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

[Dormouse559]

I'd say Wikipedia was just overspecifying. /j/ is /j/, regardless of where it came from, unless there is another sound that they transcribe the same way.

[yangfiretiger121]

I'm reposting a question that I, initially, edited into my last post to make sure it gets answered. Should allophony be formatted (a) [allophone] of /parent phoneme/ <location> /causal phoneme/ or (b) [allophone] of [parent phone] <location> [causal phone]?

Are [s̪→z̪] by assimilation before [z̪], and vice-versa, allophonic?

[Dormouse559]

I'm reposting a question that I, initially, edited into my last post to make sure it gets answered. Should allophony be formatted (a) [allophone] of /parent phoneme/ <location> /causal phoneme/ or (b) [allophone] of [parent phone] <location> [causal phone]?

The latter. The allophone's environment should be defined phonetically, not phonemically.

Are [s̪→z̪] by assimilation before [z̪], and vice-versa, allophonic?

It depends. Is there a contrast between [s̪] and [z̪] in other environments?

[yangfiretiger121]

Okay on the allophony issue. And, and assimilation's the only time the fortis-lenis pairs lose contrast.

[Dormouse559]

Okay on the allophony issue. And, and assimilation's the only time the fortis-lenis pairs lose contrast.

Then that's a phonemic change. Whenever one phone changes to a contrasting phone, that's phonemic.

[eldin raigmore]

What’s ‘“and, and” assimilation’?

[yangfiretiger121]

Didn't realize the second "and" snuck in there somehow.

[eldin raigmore]

Is the “and” a clausal conjunction? Or is “‘and’ assimilation” a type of assimilation?

[zyma]

Is the “and” a clausal conjunction? Or is “‘and’ assimilation” a type of assimilation?

What do you think is more likely?

[eldin raigmore]

Is the “and” a clausal conjunction? Or is “‘and’ assimilation” a type of assimilation?

What do you think is more likely?

Now that I know he didn’t mean “and and” — a construction some classical/biblical languages used for “also” —
I’m thinking it’s something like Hebrew’s wa-consecutive.
That seems to me the most Occamesque hypothesis.
I just don’t quite get how “assimilation” is involved.

Not really!

[sangi39]

Is the “and” a clausal conjunction? Or is “‘and’ assimilation” a type of assimilation?

What do you think is more likely?

Now that I know he didn’t mean “and and” — a construction some classical/biblical languages used for “also” —
I’m thinking it’s something like Hebrew’s wa-consecutive.
That seems to me the most Occamesque hypothesis.
I just don’t quite get how “assimilation” is involved.

Not really!

Might be worth making that "not really" a little more, well, visible, because I honestly thought you were trolling over an obvious typo...

[Omzinesý]

Could construction [copula + active participle] have the antipassive meaning?

say
"I wrote poem" is the normal active clause that presupposes some kind of an object.
"I am writer [poem]" is an antipassive clause that doesn't presuppose an object.

The question is not about English. The pseudo-clauses are a bit odd.

[Creyeditor]

Could construction [copula + active participle] have the antipassive meaning?

say
"I wrote poem" is the normal active clause that presupposes some kind of an object.
"I am writer [poem]" is an antipassive clause that doesn't presuppose an object.

The question is not about English. The pseudo-clauses are a bit odd.

I think if you read up on antipassives you will find that they often have some aspectual meaning component. This is often imperfective, gnomic, habitual or something similar. Similarly, action nominalizations often have an imperfective meaning. Agent nominalizations are even more similar in that they often encode things that are generally true or habits.
tl;dr: yes

[zyma]

Is the “and” a clausal conjunction? Or is “‘and’ assimilation” a type of assimilation?

What do you think is more likely?

Now that I know he didn’t mean “and and” — a construction some classical/biblical languages used for “also” —
I’m thinking it’s something like Hebrew’s wa-consecutive.
That seems to me the most Occamesque hypothesis.
I just don’t quite get how “assimilation” is involved.

Not really!

Might be worth making that "not really" a little more, well, visible, because I honestly thought you were trolling over an obvious typo...

[yangfiretiger121]

I didn't quote the Dormouse's post because mine was immediately after it. Therefore, the nature of the initial "and" would have been evident without the second "and" there. I say the conversation about my honest oversight ends here so we can get back to using the topic properly.

While Wikipedia's article on prenasalized consonants implies that analyses such as [ⁿf] are plausible, its article on nasal release focuses on stops, such as [dⁿ]. Are analyses such as [z̪ᵐ] plausible? The example is from jarkvazma, which is—currently—analyzed as [ˈʝɑr̩.kvɑ.z̪m̪ɑ].

