some universals in languages?

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k1234567890y
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some universals in languages?

Post by k1234567890y »

It seems that the following statements might be universal to all human languages:

- all languages have plosives
- all languages have coronal consonants
- all languages have at least three places of articulation
- all languages apply at least a binary distinction on some features other than the place of articulation(like in voiced-ness, manner of articulation, etc.) for its consonant system.
- all languages have open or near-open vowels, it is said that the Chadic language Mofu-Gudur can be analysed as having no phonemic vowels at all, however, some other analysis still say that Mofu-Gudur has three vowels( http://memim.com/mofu-gudur-language.html ).

How do you think of this?
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Zythros Jubi
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by Zythros Jubi »

Well, Arapaho language has no open/near-open vowels.
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by k1234567890y »

Zythros Jubi wrote:Well, Arapaho language has no open/near-open vowels.
ok I am wrong, thanks for your opinion (:
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Adarain
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by Adarain »

This is a pretty useless comment, I know, but all of those universals fail for sign languages.
At kveldi skal dag lęyfa,
Konu es bręnnd es,
Mæki es ręyndr es,
Męy es gefin es,
Ís es yfir kømr,
Ǫl es drukkit es.
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k1234567890y
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by k1234567890y »

Adarain wrote:This is a pretty useless comment, I know, but all of those universals fail for sign languages.
thank you for your opinion XD

maybe I should say "all spoken human languages".
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KaiTheHomoSapien
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by KaiTheHomoSapien »

k1234567890y wrote:
Zythros Jubi wrote:Well, Arapaho language has no open/near-open vowels.
ok I am wrong, thanks for your opinion (:
Yeah, on the Arapaho article, it says that 98% of the world's languages have low/open vowels. I'd be interested to see what the other examples are...
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jlamonta
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by jlamonta »

Based on PBase (http://pbase.phon.chass.ncsu.edu/query_inventory) and including /æ/ and /ɐ/ as low, there's Agarabi, Usarufa and Waffa. It's worth noting that all three have schwas and mid vowels (/e o/), though. You'd predict a low vowel is probably realised as an allophone, just that a low vowel wasn't used to classify the phoneme.

EDIT: Note that the PBase is based on 629 languages, so this isn't meant to be an exhaustive list!
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by Zythros Jubi »

It is noteworthy that all these four languages contain "a"s in their names. [xD]
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by gach »

I'd like to see the reasoning behind those analyses. If you go by the SIL phonology statements, all the three languages have the standard five vowel system, reported as /ɑ e i o u/:

Agarabi - http://www-01.sil.org/pacific/png/abstr ... 8474542448
Usarufa - http://www-01.sil.org/pacific/png/abstr ... 8474542230
Waffa - http://www-01.sil.org/pacific/png/abstr ... 8474542294
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by jlamonta »

On one hand, odd to have the discrepancy (I haven't checked the PBase citation, but it seems to be one article each). On the other hand, the five-vowel system would be less surprising! I was expecting to see something about how reduction works or something like that, but it isn't noted (at least for Agarabi, and tone assignment doesn't suggest the low vowel can't host a tone or something like that, which could have been used as an odd argument to say it's a schwa).
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k1234567890y
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by k1234567890y »

Zythros Jubi wrote:Well, Arapaho language has no open/near-open vowels.
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~cdicanio/p ... s_talk.pdf

sorry for saying, but I found this, and in the seventh page pf this pdf file, it states that the long vowel version of /ɛ/ is pronunced as [æ:] in Arapaho, so maybe what I have said is still right, although it is in surface level?
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by Chagen »

In all honesty, the only real truly phonological universals I can come up with are:

-Every language has at least two POA's

-All languages have stops

-All languages have at least one consonant and one vowel*

*: Not so sure about this, I know there are some North American languages which can be viewed as having no vowels, I think?
Nūdenku waga honji ma naku honyasi ne ika-ika ichamase!
female-appearance=despite boy-voice=PAT hold boy-youth=TOP very be.cute-3PL
Honyasi zō honyasi ma naidasu.
boy-youth=AGT boy-youth=PAT love.romantically-3S
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k1234567890y
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by k1234567890y »

Chagen wrote:In all honesty, the only real truly phonological universals I can come up with are:

-Every language has at least two POA's

-All languages have stops

-All languages have at least one consonant and one vowel*

*: Not so sure about this, I know there are some North American languages which can be viewed as having no vowels, I think?
ok (:

Different analyses of a language can bring different results, some languages can be analyzed as having no underlying vowels under some analyses.
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Re: some universals in languages?

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Zythros Jubi
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by Zythros Jubi »

Kinda similar to WALS?
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by k1234567890y »

Zythros Jubi wrote:Kinda similar to WALS?
you can say so, as both of which are databases (:
Aszev wrote:Have you seen this? http://typo.uni-konstanz.de/archive/intro/
actually, I have...maybe what I have said are listed in?
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by HoskhMatriarch »

Oh, I would be careful the the Uni Konstanz database because one of the universals is basically just phrenology, and a lot of the others aren't completely bonkers but aren't absolutely true univerals either. I think there is one universal for all spoken human languages:

- All spoken human languages involve sounds coming out of the mouth

I've seen some papers where people find languages that break basically all of the grammatical universals, and I've seen pretty much all the phonological ones broken as well. I'm not even going to say something like "all languages have words" because sometimes it's really unclear where word boundaries are, and if Nuxálk doesn't have syllables, then I'm sure there are languages without words.
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Wario Toad 32
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by Wario Toad 32 »

Really. All Langs must have plosives? What about if a Conlang have Fricatives and No Plosives?
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Dormouse559
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Re: some universals in languages?

Post by Dormouse559 »

These universals are only meant to apply to natural languages. Conlangs have no restrictions, at least none that their creators don't choose to impose on them.
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