Pʼṇdheh - A Boehijtian Speedlang

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Boehijt
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Pʼṇdheh - A Boehijtian Speedlang

Post by Boehijt »

Pʼṇdheh - A Boehijtian Speedlang

After DesEsseintes posted his own speedlang thread, I decided to start one as well. This is going to be the first time I post a conlang of mine on the forums. [:D]

This speedlang will be part of a language family spoken near the speakers of my main project, the 2xthe language (still unnamed), but entirely different. More details about the conworld will be discussed in the thread later on.
I will be using the language to play around with some ideas I have for my aforementioned language. The language will likely be lightly agglutinative/synthetic, but I’ll see how it will all wind up.

Phonology

Consonants

/p pʼ b ɓ t tʼ d ɗ ts tsʼ tʃ tʃʼ k kʼ/ p pʼ b bh t tʼ d dh ts tsʼ x xʼ k kʼ
/s h/ s h
/n r/ n r

The Pʼṇdheh phonology contains 20 consonants. The realisation of /r/ is not yet decided. There will likely be some dialects that have [j] for /r/.

Vowels

/i e o ɛ ɑ/ i e o ě a
/s̩ n̩ r̩/ ṣ ṇ ṛ

There are 5 vowels and 3 syllabic consonants. The syllabic consonants are not permitted in syllables with coda /h/. Like with /r/, I’m not yet sure about the exact realisation of /r̩/. I might add some long vowels and some diphthongs (I’m thinking of ao eo), but I’m not sure. Thoughts?

Some sample words

Here are some sample words to give an idea of how the language will look.

sṇxta
pʼṇdheh
bhitʼkʼi
xah
kʼi
otsʼohkeh
ṛsih
ohdhe
tso
ěrṣtsʼěh
hixʼna

Next up: phonotactics.
Boehijt
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Re: Pʼṇdheh - A Boehijtian Speedlang

Post by Boehijt »

Phonotactics

Pʼṇdheh phonotactics are rather simple. The basic syllable structure is C(C)V(C).

The permitted onset clusters are limited to:
- Clusters of two similar stops, i.e. two stops that agree in phonation. Clusters of two implosivesaren’t allowed.
- Clusters of a voiceless or ejective stop + s or n.

Both regular vowels and syllabic consonants count as vowels in the basic syllable structure.

The allowed coda consonants are /s h n r/. Syllables containing a syllabic consonant do not allow coda /h/. Furthermore, syllables containing syllabic consonants do not allow the non-syllabic version of the consonant in the coda position (syllables like pṣs aren’t allowed, but pṣn is).

Allophony

I am not sure about any allophony in this lang, but I have some ideas:

- /h/ could turn into [f] f before /o/
- In coda positions, /r/ might be pronounced as [ɑ̯], causing some phonetic diphthongs to appear
- Something might happen to the implosives? I am not certain if sequences like [ɓn̩] are stable
- In stressed syllables, /o/ might get raised to (I’m fairly positive I’ll implement this, but I have to get some ideas about stress first)
- After /r r̩/, /s/ might get realised as [ʃ] sh

I'm curious to hear what you guys think. [:)]
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Egerius
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Re: Pʼṇdheh - A Boehijtian Speedlang

Post by Egerius »

I'm not particularly interested in speedlangs, but yours sort of reminds me of African languages because of the implosives. :wat:
Languages of Rodentèrra: Buonavallese, Saselvan Argemontese; Wīlandisċ Taulkeisch; More on the road.
Conlang embryo of TELES: Proto-Avesto-Umbric ~> Proto-Umbric
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Re: Pʼṇdheh - A Boehijtian Speedlang

Post by DesEsseintes »

Yay! More speedlangs! [:D]

Speedlanging is good for the soul and should be encouraged, in between working on more serious projects.

I love the syllabic sonorants, and the fact that you have three of them, all quite different.

I've ticked your list:
Boehijt wrote:- /h/ could turn into [f] f before /o/ [cross]
- In coda positions, /r/ might be pronounced as [ɑ̯], causing some phonetic diphthongs to appear [tick]
- Something might happen to the implosives? I am not certain if sequences like [ɓn̩] are stable
- In stressed syllables, /o/ might get raised to (I’m fairly positive I’ll implement this, but I have to get some ideas about stress first) [tick]
- After /r r̩/, /s/ might get realised as [ʃ] sh [tick]

I have no suggestions for the implosives, cause I'm useless at those.

Looking forward to more! :mrgreen:
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Re: Pʼṇdheh - A Boehijtian Speedlang

Post by GrandPiano »

Are syllabic voiceless fricatives attested in any natlangs? Not saying it's a bad idea, just wondering.
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Re: Pʼṇdheh - A Boehijtian Speedlang

Post by MrKrov »

Yes, of course?
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DesEsseintes
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Re: Pʼṇdheh - A Boehijtian Speedlang

Post by DesEsseintes »

GrandPiano wrote:Are syllabic voiceless fricatives attested in any natlangs? Not saying it's a bad idea, just wondering.
Yes. Blackfoot is one example.
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Re: Pʼṇdheh - A Boehijtian Speedlang

Post by GrandPiano »

Which ones? I've never heard of it. (The closest I know of is Mandarin's syllabic voiced fricatives)
Edit: Ninja'd. So, why an answer like "Yes, of course?"? It seems like a relatively uncommon feature, and Wikipedia actually doesn't say anything about Blackfoot's alleged syllabic voiceless fricatives (not saying Blackfoot doesn't have them, just that Wikipedia doesn't say anything about it).
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Re: Pʼṇdheh - A Boehijtian Speedlang

Post by DesEsseintes »

Blackfoot has [s̩] which is largely an allophone of /i/ from Proto-Algonquian *i. (Blackfoot /i/ from PA *a *e generally does not surface as [s̩].)

