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

[Arayaz]

What could be the semantic difference between (1) and (2)?

It could be a distinction between a permanent and temporary state? Unless you have some other way to express that.

[Kesshin]

Something I've noticed is that I end up vocalizing /x'/ when it has vowels near it, especially around /i/.
EX:
Ti'f = a tree
/ti:ʔx'/
Should I add the vocalized version of /x'/ (ɣ) in the phoneme list, or leave it? I feel like including it would feel overly systematic.
/ti:ʔx'/ or /ti:ʔɣ/ ?

[Arayaz]

Something I've noticed is that I end up vocalizing /x'/ when it has vowels near it, especially around /i/.
EX:
Ti'f = a tree
/ti:ʔx'/
Should I add the vocalized version of /x'/ (ɣ) in the morpheme list, or leave it? I feel like including it would feel overly systematic.
/ti:ʔx'/ or /ti:ʔɣ/ ?

I don't really understand what you mean. You mean you're deglottalizing and voicing /xʼ/ to [ɣ] in some contexts? If there's no distinction in meaning between, say, [tiːʔxʼ] and [tiːʔɣ], then no, they wouldn't have separate roles, so why would they be considered separate morphemes?

And what do you mean "overly systematic"?

[Kesshin]

Something I've noticed is that I end up vocalizing /x'/ when it has vowels near it, especially around /i/.
EX:
Ti'f = a tree
/ti:ʔx'/
Should I add the vocalized version of /x'/ (ɣ) in the morpheme list, or leave it? I feel like including it would feel overly systematic.
/ti:ʔx'/ or /ti:ʔɣ/ ?

I don't really understand what you mean. You mean you're deglottalizing and voicing /xʼ/ to [ɣ] in some contexts? If there's no distinction in meaning between, say, [tiːʔxʼ] and [tiːʔɣ], then no, they wouldn't have separate roles, so why would they be considered separate morphemes?

And what do you mean "overly systematic"?

I am so sorry I meant phoneme-

What I mean to say is that my tongue is in the around the same spots for saying /i/ as it is for /x'/(especially after /t/), and it somehow ends up being /ɣ/.
As for the deglottalizing, yes.
I hope this helps.

[Arayaz]

Something I've noticed is that I end up vocalizing /x'/ when it has vowels near it, especially around /i/.
EX:
Ti'f = a tree
/ti:ʔx'/
Should I add the vocalized version of /x'/ (ɣ) in the morpheme list, or leave it? I feel like including it would feel overly systematic.
/ti:ʔx'/ or /ti:ʔɣ/ ?

I don't really understand what you mean. You mean you're deglottalizing and voicing /xʼ/ to [ɣ] in some contexts? If there's no distinction in meaning between, say, [tiːʔxʼ] and [tiːʔɣ], then no, they wouldn't have separate roles, so why would they be considered separate morphemes?

And what do you mean "overly systematic"?

I am so sorry I meant phoneme-

What I mean to say is that my tongue is in the around the same spots for saying /i/ as it is for /x'/(especially after /t/), and it somehow ends up being /ɣ/.
As for the deglottalizing, yes.
I hope this helps.

Again, what you're describing is simply an allophonic process. [ɣ] ─ or, as you're describing, possibly something like [ɣʲ] or [ɣ͡ʝ]? I'm not a phoneticist ─ is not a phoneme, but it is a phone that occurs, and an allophone of /xʼ/. So it depends whether you want to have a chart of your phonemes or of all of the phones that occur in the language. I'd recommend the former; just make a note of the variation, if you want.

[Kesshin]

[ɣ] ─ or, as you're describing, possibly something like [ɣʲ] or [ɣ͡ʝ]? I'm not a phoneticist ─ is not a phoneme, but it is a phone that occurs, and an allophone of /xʼ/. So it depends whether you want to have a chart of your phonemes or of all of the phones that occur in the language. I'd recommend the former; just make a note of the variation, if you want.

allophonic process.

phone

Phone can be used singularly? As a noun?? I thought it was just a prefix/root!
I'm beginning to think I may have bitten off more than I can chew...
I might take a few moments to try and learn more of the vocab.

For now though, I'll stick with a chart of the phonemes, and making a note of the allophone.
Thank you for bearing with me.

