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

[Omzinesý]

How naturalistic of a system would this be regarding ditransitive verbs?

If "X causes Y to go to Z", then indirect alignment (e.g. I-NOM throw a ball-ACC to you-DAT)
If "X causes Z to have Y", then secundative alignment (e.g. I-NOM give you-ACC a ball-INS)

And my language would, along with the standard nominative and accusative cases would also have distinct instrumental and dative cases.
Other types of situations might be difficult to decide, such as "I wrote you a letter" which I think logically could be either or.

Are you suggesting that verbs 'give' and 'being' were the same verbs with different argument markings?

Not a bad idea.

[Ahzoh]

I don't understand this distinction.

I go off of this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dative_sh ... hypothesis

And I make a distinction between verbs of caused possession and verbs of caused motion

[Ahzoh]

Does this look naturalistic? I'm just not sure there's a good logic case to syncretizing the instrumental and genitive like there is for the dative and genitive.
Should note that Vrkhazhian has secundative alignment (D=A=Nom, R=P=Acc, T=Ins), so the instrumental primarily represents the theme or secondary object of a ditransitive. In this way it's a counterpart to the dative.

[Omzinesý]

Dlor has (at the current state) four pitch-registers:
neutral/low tone, modal voice
high tone, modal voice
neutral/low tone, breathy voice
neutral/low tone, creaky voice

The root has one of the three but if the words has prefixes the pitch-register moves to the first syllable.

I have tried to keep the lang simple and prefixes do not have pitch-registers of their own, but if they did, how would the original pitch-register of the prefixes and the one that has moved from the root interact?
Do you happen to have fantastic ideas?

[Creyeditor]

In all kinds of ways:
They could dissimilate across one or both dimension, e.g. a high-pitch prefix could trigger an otherwise high-pitch root to become low-pitch.
They could assimilate across one or more dimensions, e.g. a high-pitch prefix could cause an otherwise low-pitch root to become high-pitched.
They could form a contour on either the root or the prefix, e.g. a high-pitch prefix could cause an otherwise low-pitch root to become falling-pitch.
Of course, the same could apply with creaky/breathy registers, though I don't know much about glottal contours.

[Ahzoh]

In all kinds of ways:
They could dissimilate across one or both dimension, e.g. a high-pitch prefix could trigger an otherwise high-pitch root to become low-pitch.
They could assimilate across one or more dimensions, e.g. a high-pitch prefix could cause an otherwise low-pitch root to become high-pitched.
They could form a contour on either the root or the prefix, e.g. a high-pitch prefix could cause an otherwise low-pitch root to become falling-pitch.
Of course, the same could apply with creaky/breathy registers, though I don't know much about glottal contours.

Hmm, I wonder if certain affixes can affect a words' accent pitch in a pitch-accent language.

[Creyeditor]

Yes

[Visions1]

Does this look naturalistic? I'm just not sure there's a good logic case to syncretizing the instrumental and genitive like there is for the dative and genitive.
Should note that Vrkhazhian has secundative alignment (D=A=Nom, R=P=Acc, T=Ins), so the instrumental primarily represents the theme or secondary object of a ditransitive. In this way it's a counterpart to the dative.

If the instrumental has a comitative function, you could make a case of it being genitive or reverse genitive ("the man is with a stick" = "Man-with stick" = "Man's stick"), though it'd probably take some engineering.

[Ahzoh]

Does this sound like a naturalistic prosody/syllable rule?

"If at least one heavy syllable precedes the final syllable, then that heavy syllable cannot be followed by more than one light syllable except if the second light syllable is also the final one"

I have a summary of examples of examples of how my language's prosody works (stress marked by acute). Acutes on long vowels might not render correctly.