Yay! An excuse to wax on about Blackfoot...

Blackfoot Blackfoot Blackfoot Blackfoot Blackfoot Blackfoot Blackfoot Blackfoot
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Re: Pʼṇdheh - A Boehijtian Speedlang

Post by MrKrov »

Miyako dialects like Ogami and languages in the Pacific Northwest like Nuxalk come to mind.
[:S]
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Re: Pʼṇdheh - A Boehijtian Speedlang

Post by Boehijt »

Hi guys, I’ve been neglecting this thread a bit so now it’s time to post again.
DesEsseintes wrote: I've ticked your list:
Boehijt wrote:- /h/ could turn into [f] f before /o/ [cross]
- In coda positions, /r/ might be pronounced as [ɑ̯], causing some phonetic diphthongs to appear [tick]
- Something might happen to the implosives? I am not certain if sequences like [ɓn̩] are stable
- In stressed syllables, /o/ might get raised to (I’m fairly positive I’ll implement this, but I have to get some ideas about stress first) [tick]
- After /r r̩/, /s/ might get realised as [ʃ] sh [tick]

Looking forward to more! :mrgreen:


Thanks for the feedback! I have decided that I am going to implement the three suggestion you ticked. After some advice from Micamo I think I'll keep the implosive + syllabic resonant combinations the way they are.

Phonology additions

During my absence from this thread I have decided to make a few edits to the phonology:

I've decided to add the diphthongs /ao̯ ɛo̯/ ao eo and I’ve removed /e/ so now /ɛ/ is spelled as e. This leaves the vowel inventory as /i o ɛ ɑ ao̯ ɛo̯/ i o e a ao eo.

Also I have decided to give Pʼṇdheh a cute little pitch accent. For now I won’t tell too much about it but stressed syllables can either have low or high pitch. Syllables with a coda /h/ can’t have high pitch and the pitch will be lowered in such cases. This will have some effects on certain verb forms later on in this post.

Furthermore, there can only be one ejective or implosive in one word now. There will be some exceptions (otherwise the language name would be invalid) but I’ll get to those later.

Basic verb ideas

Pʼṇdheh verb morphology is going to be rather limited.

Verb stems come in two varieties: consonant-final and vowel-final. Vowel-final can also mean that the verb stem ends on a syllabic consonant.
The vowel-final stems are a lot more numerous than the consonant-final stems and I’ll take a look at them in this post.

Person marking will be done by the following basic suffixes:

Code: Select all

1	-sa	
2	-bha	
3	-h	
Some comments about these suffixes:

- Stems ending on ṣ will not get the first person suffix -sa because ṣs sequences are not permitted, instead the form -a gets used.
- Likewise, stems ending on any syllabic consonant will reject the third person suffix -h, but the low pitch caused by the -h suffix will remain. Syllables already having low pitch don’t get their pitch changed upon the addition of the -h suffix.
- Because of the new rule that only allows either one implosive or one ejective in a word, the second person suffix -bha will have an allomorph -ba for stems that already contain an ejective or an implosive.

Here is a small example paradigm for one of the vowel-final stems:

tsʼṇ́ - to speak

tsʼṇ́sa - I speak
tsʼṇ́ba - you speak
tsʼṇ - he speaks

Note the low pitch caused by the seemingly absent -h suffix in the third person, and the -ba allomorph in the second person caused by the /tsʼ/ in the stem.

I’ll take a look at the consonant-final stems later.
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Re: Pʼṇdheh - A Boehijtian Speedlang

Post by shimobaatar »

Boehijt wrote:This is going to be the first time I post a conlang of mine on the forums. [:D]
And hopefully not the last!
Boehijt wrote: This speedlang will be part of a language family spoken near the speakers of my main project, the 2xthe language (still unnamed), but entirely different. More details about the conworld will be discussed in the thread later on.
I will be using the language to play around with some ideas I have for my aforementioned language. The language will likely be lightly agglutinative/synthetic, but I’ll see how it will all wind up.
Sounds interesting so far. I like the look of the phonology as a whole.
Boehijt wrote: Pʼṇdheh verb morphology is going to be rather limited.

Verb stems come in two varieties: consonant-final and vowel-final. Vowel-final can also mean that the verb stem ends on a syllabic consonant.
The vowel-final stems are a lot more numerous than the consonant-final stems and I’ll take a look at them in this post.

Person marking will be done by the following basic suffixes:

Code: Select all

1	-sa	
2	-bha	
3	-h	
Some comments about these suffixes:

- Stems ending on ṣ will not get the first person suffix -sa because ṣs sequences are not permitted, instead the form -a gets used.
- Likewise, stems ending on any syllabic consonant will reject the third person suffix -h, but the low pitch caused by the -h suffix will remain. Syllables already having low pitch don’t get their pitch changed upon the addition of the -h suffix.
- Because of the new rule that only allows either one implosive or one ejective in a word, the second person suffix -bha will have an allomorph -ba for stems that already contain an ejective or an implosive.

Here is a small example paradigm for one of the vowel-final stems:

tsʼṇ́ - to speak

tsʼṇ́sa - I speak
tsʼṇ́ba - you speak
tsʼṇ - he speaks

Note the low pitch caused by the seemingly absent -h suffix in the third person, and the -ba allomorph in the second person caused by the /tsʼ/ in the stem.

I’ll take a look at the consonant-final stems later.
All very cool! So number isn't marked on verbs, at least not in terms of subject agreement?
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