Shuran (WIP)

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cantrip
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Shuran (WIP)

Post by cantrip »

Shuran (ɕɯɾä) is my conlang that just got started, but I would love all critique on what I have so far.

My main goal for is for it to be naturalistic. If it is not naturalistic in any area, please tell me. It's meant to be part of an
isolate language family from Central Asia.

Phonemic inventory:

Nasals:
/m/ <m>
/n/ <n>

Plosives:
/p/ <p>
/b/ <b>
/t/ <t>
/d/ <d>
/k/ <k>
/g/ <g>
/ʔ/ <q>

/p/, /t/, /k/, and /ʔ/ are tenuis and /t/ is alveolar. The voiced plosives can only occur after following a vowel or coda.

Fricatives:

/s/ <s>
/h/ <h>

/s/ is alveolar.

Approximants:

/l/ <l>
/j/ <j>

Vowels:

/i/ <i>
/ɨ/ <į>
/ɯ/ <u>
/ɛ/ <e>
/ə/ <ę>
/ɤ̞/ <o>
/ä/ <a>

Diphthongs:

/ɨi/ <įi>
/əi/ <ęi>
/ɛi/ <ei>
/ɨɯ/ <įu>
/əɯ/ <ęu>
/ɛɯ/ <eu>

I'm not entirely sure on using ogoneks or acute accents for the accented letters, or just coming up with a conscript.

Syllables are CV(C), where the last C can only be /n/, /s/, or /l/.

Allophony:

After a vowel, /n/, and /l/, voiced plosives are often weakened:
/b/ to /β/
/d/ to /ɾ/ or /n/
/g/ to /ɰ/

After /s/, voiced plosives are strengthened:

/b/ to /p˭/
/d/ to /t˭/
/g/ to /k˭/

<h> becomes /ɕ/ after /i/ and /ɛ/, and the same happens to <s> after /ɯ/ and /ɤ̞/.

I would love to have more allophonic ideas, but I can't think of any more. Suggestions are certainly welcome.

Also, stress is a hard part for me. Is it possible for a language to have equal to near-equal stress on all syllables except
for emphasis? It's not a tonal language.

The morphology is split-ergative and agglutinating to near-polysynthetic. While SOV, the language is otherwise head-
initial:

mę-so
tree-DEM
That tree

ęuto ke
car red
The red car

kunį les na-do
book big/large I-GEN
My large (in space) book

While SOV, the language can move the three arguments around for pragmatic purposes. However, phrase components
must stay in their places.

There are 9 cases:

Nominative (-∅)
Accusative (-n, add <e> following a coda)
Ergative (-l, add <e> following a coda)
Dative (-nį)
Genitive (-do)
Locative (-ne)
Ablative (-tę)
Allative (-qi)
Oblique (-kį)

There are prepositions, but the noun has to agree for the case that the preposition governs. Unfortuantely, I haven't
made them yet.
The split-ergativity works based on the animacy of the noun in question. If the agent noun is high in animacy, it gets
no case; if it is inanimate, it gets marked with the ergative. If the patient is high in animacy, the case is accusative,
while no case is marked on inanimate patients:

Code: Select all

S	A	P	
0	0	n	Animate
0	l	0	Inanimate
I hope for the language to have different marking based on what verb is in the clause (what one would expect for an
agent and a patient of a verb), if such a thing is possible; like switching the markers around for "hit" (like hitting an
inanimate object) versus "punch" or "kick" if the verb patient is animate.

Other Ideas:
Using the number "one" for the indefinite article
Using different conjunctions depending on the two phrases being conjoined (like one for noun phrases while using
another for verb phrases)
No person agreement
Discourse affixes that connect to verbs of the clause (translating things like "therefore" or "however")
Lexicon with Russian and Altaic loanwords

Also, I was wondering if some head-initial languages form new words with their heads first as well. Or do they put the modifier first as in English?
Last edited by cantrip on 05 Oct 2011 05:04, edited 2 times in total.
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Zumir
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Location: The darkest pit of madness.

Re: Shuran (WIP)

Post by Zumir »

I honestly think I love everything about this. How many conlangs have you done so far?
Wa mnew yiHegolech.
cantrip
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Joined: 03 Oct 2011 00:03

Re: Shuran (WIP)

Post by cantrip »

It's just been this one. I've had way too many diverging ideas, though, so I decided to cram them all into one conlang.
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Omzinesý
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Re: Shuran (WIP)

Post by Omzinesý »

You have three unrounded, closed vowels. It is possible, but your vowel inventory is rather small for such a distinction.

/i/ <i>/ɨ/ <į> /ɯ/ <u>
/ə/ <ę>
/ɛ/ <e> /ɤ̞/ <o>
/ä/ <a>
You have no rounded vowels by the way. Not unnaturalistic but uncommon. I don't really know about the phenomenon.
/ɛ/ <e> and /ɤ̞/ <o> could have the same way of articulation, maybe mid becouse you, anyway, have only 3 ways of articulation.
After a vowel, /n/, and /l/, voiced plosives are often weakened:
/b/ to /β/
/d/ to /ɾ/ or /n/
/g/ to /ɰ/
Spanish (as you may know) makes it the opposite way. Nasals are kind of stops with air going through nose. So they are not normally followed by fricatives. Mount is much easier to pronounse than mounth.

Your case system is large. Most languages have just a few cases if either (We Finns are odd.). You have decided how your cases function? Especially, what does oblique do? On the other hand, Altaic affection can couse them.
...head-initial languages form new words with their heads first as well. Or do they put the modifier first as in English?
What do you mean with modifier in word formation? Combounds like "car crash"?
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
cantrip
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Posts: 12
Joined: 03 Oct 2011 00:03

Re: Shuran (WIP)

Post by cantrip »

You have three unrounded, closed vowels. It is possible, but your vowel inventory is rather small for such a distinction.
I was wondering about that. I was thinking about making a 5-vowel system with /ɨ/ as an allophone of /ɯ/ and /ə/ with /a/ as well.
Especially, what does oblique do?
The oblique is like "concerning" in English, marking an argument that isn't the dative, but more distant:

I gave the car to Mike, concerning Susie

But I've had thoughts about scrapping that case and turning the language into topic-comment.
What do you mean with modifier in word formation? Combounds like "car crash"?
Compund words like "sunglasses". Would it be "sunglasses" or "glassessun"?
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