1: Monosyllabic roots (singular and plural pairs)
a) ná-rum (mother)
b) na-rū́-ma
c) sū́-mas (soul, lifeforce)
d) sū-mā́-za
e) káb-bum (queen)
f) kab-bū́-ma
g) ma-zā́m (sea)
h) ma-zā́-ma

2: Polysyllabic roots (singular and plral pairs)
a) ku-rū́-śam (boat)
b) ku-rū-śā́-ma
c) sám-ma-lim (crocodile)
d) sam-ma-lī́-ma

3: Affixation of person suffixes, such as -ku (3fs) and -kun (3fp)
a) ku-rū́-śa-ku
b) ku-rū́-śa-kun
c) ku-rū-śā́-ku
d) ku-rū-śā́-kun
e) sám-ma-li-ku > sam-ma-lík-ku
f) sám-ma-li-kun > sam-ma-lík-kun
g) sam-ma-lī́-ku
h) sam-ma-lī́-kun

[Creyeditor]

The rule sounds natural but also maybe a bit complicated formulation-wise. Could you give an inventory of abstract possible and inpossible prosodic forms? Like so (L=light syllable, H=heavy syllable):
L
H
LL
LH
HL
HH
...
*HLLL
....
LLLL

This might help to better judge if it's natural and maybe how to formulate it in a more succinct way.

[Ahzoh]

The rule sounds natural but also maybe a bit complicated formulation-wise. Could you give an inventory of abstract possible and inpossible prosodic forms? Like so (L=light syllable, H=heavy syllable):
L
H
LL
LH
HL
HH
...
*HLLL
....
LLLL

This might help to better judge if it's natural and maybe how to formulate it in a more succinct way.

Hmm, there's no defined limit to how many syllables a word could have. While five or six is probably the upper limit, it would probably be easier to describe it by what's NOT allowed.

So I just now put into words the language's two major principles:

1) Stress must be on the heaviest non-final syllable, unless the final syllable is superheavy. The language views word-final moras as extrametrical (making final CVC and CVV syllables treated the same as CV). This is why the final syllable is never stressed unless it's superheavy.
2) Stress must be placed on one of the three rightmost syllables of a word. This is its stress window.

So, HLL is allowed but HLLL is not allowed since it would break either the principle 1 or principle 2.

The language also has secondary stress and an alternating rhythm (usually iambic, sometimes trochaic), so syllable patterns that are HLL outside the stress window are still strongly dispreferred as this would interrupt the iambic/trochaic rythm.

---

Now that I've written this out, this is basically how Latin stress behaves:

(H L) σ]
doˈmestikus

(L H) σ]
reˈfeːcit

(H H) σ]
perˈfectum

(L L) σ]
ˈanima

Although Vrkhazhian would do (L L) σ]

[Creyeditor]

The language also has secondary stress and an alternating rhythm (usually iambic, sometimes trochaic), so syllable patterns that are HLL outside the stress window are still strongly dispreferred as this would interrupt the iambic/trochaic rythm.

This sounds like a better description of the same idea. It also makes the language-internal motivation much clearer.

In other words, a syllable sequence Heavy-Light-Light can only occur word-finally and nowhere else. Right?

[Ahzoh]

The language also has secondary stress and an alternating rhythm (usually iambic, sometimes trochaic), so syllable patterns that are HLL outside the stress window are still strongly dispreferred as this would interrupt the iambic/trochaic rythm.

This sounds like a better description of the same idea. It also makes the language-internal motivation much clearer.

In other words, a syllable sequence Heavy-Light-Light can only occur word-finally and nowhere else. Right?

Yes

[Salmoneus]

I guess my question would be: why? What actual processes are happening to cause this?

Let's say a word starts out as HLLS (s=superheavy). Stress falls on the superheavy syllable, so no stress rules broken. So what happens to make a word of this sort change its form, and why, and what does it become?

Or a word could be SLLH. This causes a dilemma for the rules: the heaviest syllable isn't one of the last three syllables, so one of those rules has to go. If it's the window rule then stress falls on the superheavy and... what happens to make that LL sequence go away? Or if it's the heaviest-syllable rule then stress falls on the heavy... but the same question applies.

I guess you could lengthen all vowels in open syllables with secondary stress? Seems a bit heavy-handed and would result in a very heavy-syllable dominated language (half of all syllables would have to have long vowels, plus some portion of the unstressed half of syllables would happen to be heavy anyway). But I guess that would give your rules?

