(Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]

[Ralph]

Regarding the system you did propose in your original post, having another look at it I'm wondering whether suffixing different vowels is quite 'ablaut'. At least, it's not really ablaut of the root as it's the suffix that's ablauting, if you see what I mean?

Edit: On the other hand, it just occurred to me that that is a purely terminological issue. The general scheme given in the post looks good as far as I can see.

[Chagen]

Actually, you're right...argh, I'd love to do an ablaut system but that would be absolute hell to remember. I did literally make up that system on the spot, though.

[ian9113]

I need to figure out how I'm going to handle stress in Minten... up to this point I have been considering first-syllable stress, but recently I considered final-syllable... is it possible to have no stress? How might this affect the morphology? Is there any relationship between morphology (e.g. whether the lang is isolating or agglutinative, favors suffixes or prefixes, etc.) and syllable stress?

[Ralph]

As far as I'm aware, you can have no stress, but usually there'd be something like tones or a pitch accent instead.

I'm not aware of any correlation between stress and different morphological typology myself.

[Omzinesý]

I need to figure out how I'm going to handle stress in Minten... up to this point I have been considering first-syllable stress, but recently I considered final-syllable... is it possible to have no stress? How might this affect the morphology? Is there any relationship between morphology (e.g. whether the lang is isolating or agglutinative, favors suffixes or prefixes, etc.) and syllable stress?

It's said that some languages (e.g. Georgian) have no stress, but that's controversial. If your language has only mono-syllabic words, it doesn't, of course, have stress. Many languages like that use clausal/constituental intonation contours instead.

Un stressed syllables are easier reduced, so if you have final stressing, it may be that suffixes are not reduced so easily, but that's more like a diachronical tendency than a correlation between morphology and phonology.

There are affixes that are 'stress-neutral' so they do not affect stressing.

[Xing]

I've been WALS'ing a little tonight. It seems - as my suspicion suggested - that among the two "common" stress patterns - initial and penultimate, initial stress is a little more common among OV languages, and penultimate a little more common among VO languages.

This is only a very slight tendency. It could be the result of chance. But perhaps one explanation could be, that OV languages often are heavily suffixing (and that affixes generally tend to be less stressed than roots).

[ian9113]

Thanks for the responses. It is interesting, I think sometimes that whatever syllables in a word carry the most semantic meaning would be most likely to be stressed... does this make sense?

In any case, Minten has much more suffixing than prefixing. It is also very ablaut-ing, and many changes in root meanings occur only in the first syllable. So I'm thinking that it would be tending towards initial stress. The few prefixes it does have would probably be 'stress-neutral.'

[Ralph]

Does anyone have an opinion on how plausible the following set of sound changes are:

z > ɣ
s > x
dz > z
ts > s

[Click]

Does anyone have an opinion on how plausible the following set of sound changes are:

z > ɣ
s > x
dz > z
ts > s

The first two changes feel odd to me, but not impossible (Irish did ð → ɣ).
The latter two are perfectly fine.

Are the sound changes below plausible?

Cja Cje Cji Cjo Cju → Cæ Ce Ci Cø Cy
Cʲa Cʲe Cʲi Cʲo Cʲu → Cja Cje Cji Cjo Cju
{a(ː)w e(ː)w o(ː)j} {i(ː)w u(ː)j} {a(ː)w o(ː)w u(ː)w} {a(ː)j e(ː)j} i(ː)j → ø(ː)ʏ̯ y(ː) o(ː)ʊ̯ e(ː)ɪ̯ iː / [+stress]
{a(ː)w e(ː)w i(ː)w o(ː)j u(ː)j} {a(ː)w o(ː)w u(ː)w} {a(ː)j e(ː)j i(ː)j} → ʏ ʊ ɪ / [-stress]
y(ː) ø(ː)ʏ̯ ø(ː) ʏ → u(ː) o(ː)ʊ̯ o(ː) ʊ
a(ː)f e(ː)f i(ː)f o(ː)f u(ː)f → a(ː)ɸ e(ː)ɸ i(ː)ɸ o(ː)ɸ u(ː)ɸ
a(ː)ɸ e(ː)ɸ i(ː)ɸ o(ː)ɸ u(ː)ɸ → a(ː)ʊ̯ e(ː)ʊ̯ i(ː)ʊ̯ o(ː)ʊ̯ u(ː)ʊ̯
u(ː)ʊ̯ → uː
C₁V[-stress]C₂ → C₂C₁ / V_V
v ʒ {ð ɣ x} → ʋ j Ø
ʔ → ŋ
ŋ → m /_V[+round]
ŋ → j /_V[+front]*
ŋ → n

*No front rounded vowels.