[Creyeditor]

While Wikipedia's article on prenasalized consonants implies that analyses such as [ⁿf] are plausible, its article on nasal release focuses on stops, such as [dⁿ]. Are analyses such as [z̪ᵐ] plausible? The example is from jarkvazma, which is—currently—analyzed as [ˈʝɑr̩.kvɑ.z̪m̪ɑ].

I think nasal relase should have the same place of articulation as the closure. Otherwise, it does not make much sense, phonetically speaking. Phonologically, it depends on the system. Are there other cluster? If not, that's an argument in favor of /z̪ᵐ/ or /z͡m/. If there are other clusters, the question arises: does [z̪m] act like a cluster or like a simple segment? E.g. you could look at its phonotactic distribution or which phonological rules affect it. It is important to keep phonetic analyses from phonological analyses here. Hope that helps a bit.

[yangfiretiger121]

The base syllable structure is (C)(C)V(C), with syllables ending on the vowel whenever possible. (C)(C) may either be a phoneme, such as /s̪:/, or a cluster, such as the current /z̪m̪/ (dental sibilant fricative-labiodental nasal). So, you appear to be saying that [z̪ᵐ]'s implausible, while [fᵐ]'s plausible.

[Creyeditor]

Well phonoogically it looks like it is a cluster in your conlang from what you have told. The problem with the phonetics is that fricatives usually do not have a release. But this idea is disputed with some people saying that e.g. aspirated fricatives exist and have a release phase. So you could do [fᵐ].

[eldin raigmore]

Might be worth making that "not really" a little more, well, visible, because I honestly thought you were trolling over an obvious typo...

(+@Sangi):

I reviewed this before posting it.
Unfortunately, I think if one merely reads it, without access to my tone of voice, facial expressions, and gestures, the first half comes across as defensive.
To compound that misfortune, I can’t see how to fix it.
Except to make the following request:
The second half, or the part from my third point on, comes across as academic IMO.
Try to imagine the first half, or first two points, being delivered in the same academic tone.
Some might find it equally annoying; but at least they’ll be annoyed by the tone I actually intended, rather than one I don’t intend.

—————==========**********—————==========**********

When I read yangfiretiger’s post with the extra “and” in it, I thought it likely a typo.
But I questioned it anyway, for two reasons.

First: I have been a mathematician, a professional computer programmer, a financial auditor, a medical records dogsbody, etc.
I have frequently seen “obvious typos” that turned out not to be errors.
When that happened, “correcting” those “errors” would usually have been not merely bad, but catastrophic.
Most of them were indeed minor errors; but the cost of finding that out was usually trivial compared to the cost of “correcting” something that I just misunderstood, like some kind of human Autocorrect.
An example (not involving me); a foreign man tried to explain to the ER staff that he needed treatment for “homophilia”.
The enlightened psych resident on duty explained that “homophilia” was not a disorder, it was just an orientation; and if the patient had a problem with it, it didn’t qualify as an emergency since hw wasn’t suicidal, so he should make an appointment and come back in a few days.
It turns out “haemophilia” was meant.

Second: in various natural languages, many kinds of allomorphy, and/or morphophonological “stuff”, pop up when more than two conjugands are conjoined by the “same” conjunction.
For all I know, in some such phenomena, the marker is some kind of assimilation.

So I had a question, one I regard as legitimate, when I first asked.

- - - - -

The second time I asked was more akin to perseveration. I wasn’t really concerned any more that there was such a thing as “‘and’ assimilation”; but I had already brought it up, and hadn’t yet had an explicit answer.

Furthermore, in one ‘lect of formal, written English that I was taught, to begin a sentence with a conjunction, was (or is?) questionably grammatical. So* I felt like verifying that it was indeed a conjunction between two clauses, one of which was a sentence in the previous post (by a different poster). It required work on the readers’ part to locate that first conjugand. It was obvious there was another conjugand intended; it was not, IMO, obvious where and what it was.
*Since we’re not really being that formal here, it’s OK to start sentences with conjunctions like “and” and “so” and “since”. It’s just that it catches my attention.

———++++++======++++++———++++++======++++++

There’s a thread somewhere—— I think on the CBB —— that discusses where, and how many, coordinating conjunctions various languages use, to conjoin two or three or more than three conjugands.
Like Latin’s enclitic “-que” form of “et”.
Or some older British English writers’ non-dual use of “both”; e.g. “Both lions, tigers, bears, and wolves”.

Would anyone care to talk about that aspect of their conlang?
Maybe I’ll find that thread and post some more questions, or some more examples, or some clarification of the questions and/or examples already there.

[zyma]

Might be worth making that "not really" a little more, well, visible, because I honestly thought you were trolling over an obvious typo...

(+@Sangi):

The quote is misattributed. sangi39 said that.