[Arayaz]

[ɣ] ─ or, as you're describing, possibly something like [ɣʲ] or [ɣ͡ʝ]? I'm not a phoneticist ─ is not a phoneme, but it is a phone that occurs, and an allophone of /xʼ/. So it depends whether you want to have a chart of your phonemes or of all of the phones that occur in the language. I'd recommend the former; just make a note of the variation, if you want.

allophonic process.

phone

Phone can be used singularly? As a noun?? I thought it was just a prefix/root!
I'm beginning to think I may have bitten off more than I can chew...
I might take a few moments to try and learn more of the vocab.

For now though, I'll stick with a chart of the phonemes, and making a note of the allophone.
Thank you for bearing with me.

No problem! I highly recommend Wikipedia for unknown terms, by the way. And sorry if I've been too ivory-tower; I haven't historically been know for making much effort to be understandable.

[Kesshin]

ivory-tower

Oligosynthetic? No no, oligarchy.
(you're fine! you're less "ivory-tower" and more speaking Areyaxi without a translation)

In all seriousness, I think it's more the fact that I haven't really spent time trying to learn the names of things, since I decided to join the community literally 2 days ago.

[Dormouse559]

Phone can be used singularly? As a noun?? I thought it was just a prefix/root!

Yeah, so a “phone” is a distinct speech sound. They’re defined purely based on physical considerations without regard for how or if they affect meaning. A “phoneme” is an abstract concept that groups together one or more phones. It would not change the meaning of a word if you switched a phone with one that is part of the same phoneme. But exchanging one phoneme for another does change the meaning.

[Salmoneus]

[ɣ] ─ or, as you're describing, possibly something like [ɣʲ] or [ɣ͡ʝ]? I'm not a phoneticist ─ is not a phoneme, but it is a phone that occurs, and an allophone of /xʼ/. So it depends whether you want to have a chart of your phonemes or of all of the phones that occur in the language. I'd recommend the former; just make a note of the variation, if you want.

allophonic process.

phone

Phone can be used singularly? As a noun?? I thought it was just a prefix/root!
I'm beginning to think I may have bitten off more than I can chew...
I might take a few moments to try and learn more of the vocab.

For now though, I'll stick with a chart of the phonemes, and making a note of the allophone.
Thank you for bearing with me.

It's a hobby that does have some jargon to learn, yes. You pick it up gradually, though. This particular thing, however, is something you have to learn early on. Without prejudging what you know, and just pitching this at any random newcomer, we need to distinguish three things:

Letters are written symbols representing some feature of a spoken language. When we talk about letters we usually enclose them in <angled brackets>. The system of letters for a language is its "orthography".

The actual sounds people say when speaking a language are called phones. Technically, phones can have a limitless number of details that can vary between languages and dialects and individual speakers and even different utterances, but we simplify their notation by approximating them with a consensus set of symbols, the International Phonetic Alphabet (or alternatives, or variants, etc). However, each instance of, say, [a] is a unique and distinct sound; with vowels in particular there is no inherent or natural system of dividing lines between similar sounds, so it's a judgment call whether to call something [a] or [æ], for instance. We talk about phones using [square brackets] (while being aware that i, u or b in square brackets unfortunately will be interpreted by the board's software as encoding italics, underlines or bolding...).

But speakers of a language need to all make similar judgments about which sound is which. So over the potentially infinite array of subtly different sounds, each language drapes a grid of a finite (and usually small) number of categories. Two sounds occurring within the same category are in some sense "the same sound" in the ear and mind of the listener, at least prior to serious examination. Two sounds not in the same category, even if they have a lot in common, are not the same sound. The set of categories differs between languages, and sometimes between dialects. These categories are called phonemes. We talk about phonemes using /forward slashes/. To name a category, we pick the symbol for a phone that typically falls into that category - so if the phone [a] is interpreted as falling into a certain category in a given language, we might call that category, that phoneme, /a/.

Sometimes the rules about which phones are instances of (or 'represent', etc) which phoneme vary depending on surrounding sounds. A phoneme may typically be instantiated by one phone in one context, but a different phone in a different context. In this situation, the two different phones are said to be "allophones" of the same phoneme.

