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

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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by shimobaatar »

Oneiros K wrote: 09 Mar 2018 13:31 Is sh zh → ʃ ʒ plausible?
I mean, there are some strange sound changes out there, and someone more knowledgeable than I might come along and say otherwise, but I don't think so. I don't know why /ʃ/ is written as <sh> in English, but I'm pretty sure it's not because it came from a cluster of /sh/. Then again, maybe I'm wrong.

Anyway, I would have /sh zh/ > /h s/ personally.
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Post by esoanem »

English /ʃ/ developed from /sk/ in Old English (although in Northumbrian it was sometimes preserved, apparently under Norse influence).
My pronouns are they/them/their

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Post by Pabappa »

I believe modern Dutch has /sx/ for German /š/, which indicates one possible path you could take, even if it was not quite the same path that German took, since x ----> š is easy to justify.

But even so , I'm going to label this ❎unlikely if your/ h/ is a true h... A cluster of /h/ and /s/ in either direction is highly likely to behave as a variety of s, unless there is an independent process of fortition which brings the h to something like [x] or [X] beforehand.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Dormouse559 »

cedh wrote: 09 Mar 2018 11:55An idea: Both of these numerals had not just one but two consonants after the stressed syllable in Latin, so I could easily imagine that your usual allophony rule for word-final vowels before a nasal-initial word in the same phrase would be blocked in this situation, probably keeping the vowels distinct. If you don't like to decree that offhand, you could also check what your sound changes would give if you treat {number + noun_with_initial_nasal} as a single word.
Ah, but there's the rub. I didn't mention it because I didn't want to get too into the weeds initially, but attributive numbers are treated as part of the noun they modify. Through a series of steps, that fact leads to the current predicament.

To lay it all out: Those Latin consonants cause the initial consonant of the noun to geminate precisely because of the phonological linkage. You get nasalization because geminate consonants take up a slot in the syllable coda, and coda nasal consonants nasalize the preceding vowel. Then, because of extensive mergers in nasal vowels, and end up with the same vowel. Hmm, I hadn't thought about how long that chain of logic is; hopefully that was clear.

Jackk wrote: 09 Mar 2018 12:30Alternatively, French irregularly revived final -t in the word sept "seven" after it was dropped, probably for reasons of clarity like this.
I'm guessing the /t/ came from the prevocalic form. Though, that is something. Prevocalically, becomes [siːz]. Perhaps I'll just extend the long vowel across all forms. That also blocks the gemination and nasalization I mentioned above.
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Post by vo1dwalk3r »

Quick question. Ȧbhannı marks neither person nor number on the verb and I want to keep it that way. These things seem to be, in my experience, almost ubiquitous for very synthesizing natlangs. I'm just curious, how synthesizing can natlangs get while lacking both of these markings?
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Post by sangi39 »

vo1dwalk3r wrote: 15 Mar 2018 05:43 Quick question. Ȧbhannı marks neither person nor number on the verb and I want to keep it that way. These things seem to be, in my experience, almost ubiquitous for very synthesizing natlangs. I'm just curious, how synthesizing can natlangs get while lacking both of these markings?
Japanese seems to do quite well, marking neither number nor person, but marking things like voice, perfectivity/tense, negativity and mood, IIRC.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Ælfwine »

Below is a list of initial consonant mutations in Mannish, my Irishified Germlang. For the most part, I've copied Irish's initial mutations, but changed the alveolars slightly to include dental fricatives (mostly so I could have <ð> initially):

Code: Select all

Radical	Lenition	Eclipsis
-------------------------------------
pˠ	fˠ		bˠ
pʲ	fʲ		bʲ
t̪ˠ	θˠ		d̪ˠ
tʲ	θʲ		dʲ
k	x		g
c	ç		ɟ
bˠ	w		mˠ
bʲ	vʲ		mʲ
d̪ˠ	ðˠ		nˠ
dʲ	ðʲ		nʲ
g	ɣ		ŋ
ɟ	j		ɲ
I want to know though, would palatalized dentals under lenition remain as dentals or shift to something else? I'm thinking /ðʲ/ for example could shift to either /zʲ/ or simply become /j/. In Irish they go to the latter, but in Mannish /d̪ˠ/ goes to /ðˠ/ instead of /ɣ/.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by sangi39 »

Ælfwine wrote: 15 Mar 2018 21:06 I want to know though, would palatalized dentals under lenition remain as dentals or shift to something else? I'm thinking /ðʲ/ for example could shift to either /zʲ/ or simply become /j/. In Irish they go to the latter, but in Mannish /d̪ˠ/ goes to /ðˠ/ instead of /ɣ/.
Which one came first, palatalisation or lenition?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Ælfwine »

sangi39 wrote: 15 Mar 2018 21:15
Ælfwine wrote: 15 Mar 2018 21:06 I want to know though, would palatalized dentals under lenition remain as dentals or shift to something else? I'm thinking /ðʲ/ for example could shift to either /zʲ/ or simply become /j/. In Irish they go to the latter, but in Mannish /d̪ˠ/ goes to /ðˠ/ instead of /ɣ/.
Which one came first, palatalisation or lenition?
Good question. I think the conlang would've adopted palatalization before lenition.