[Creyeditor]

I think the question of associated alternations is interesting. I tried to come up with additional options:

• allomorphy, such that each morpheme that has the shape ...HLL has another phonologically unrelated non-HLL allomorph in non-final position, bambadi#, pon-ce
• Syllable deletion, such that any HLL sequence becomes HL in non-final position, e.g. bambadi#, bamba-ce
• Segment deletion, such that any HLL sequence becomes HH in non-final position, e.g. bambadi#, bambad-ce.
• 'Lightening', such that any HLL sequence becomes LLL in non-final position, e.g. bambadi#, babadi-ce

The first option is a bit boring and makes the system more idiosyncratic than needed, IMHO
The second option is a bit brute force but I like the results it gives.
The third option faces Sal's valid concern that it creates lots and lots of heavy syllables.
The last option is surprisingly simple but I feel like it might trigger much more alternations than needed because it only pushes the problem to the left, e.g. HHLLL would become HLLLL and then LLLLL by iterative application.
Anyway, you might want to have a look at Yidiny, which has interesting alternations that look related to our discussion.

[Ahzoh]

I guess my question would be: why? What actual processes are happening to cause this?

Let's say a word starts out as HLLS (s=superheavy). Stress falls on the superheavy syllable, so no stress rules broken. So what happens to make a word of this sort change its form, and why, and what does it become?

Or a word could be SLLH. This causes a dilemma for the rules: the heaviest syllable isn't one of the last three syllables, so one of those rules has to go. If it's the window rule then stress falls on the superheavy and... what happens to make that LL sequence go away? Or if it's the heaviest-syllable rule then stress falls on the heavy... but the same question applies.

I guess you could lengthen all vowels in open syllables with secondary stress? Seems a bit heavy-handed and would result in a very heavy-syllable dominated language (half of all syllables would have to have long vowels, plus some portion of the unstressed half of syllables would happen to be heavy anyway). But I guess that would give your rules?

Why? Because HLLL/HLLH words are extremely unpleasent and make me want to shorten them, but I also don't want the gender theme vowel to be deleted. So a word like sammal-i-ku (crocodile-MASC-3fs) is problematic. One elegantly solved by doubling the possessive suffix consonant and shifting stress to the theme vowel.

The only tools I have to solve the rhythm issue is vowel/consonant doubling and shortening/syncope.

HLLS shouldn't really be possible because of normal syncope rules that would delete pretonic short vowels. So it'd end up as HHS.
SLLH would be harder to solve unless it gets reduced to SHH by post tonic syncope.

The real issues would be SHHH or SLHH or SHLH, but that could be solved by shortening the superheavy.

Also some/many Mayan languages are predominantly CVC (at least Proto-Mayan was), so I don't see how heavy-prominent is much of an issue. Said Mayan languages also make use of prosodic allomorphy.

[LinguoFranco]

How unusual would it be for a language to have /ʃ t͡ʃ/ as phonemes but [ɕ cç] as allophones of /s k/ before /i/?

Are they too similar to tell apart?

[Ahzoh]

How unusual would it be for a language to have /ʃ t͡ʃ/ as phonemes but [ɕ cç] as allophones of /s k/ before /i/?

Are they too similar to tell apart?

If there was an iceberg meme for sound changes/allophony, I'd put this one level below the top-most level. Though i'd expect /s ʃ/ > [ʃ ɕ] /_i

[Arayaz]

My Celtic/Greenlandic language (before any contact with Greenlandic) would have a very complicated pluralization system (as does modern Irish). After all, there are like 12 declension patterns in Old Irish, and some of them don't even have a consistent pluralizer anyway!

However, the definite article always causes predictable mutations in the plural on most nouns:

• The plural of guedhe is guedhi; with the definite article, these are an chuedhe and nna gguedhe.
• The plural of cbhand is cbhanda; with the definite article, these are an chbhand and nna ccbhanda.
• The plural of ríochain is ríognoi; with the definite article, these are end ríochain and nne rríognoi.

Would it be plausible, then, for the plurals to regularize ─ or become nonexistent ─ and have the inflections of the article and the mutations they cause be the sole way of indicating number?

[LinguoFranco]

Okay, I have another question, this time about pitch accent.

Can a pitch accent language exhibit tone sandhi and assimilation like tone plateaus, or Meeusen's rule?

In the case of my conlang, contour tones occur, but are restricted to heavy syllables, and are analyzed as a sequence of a high tone and a low tone, rather than a rising or falling toneme.