[Kesshin]

It's a hobby that does have some jargon to learn, yes. You pick it up gradually, though. This particular thing, however, is something you have to learn early on. Without prejudging what you know, and just pitching this at any random newcomer, we need to distinguish three things:

Letters are written symbols representing some feature of a spoken language. When we talk about letters we usually enclose them in <angled brackets>. The system of letters for a language is its "orthography".

The actual sounds people say when speaking a language are called phones. Technically, phones can have a limitless number of details that can vary between languages and dialects and individual speakers and even different utterances, but we simplify their notation by approximating them with a consensus set of symbols, the International Phonetic Alphabet (or alternatives, or variants, etc). However, each instance of, say, [a] is a unique and distinct sound; with vowels in particular there is no inherent or natural system of dividing lines between similar sounds, so it's a judgment call whether to call something [a] or [æ], for instance. We talk about phones using [square brackets] (while being aware that i, u or b in square brackets unfortunately will be interpreted by the board's software as encoding italics, underlines or bolding...).

But speakers of a language need to all make similar judgments about which sound is which. So over the potentially infinite array of subtly different sounds, each language drapes a grid of a finite (and usually small) number of categories. Two sounds occurring within the same category are in some sense "the same sound" in the ear and mind of the listener, at least prior to serious examination. Two sounds not in the same category, even if they have a lot in common, are not the same sound. The set of categories differs between languages, and sometimes between dialects. These categories are called phonemes. We talk about phonemes using /forward slashes/. To name a category, we pick the symbol for a phone that typically falls into that category - so if the phone [a] is interpreted as falling into a certain category in a given language, we might call that category, that phoneme, /a/.

Sometimes the rules about which phones are instances of (or 'represent', etc) which phoneme vary depending on surrounding sounds. A phoneme may typically be instantiated by one phone in one context, but a different phone in a different context. In this situation, the two different phones are said to be "allophones" of the same phoneme.

So [ɣ] ends up being an allophone of /xʼ/, but not a different phoneme.

That clears things up pretty well. So what I'm ending up asking is whether this allophone should be a phoneme instead of a phone...
Which makes no sense.
I probably should've asked this in the beginner section... but hindsight is 20/20, as they say.
Thank you.

[Salmoneus]

Specifically, the way you can tell if something is only an allophone or actually a distinct phoneme is, usually, through a so-called "minimal pair" test.

If your language contains two words with different meanings that are exactly the same in pronunciation EXCEPT that one has [ɣ] and one has [x], then /ɣ/ and /x/ are different phonemes. Such a pair of words, distinguished only by this minimal change, is called a 'minimal pair'. If there are no minimal pairs for a given pair of phones, they can be considered allophones of the same phoneme. Whether they HAVE to be considered in that way, or SHOULD be, or merely CAN be, is a little controversial in some cases.

[for instance, in English, /h/ and /N/*, the sounds at the beginning and end of "hang", have no minimal pairs. Some people say that this means they are actually a single phoneme. Others say that that's silly.]

[ultimately, you can probably spot the reason for this disagreement: the two definitions of 'phoneme' that I've given aren't the same. One was based on psychological perception - the sounds that appear 'the same' or 'different' to a naive speaker - and the other was based on structural analysis of the language (the sounds that can or can't be interchanged while preserving meaning). Different people and theories may vary in how much they lean to the structural or the psychological in their use of the concept. In this case, structurally there's no reason at all to say that /h/ and /N/ are different phonemes (there are no minimal pairs). But psychologically, it seems silly to do so (speakers think of them as different, to the extent that swapping one for another, while not resulting in a different meaningful word, is likely to be interpreted as producing nonsense).]




*I usually use X-SAMPA, a transcription scheme that lets us discuss IPA sounds without needing the hassle of a text-to-IPA translator or the insert-symbol function of a word processor. This used to be a virtually universal convention among online conlangers, because it's vastly easier than having to copy-and-paste everything from somewhere else. /N/ is the X-SAMPA for for /ŋ/, the velar nasal.

[Kesshin]

Specifically, the way you can tell if something is only an allophone or actually a distinct phoneme is, usually, through a so-called "minimal pair" test.

