Yay or Nay? [2011–2018]

A forum for all topics related to constructed languages
User avatar
Adarain
greek
greek
Posts: 511
Joined: 03 Jul 2015 15:36
Location: Switzerland, usually

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Adarain »

Nachtuil wrote:I am working on a language with a phonology inspired by eastern slavic languages. I basically have a lot of palatalized consonants and have the following vowels:
i~ɪ
u~ʊ
e~ɛ
o
a

I like that Russian has allophony in its vowels depending on the consonant context (or maybe it is the reverse, I don't remember). My question is, which of the following rules sets is more plausible/interesting/sensible/appealing:

1.
ɪ becomes i after j and palatalised consonants.
ɛ becomes e after j and palatalised consonants.
ʊ becomes u after j and palatalised consonants.

2.
i becomes ɪ after j and palatalised consonants.
e becomes ɛ after j and palatalised consonants.
u becomes ʊ after j and palatalised consonants.
The first is very much more plausible; the second would basically be a dissimilation, which could of course also happen, but it’s rarer.
At kveldi skal dag lęyfa,
Konu es bręnnd es,
Mæki es ręyndr es,
Męy es gefin es,
Ís es yfir kømr,
Ǫl es drukkit es.
Nachtuil
greek
greek
Posts: 595
Joined: 21 Jul 2016 00:16

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Nachtuil »

Adarain wrote: The first is very much more plausible; the second would basically be a dissimilation, which could of course also happen, but it’s rarer.
Oh ok good, thanks. I was going with rule set 1. The only niggling concern is that I realize u would more likely be pulled to ʉ than rest at ʊ and be pushed back to u with a palatalized consonant.
Porphyrogenitos
sinic
sinic
Posts: 401
Joined: 21 Jul 2012 08:01
Location: Buffalo, NY

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

Nachtuil wrote: Oh ok good, thanks. I was going with rule set 1. The only niggling concern is that I realize u would more likely be pulled to ʉ than rest at ʊ and be pushed back to u with a palatalized consonant.
That could simply be a dialectal variation, if you wanted. I don't know how you're deriving the lax allophones to begin with, but it could make for an interesting phonological shift if they were the result of, say, closed syllables, and then underwent the palatal changes, and then lost the closed syllable environment:

[te tek tʲe tʲek] > [te tɛk tʲe tʲɛk] > [te tɛk tʲe tʲek] > [te tɛ tʲe tʲe]
User avatar
qwed117
mongolian
mongolian
Posts: 4094
Joined: 20 Nov 2014 02:27

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by qwed117 »

To my knowledge Russian takes the dissimilation step, so -skiy is pronounced /skʲɪj/
Spoiler:
My minicity is [http://zyphrazia.myminicity.com/xml]Zyphrazia and [http://novland.myminicity.com/xml]Novland.

Minicity has fallen :(
The SqwedgePad
User avatar
DesEsseintes
mongolian
mongolian
Posts: 4331
Joined: 31 Mar 2013 13:16

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by DesEsseintes »

qwed117 wrote:To my knowledge Russian takes the dissimilation step, so -skiy is pronounced /skʲɪj/
No, Russian vowels become lax /ə ɪ ʊ/ in unstressed syllables, and I don't think this can be termed dissimilation. However, Russian vowel allophony is quite complex, and I would recommend the Wikipedia article on Russian phonology.
User avatar
Creyeditor
MVP
MVP
Posts: 5091
Joined: 14 Aug 2012 19:32

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Creyeditor »

Adarain wrote:
Nachtuil wrote:I am working on a language with a phonology inspired by eastern slavic languages. I basically have a lot of palatalized consonants and have the following vowels:
i~ɪ
u~ʊ
e~ɛ
o
a

I like that Russian has allophony in its vowels depending on the consonant context (or maybe it is the reverse, I don't remember). My question is, which of the following rules sets is more plausible/interesting/sensible/appealing:

1.
ɪ becomes i after j and palatalised consonants.
ɛ becomes e after j and palatalised consonants.
ʊ becomes u after j and palatalised consonants.

2.
i becomes ɪ after j and palatalised consonants.
e becomes ɛ after j and palatalised consonants.
u becomes ʊ after j and palatalised consonants.
The first is very much more plausible; the second would basically be a dissimilation, which could of course also happen, but it’s rarer.
I think if glides are considered lax or tense is pretty much language specific.
Creyeditor
"Thoughts are free."
Produce, Analyze, Manipulate
1 :deu: 2 :eng: 3 :idn: 4 :fra: 4 :esp:
:con: Ook & Omlűt & Nautli languages & Sperenjas
[<3] Papuan languages, Morphophonology, Lexical Semantics [<3]
Nachtuil
greek
greek
Posts: 595
Joined: 21 Jul 2016 00:16

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Nachtuil »

Thanks for the responses by the way.
I do recall this Russian phonology page here on Wikipedia. I forgot how massive of a role stress plays in the allophony. The system I derived is vastly simpler, no question about it.
I may just use the following where the left is after a palatal or palatalized consonant and the right otherwise and see how it works in practice.
i~ɪ
e~ɛ
a~ɑ
u
o
User avatar
GamerGeek
sinic
sinic
Posts: 345
Joined: 17 May 2017 18:10
Location: The Universe
Contact:

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by GamerGeek »

(shouldn't the title be yea or nay? Ok, I'll leave.)
somehomo
rupestrian
rupestrian
Posts: 12
Joined: 19 Mar 2015 19:15

