphthongs can also be flipped, so e: can yield ia as well as ai
e: > ai, ei
i: > ai, ei, oi, iu
o: > au, eu, ou
u: > au, eu, ou, iu
All of these diphthongs can also be flipped, so e: can yield ia as well as ai
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Also:Ælfwine wrote:a: > au, oa
e: > ai, ei
i: > ai, ei, oi, iu
o: > au, eu, ou
u: > au, eu, ou, iu
All of these diphthongs can also be flipped, so e: can yield ia as well as ai
a: > ea, ae, ao
e: > ie, ia, ea, ae
i: > ie, io
o: > uo, ua, oa, ao
u: > uo, ue
You can also have them shift conditionally, depending on stress, syllable openness or umlaut
You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Don't forget one can also have centering diphthongs - aə oə iə etc.sangi39 wrote:Also:Ælfwine wrote:a: > au, oa
e: > ai, ei
i: > ai, ei, oi, iu
o: > au, eu, ou
u: > au, eu, ou, iu
All of these diphthongs can also be flipped, so e: can yield ia as well as ai
a: > ea, ae, ao
e: > ie, ia, ea, ae
i: > ie, io
o: > uo, ua, oa, ao
u: > uo, ue
You can also have them shift conditionally, depending on stress, syllable openness or umlaut
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Or the other way around /əi/ and /əu/ (Great Vowel Shift in English) and in the history of French Vulgar Latin /e/ and /o/ in open syllable had shifted to /oi/ and /eu/ by the time of (Late) Old French (which I guess could be an example of dissimilation since the older diphthongs were /ei/ and /ou/).Ælfwine wrote:Don't forget one can also have centering diphthongs - aə oə iə etc.sangi39 wrote:Also:Ælfwine wrote:a: > au, oa
e: > ai, ei
i: > ai, ei, oi, iu
o: > au, eu, ou
u: > au, eu, ou, iu
All of these diphthongs can also be flipped, so e: can yield ia as well as ai
a: > ea, ae, ao
e: > ie, ia, ea, ae
i: > ie, io
o: > uo, ua, oa, ao
u: > uo, ue
You can also have them shift conditionally, depending on stress, syllable openness or umlaut
You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.