It sort of goes like this:
—consonants become palatalized before front, unrounded vowels
—lenition occurs across word borders
—unstressed vowels turn to schwa and rounded vowels deround, grammaticalizing palatalization (although I've yet to figure out a way for lenition to be grammaticalized — I might end up deleting schwa)
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by sangi39 »

Hmmmm, I assume the palatalised dental is apical, as opposed to the velarised laminal dental stop (which makes sense to shift to [θ], with a similar shift occurring in Spanish dialects). I could easily see palatalised stops becoming [sʲ zʲ] under lenition instead.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Ælfwine »

That's what I was thinking too. Thanks.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by sangi39 »

Ælfwine wrote: 15 Mar 2018 21:31 That's what I was thinking too. Thanks.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

Lenition, per se, shouldn't change the POA.

However, if you end up with something like a dental voiced non-sibilant palatalised fricative... that's a really unstable sound, and could very easily shift (or merge) in all sorts of ways.
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Post by Parlox »

Is word order encoding causativity attested/naturalistic? Even further, what can be encoded by word order(besides voice)?
:con: Gândölansch (Gondolan)Feongkrwe (Feongrkean)Tamhanddön (Tamanthon)Θανηλοξαμαψⱶ (Thanelotic)Yônjcerth (Yaponese)Ba̧supan (Basupan)Mùthoķán (Mothaucian) :con:
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Post by clawgrip »

questions, transitivity, animacy, volition, focus shifting, topicalization, pragmatic functions, for example.
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Post by Salmoneus »

clawgrip wrote: 19 Mar 2018 05:08 questions, transitivity, animacy, volition, focus shifting, topicalization, pragmatic functions, for example.
Do you have examples for animacy? Not doubting you, just not familiar with that, I don't think.
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Post by Davush »

How do you all organise your lexicons? Do you memorise words as you go along or make a conscious effort to learn vocabulary in your conlang? Do you look up words in a lexicon when creating examples or translating? I am finding this quite frustrating as I will often forget words, or forget I have created a word, and end up with 5 synonymous or near-synonymous words. ((This can sometimes be a good thing for adding quirky nuances, though). I also don't have the time/energy to actually 'learn' my conlangs, which makes creating examples using more than 10 core words laborious. I find Excel depressing and dull, but it is probably the most efficient way of managing a lexicon. Does anybody use any other programs/methods?
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Post by Reyzadren »

Davush wrote: 21 Mar 2018 18:48 How do you all organise your lexicons? Do you memorise words as you go along or make a conscious effort to learn vocabulary in your conlang? Do you look up words in a lexicon when creating examples or translating? I am finding this quite frustrating as I will often forget words, or forget I have created a word, and end up with 5 synonymous or near-synonymous words. ((This can sometimes be a good thing for adding quirky nuances, though). I also don't have the time/energy to actually 'learn' my conlangs, which makes creating examples using more than 10 core words laborious. I find Excel depressing and dull, but it is probably the most efficient way of managing a lexicon. Does anybody use any other programs/methods?
I just put words into the vocabulary list by chapter in my conlang test prep with OpenOffice Writer word processor and a simple textfile for counter-check.

I can already read most things in griuskant, so I rarely refer to that list as I translated many books. Also, I don't need to "learn" it because I already know everything about its mechanics (barring grammar gaps, which almost never occur anymore).
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Pabappa »

I tend to make sample sentences only of nouns I'm familiar with. I know that I haven't memorized the entire lexicon of even my smaller conlangs like Khulls (~400 words), and I likely never will. But I've memorized the entire diachronic history of most of them, and so given any proto-form I can derive it down any of several paths through 12000 years of sound changes. I consider that to be a great time-saver, since it would be quite a chore if I had to spend 5 minutes just to add one new word to a dictionary.

I've also memorized the morphology of Pabappa, which is fairly simple, and much of Poswa's, which is extremely complex.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Parlox »

In my conlang Manchi, stops have a five way distinction. Voiceless, voiced, voiceless aspirated, breathy voice stops, and prenasalised stops. How realistic is this, and what should i change?
:con: Gândölansch (Gondolan)Feongkrwe (Feongrkean)Tamhanddön (Tamanthon)Θανηλοξαμαψⱶ (Thanelotic)Yônjcerth (Yaponese)Ba̧supan (Basupan)Mùthoķán (Mothaucian) :con:
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