[eldin raigmore]

I've been WALS'ing a little tonight. It seems - as my suspicion suggested - that among the two "common" stress patterns - initial and penultimate, initial stress is a little more common among OV languages, and penultimate a little more common among VO languages.
This is only a very slight tendency. It could be the result of chance. But perhaps one explanation could be, that OV languages often are heavily suffixing (and that affixes generally tend to be less stressed than roots).

Well, I looked at the map.
Here's what I noticed:

• Languages in general seem to be concentrated in New Guinea.
• Languages with "no dominant order" seem to miss New Guinea completely.
• Languages with any kind of fixed stress -- whether first or second or third, or ultimate or penultimate or antepenultimate -- also seem to miss New Guinea completely.

I have no theory to explain any of that.

But a look at this map shows that New Guinea has "no fixed stress", "first", "second", "ultimate", "penultimate", and "antepenultimate".

And a look at this map shows two "no dominant order" languages in New Guinea.

So it's just that for some reason not both features 14A and 83A were collected for any languages of New Guinea that have fixed stress.

You also ought to look at http://wals.info/feature/combined/15A/83A (15A is weight-sensitive stress).
Left-edge (first or second) tend to significantly be OV rather than VO.
Unbounded (stress can be anywhere) tend to be OV rather than VO.
"Not Predictable" also tend to be OV rather than VO.

Right-edge (ultimate or penultimate) tend to significantly be VO rather than OV.
Fixed-stress (no weight sensitivity) tend to be significantly VO rather than OV.

Right-oriented (one of the last three), OTOH, seem to be just as likely to be OV as VO.

Left-oriented (one of the first three), and combined (right-edge and unbounded), don't show up often enough to make a significant comparison.

No-dominant-order (neither OV nor VO) seem to mostly be either fixed stress or unbounded weight-sensitive stress.
VO seem to mostly be either fixed-stress, right-edge, or unbounded.
OV seem to mostly be either fixed-stress, unbounded, or left-edge; but "not predictable" and "right-edge", taken together, are about as frequent as "unbounded" among OV languages.

In http://wals.info/feature/combined/14A/83A, more than half of the "no dominant order" languages are no-fixed-stress, and more than a third are either penultimate or initial.
The VO languages are about 40% no-fixed-stress, about 27% penultimate, about 17% initial, and about 10% ultimate.
The OV languages are about 49% no-fixed-stress, about 25% initial, about 11% penultimate, and about 11% ultimate.

It does not look like knowing a language's order-type is helpful or necessary in predicting its stress-type. If you're looking for what kind of weight-sensitive stress it has the answer is probably "it doesn't have weight-sensitive stress", but if you're looking for what kind of fixed-stress system it has the answer is probably "it doesn't have fixed stress". And that's true whether it's OV or VO or "no-dominant-order". That's kind of a "it's not my department" type of runaround. I'd suggest someone of us write to the authors of those features and point that out. Since 14A and 15A were written by one set and 83A was written by another set they may not be able to answer. Ask anyway.

But if you're trying to use the stress-type to predict the order-type the answers are different. If it has fixed stress and it's first or second or third it's probably OV, while if it has fixed stress and it's ultimate or penultimate or antepenultimate it's probably VO. And if it has weight-sensitive stress and is left-edge, left-oriented, unbounded, or not predictable, it's probably OV; while if it's weight-sensitive and right-edge it's probably VO. If it's right-oriented instead of right-edge (that is, maybe it's the antepenultimate syllable, or maybe one of the last two syllables), then it could just as likely be OV as VO.

[Micamo]

Another interesting tidbit:

As we can see here, ergative case marking is dispreferred over nominative or neutral case marking in both OV and VO languages. But for whatever reason, the aversion to ergative case is much stronger in VO langs.