If your language contains two words with different meanings that are exactly the same in pronunciation EXCEPT that one has [ɣ] and one has [x], then /ɣ/ and /x/ are different phonemes. Such a pair of words, distinguished only by this minimal change, is called a 'minimal pair'. If there are no minimal pairs for a given pair of phones, they can be considered allophones of the same phoneme. Whether they HAVE to be considered in that way, or SHOULD be, or merely CAN be, is a little controversial in some cases.

[for instance, in English, /h/ and /N/*, the sounds at the beginning and end of "hang", have no minimal pairs. Some people say that this means they are actually a single phoneme. Others say that that's silly.]

[ultimately, you can probably spot the reason for this disagreement: the two definitions of 'phoneme' that I've given aren't the same. One was based on psychological perception - the sounds that appear 'the same' or 'different' to a naive speaker - and the other was based on structural analysis of the language (the sounds that can or can't be interchanged while preserving meaning). Different people and theories may vary in how much they lean to the structural or the psychological in their use of the concept. In this case, structurally there's no reason at all to say that /h/ and /N/ are different phonemes (there are no minimal pairs). But psychologically, it seems silly to do so (speakers think of them as different, to the extent that swapping one for another, while not resulting in a different meaningful word, is likely to be interpreted as producing nonsense).]

I see. So it partially depends on how the native speakers interpret it.
In this case, the native speakers of Daas would probably not differentiate between the two.

[Arayaz]

I see. So it partially depends on how the native speakers interpret it.

Well, that's more of a metric of prediction rather than part of the definition, but yes.

(That is to say, if they're the same phoneme, speakers probably conceptualize them the same way, but the inverse doesn't always apply. Usually does, though. I'll try to think up a counterexample.)

[Kesshin]

(That is to say, if they're the same phoneme, speakers probably conceptualize them the same way, but the inverse doesn't always apply. Usually does, though. I'll try to think up a counterexample.)

How about in English, where the [θ] in thigh is different from the [ð] in thy, but they are spelled the same way?

[Arayaz]

(That is to say, if they're the same phoneme, speakers probably conceptualize them the same way, but the inverse doesn't always apply. Usually does, though. I'll try to think up a counterexample.)

How about in English, where the [θ] in thigh is different from the [ð] in thy, but they are spelled the same way?

If you walked up to a random person and asked if the <th> in "thigh" and the <th> in "thy" were different sounds, they'd probably say yes. Anyway, I was thinking more of a single phoneme that speakers conceptualize as two different sounds.

Edit: This was my 777th post in the Conlangs subforum!

[Shemtov]

A few questions about Measure Words:
Can a language without measure words borrow a limited amount of MWs wholesale, instead of developing its own MWs from its own vocabulary?
If the answer to the first question is yes, can MWs be borrowed as definite markers?
Can a language use MWs only when the noun is the Topic/Focus?
Can a language only use measure words with deictic pronouns, not for numbers?
Could a language drop the proximal deictic and then use the appropriate MW as the proximal?

[Salmoneus]

A few questions about Measure Words:
Can a language without measure words borrow a limited amount of MWs wholesale, instead of developing its own MWs from its own vocabulary?

I don't see why that wouldn't be possible?

lots of measure-y words in English are loanwords, from words for small quantities (jot, scintilla, soupcon) to specific measurements (centimetre, quart, ounce).

If the answer to the first question is yes, can MWs be borrowed as definite markers?

I don't see why that wouldn't be possible?

Can a language use MWs only when the noun is the Topic/Focus?

I don't see why that wouldn't be possible? It seems quite reasonable with the focus. With the topic it would be more odd - since the topic is already known, there's less need to specify things in that way.

Can a language only use measure words with deictic pronouns, not for numbers?

If it's not used for measuring, in what way is it a measure word?

Could a language drop the proximal deictic and then use the appropriate MW as the proximal?

Anything is possible, I guess, but I don't see why this would happen? What's proximal about counting? And if anything I'd expect it to be proximal counting that was direct, and distal counting that required measure words ("these three cows here" vs "the three head of cattle in that field")

[Omzinesý]

What could be the semantic difference between (1) and (2)?

It could be a distinction between a permanent and temporary state? Unless you have some other way to express that.

It is a bit strange to code it only in the third person with on explicit subject.