Kahóra: the Language of Dreams

[Arayaz]

I'm using my 1,300th CBB post (!!!) to announce Kahóra, a language I am working on with my beloved Sketch. It's a bit disorganized and just for fun, and not set in UC1 like our other collaborative project.

Before I go any further, I'd like to point out that this is absolutely not intended to be naturalistic. As I called it when we were discussing it earlier today:

a kitchen sink, but made by a professional plumber

Backstory

It all started when Sketch and I met, on a cool summer night in Las Vegas, over a fancy cocktail at a bar.

Okay, that's not true. We met on tumblr, and were mutuals for a few weeks. Then we started talking about making a collablang together (that language is currently called ??? Arskiilz, and is in my signature), and from that project we became friendly. Then one day, Sketch mentioned to me that the day after we had started talking about the collablang, she had dreamed that we started it ─ and in her dream, it had the following phonemic inventory:

/ʃ x ʁ ʕ/
/æ ɑ/

That's not a joke. Nothing other than that.

And I, being the way that I am, saw this and saw an opportunity. So then we made it into an actual language. And she and I shall reveal more about that language in this thread. For now, I must leave you. Stay tuned!

[DV82LECM]

Minimalistic af! By the name, may I wager that /ɑ/ has an allophone [o] before /ʁ/?

[Arayaz]

Minimalistic af! By the name, may I wager that /ɑ/ has an allophone [o] before /ʁ/?

Actually, we just romanized /æ ɑ/ as <a o> ─ kahóra is something like [kʰæ˧ʕɑ˦˥ʁæ˥].

[TBPO]

Nice conlang! I'm waiting for more details.

[Arayaz]

Nice conlang! I'm waiting for more details.

Thank you!

More Phonology Details

We've expanded the phonology of the language somewhat; we have nasal vowels now, which allophonically nasalize the consonant after them, producing /ɲ ŋ ɴ/ <n g ŋ> (ʕ nasalizes to ɴ). The nasal vowels are romanized with ogoneks, so we have for example /xɑ̃ʕɑʁæ/ [kɑ̃˧ɴɑ˧ʁæ˧] kǫŋora.

Then, I should point out our other allophony: the fricatives /ʃ x ʁ ʕ/ fortify to [t͡ʃ k q ʔ] word-initially. (This is how we got the k in kahóra.)

I'll talk about the tone later.

[TBPO]

We have phonemes and allophones, and we will have also tones, but what about morphosyntax and lexicon? For example, how to say "I will eat five sausages"?

[Arayaz]

We have phonemes and allophones, and we will have also tones, but what about morphosyntax and lexicon? For example, how to say "I will eat five sausages"?

Patience, grasshopper! All shall be revealed with time

Edit: This is the Conlangs subforums's 122,233th post!

[Arayaz]

Tones

The Kahóra tonal system is one of the following:

• A pitch accent system
• A misunderstanding of what pitch accent is
• The least naturalistic tonal system in existence

There are four "tones" in Kahóra:

• The UPSTEP <á> ─ all syllables before it are mid tone, and it and all after are high.
• The DOWNSTEP <à> ─ all syllables before it are mid tone, and it and all after are low.
• The PEAK <â> ─ it is high, all others are mid
• The VALLEY <ǎ> ─ it is low, all others are mid

Every word has a tone rule such as "upstep on second syllable" or "valley on penultimate syllable" or "no tone at all." The syllable assignments may count up to three steps from either end of the word. However, one should note that Category 1 affixes (most affixes are this category) shift this. For example, the second-person pronoun is /xɑ/, with a valley on the last syllable. Normally, this would be kǒ, but with the accusative suffix /-ʕɑ/, it becomes kohǒ ─ the valley is always on the last syllable of the word.

[Creyeditor]

I would say that this looks like a pitch accent plus word melody system, which has definitely been suggested before for some natlangs.
I find the terms upstep and downstep a bit confusing because they usually refer to tonal registers (the overall pitch level that tones are relative to) and not to tonal melodies.
One could think of it as a pitch accent with tones associated to the accented syllable and then spreading tl the left and to the right. This would give the following melodies.
Upstep=MH
Downstep=ML
Peak=MHM
Valley=MLM

You could get rid of the initial mid tones if all spreading is rightwards.

The root determining the overall stress pattern strikes me as unusual. Is it inspired by a natlang?

Edit: I actually did something similar in Kobardon, also before I learned anything about tone.

Edit:

[Arayaz]

I would say that this looks like a pitch accent plus word melody system, which has definitely been suggested before for some natlangs.

Oh, cool! Which natlangs?

I find the terms upstep and downstep a bit confusing because they usually refer to tonal registers (the overall pitch level that tones are relative to) and not to tonal melodies.

Hmmm. What could I replace it with?

One could think of it as a pitch accent with tones associated to the accented syllable and then spreading tl the left and to the right. This would give the following melodies.
Upstep=MH
Downstep=ML
Peak=MHM
Valley=MLM

You could get rid of the initial mid tones if all spreading is rightwards.

I like that. Nice and simple.

The root determining the overall stress pattern strikes me as unusual. Is it inspired by a natlang?

Nope. I just randomly came up with it. I think it was partially inspired by my own previous notational shortcomings.

[Creyeditor]

When I have some more time I can point you to some languages that have been described like this.