Yet, as can be seen here, this difference in preference disappears when we consider verb agreement rather than case marking.

Why is this?

[eldin raigmore]

Another interesting tidbit:
As we can see here, ergative case marking is dispreferred over nominative or neutral case marking in both OV and VO languages. But for whatever reason, the aversion to ergative case is much stronger in VO langs.
Yet, as can be seen here, this difference in preference disappears when we consider verb agreement rather than case marking.
Why is this?

Is there any likelihood that the answer is "because Bernard Comrie wrote 98A but Anna Siewierska wrote 100A"?
That's the usual explanation for why there are discrepancies is U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

[cybrxkhan]

How likely/naturalistic would it be to have a language based on quadconsonantal roots, as opposed to triconsonantal roots or none of that? And how likely/naturalistic would it be to have a language that has relatively even amounts of quadconsonantal and triconsonantal roots?

[wintiver]

How likely/naturalistic would it be to have a language based on quadconsonantal roots, as opposed to triconsonantal roots or none of that? And how likely/naturalistic would it be to have a language that has relatively even amounts of quadconsonantal and triconsonantal roots?

I always wondered why triconsonantal roots existed in lieu of biconsonantal roots. I suppose though, that having a quadriconsonatal system could've evolved. Perhaps if some language had a biconsonatal system with some sort of allowance for compounding and then over time with semantic drift the quadriconsontal system could be established. Just an idea.

[wintiver]

So I'm trying to come up with a con-conlang of sorts. I was trying to justify a language which has a large inventory of phonemes but a restricted syllable structure. The number of phonemes was going to verge on Ubykh-sized.

My thought was that some sort of constructed language was established by some monks. This language was an attempt to incorporate many sounds into one language to approximate the Infinite Speech they believed their God to be capable of speaking. Ostensibly it's an internally constructed liturgical language spoken by monks which I hope in time to have catch on as a sort of lingua franca for the educated of the vicinity.

I was wondering what anyone's thoughts are on the concept at least.

[eldin raigmore]

So I'm trying to come up with a con-conlang of sorts. I was trying to justify a language which has a large inventory of phonemes but a restricted syllable structure. The number of phonemes was going to verge on Ubykh-sized.

My thought was that some sort of constructed language was established by some monks. This language was an attempt to incorporate many sounds into one language to approximate the Infinite Speech they believed their God to be capable of speaking. Ostensibly it's an internally constructed liturgical language spoken by monks which I hope in time to have catch on as a sort of lingua franca for the educated of the vicinity.

I was wondering what anyone's thoughts are on the concept at least.

(1) Go for it.
(2) Better you than me.

[Shemtov]

Is it too unaturalistic too have pharyngealized consonants with out a voiced pharyngeal fricative?
A

[Iron]

How likely/naturalistic would it be to have a language based on quadconsonantal roots, as opposed to triconsonantal roots or none of that? And how likely/naturalistic would it be to have a language that has relatively even amounts of quadconsonantal and triconsonantal roots?

It would be natural for a triconsonantal root language to use at least quadconsonantal roots, and even more so if its speakers deal with speakers of languages without these kind of system (which would be kinda similar to how Akkadian evolved next to Sumerian, but seeing as Sumerian was a language that focused on mostly single syllable words...). Hebrew does this a lot.

[DesEsseintes]

How likely/naturalistic would it be to have a language based on quadconsonantal roots, as opposed to triconsonantal roots or none of that? And how likely/naturalistic would it be to have a language that has relatively even amounts of quadconsonantal and triconsonantal roots?

I should think it rather depended on the size of your phoneme inventory. A language with a large number of consonants could get by more easily with just triconsonantal roots, while a language with fewer phonemes would have to rely more on quadriliteral roots to create a rich vocabulary. It would also probably depend on how productive the derivational morphology of the language is. Arabic can sometimes create dozens (perhaps hundreds?) of words from a single root, while a language that didn't have such a productive derivational system might need more roots.

Casting logical reasoning aside, I love languages with long words. Go for quadriconsonantal!

[cybrxkhan]

Thanks for the input all. I think I'll go for mainly Triconsonantal but with a good number of Quadconsonantal and Biconsonantal (at least in comparison with natlangs), so something like a 50/25/25 split.