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by somehomo »

Some background: I have a language with front-back vowel harmony that uses diaeresis to mark the "opposite variant" vowels (for lack of a better term, I think this will be understood), i.e. /y ø æ ɤ/ as <ü ö ä ë>. The other vowels are /i e u o ɑ/ <i e u o a>. I mark historically palatalized consonants with an acute accent, i.e. /ɲ tʃ ʃ ʒ/ as <ń ć ś ŕ>. There are no other voicing distinctions in stops or fricatives apart from /ʃ ʒ/. My questions are as follows:
  1. Would it make more sense to transcribe /e/ as <ë> considering that the rest of the front vowels are dotted? and likewise switch /ɤ/ to <e>.
  2. I feel as if having acute accents and diaeresis in my language looks cluttered at times. I want to use a subscript diacritic (or maybe even a <Cy> digraph system) on consonants instead and I'm torn on which to use. Right now I am considering <ṇ c̣ ṣ ṛ> or <ņ ç ş ŗ> (or, I guess, <ny cy sy ry>). What route is more pleasing?
  3. I currently have /rʲ/ > /ʒ/ and I really don't like having a single voicing distinction in stops/fricatives. I skimmed the index diachronica and I found that /rʲ/ simply becoming /r/ is very common crosslinguistically even when other palatalized segments become something else. Should I go the route /rʲ/ to /r/? I guess, by extension, what are other outcomes that arise from /rʲ/ besides a voiced stop or fricatives that could be an alternative to having it merge with plain /r/?
User avatar
Omzinesý
mongolian
mongolian
Posts: 4082
Joined: 27 Aug 2010 08:17
Location: nowhere [naʊhɪɚ]

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Omzinesý »

somehomo wrote:Some background: I have a language with front-back vowel harmony that uses diaeresis to mark the "opposite variant" vowels (for lack of a better term, I think this will be understood), i.e. /y ø æ ɤ/ as <ü ö ä ë>. The other vowels are /i e u o ɑ/ <i e u o a>. I mark historically palatalized consonants with an acute accent, i.e. /ɲ tʃ ʃ ʒ/ as <ń ć ś ŕ>. There are no other voicing distinctions in stops or fricatives apart from /ʃ ʒ/. My questions are as follows:

  1. Would it make more sense to transcribe /e/ as <ë> considering that the rest of the front vowels are dotted? and likewise switch /ɤ/ to <e>.
Are those all vowels you have? /i/?
I would say no, though I'm struggling with /ɤ/ in Vålkakil.
I feel as if having acute accents and diaeresis in my language looks cluttered at times. I want to use a subscript diacritic (or maybe even a <Cy> digraph system) on consonants instead and I'm torn on which to use. Right now I am considering <ṇ c̣ ṣ ṛ> or <ņ ç ş ŗ> (or, I guess, <ny cy sy ry>). What route is more pleasing?
A dot below is used for retroflexes or "emphatic". <ņ ç ş ŗ> are nice if you have time to type them. At least with affricates and sibilants it looks nice. I prefer <Cj> instead of <Cy> because <j> is just smaller.
[*]I currently have /rʲ/ > /ʒ/ and I really don't like having a single voicing distinction in stops/fricatives. I skimmed the index diachronica and I found that /rʲ/ simply becoming /r/ is very common crosslinguistically even when other palatalized segments become something else. Should I go the route /rʲ/ to /r/?[/list]
I personally find having one voicing distinction unique and interesting, but if you don't like it, that's apparently the easiest way.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
User avatar
Creyeditor
MVP
MVP
Posts: 5091
Joined: 14 Aug 2012 19:32

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Creyeditor »

1. No, because <i> /i/, but see 2.
2. A third option would be to just make an orthographic convention, that diaresis and acute accents cannot co-occur.
3. You could also have /rʲ/ > /ʒ/ > /ʃ/
Creyeditor
"Thoughts are free."
Produce, Analyze, Manipulate
1 :deu: 2 :eng: 3 :idn: 4 :fra: 4 :esp:
:con: Ook & Omlűt & Nautli languages & Sperenjas
[<3] Papuan languages, Morphophonology, Lexical Semantics [<3]
User avatar
loglorn
mayan
mayan
Posts: 1728
Joined: 17 Mar 2014 03:22

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by loglorn »

somehomo wrote:Some background: I have a language with front-back vowel harmony that uses diaeresis to mark the "opposite variant" vowels, i.e. /y ø æ ɤ/ as <ü ö ä ë>. I mark historically palatalized consonants with an acute accent, i.e. /ɲ tʃ ʃ ʒ/ as <ń ć ś ŕ>. There are no other voicing distinctions in stops or fricatives apart from /ʃ ʒ/. My questions are as follows:
  1. Would it make more sense to transcribe /e/ as <ë> considering that the rest of the front vowels are dotted? and likewise switch /ɤ/ to <e>.
  2. I feel as if having acute accents and diaeresis in my language looks cluttered at times. I want to use a subscript diacritic (or maybe even a <Cy> digraph system) on consonants instead and I'm torn on which to use. Right now I am considering <ṇ c̣ ṣ ṛ> or <ņ ç ş ŗ> (or, I guess, <ny cy sy ry>. What route is more pleasing?
  3. I currently have /rʲ/ > /ʒ/ and I really don't like having a single voicing distinction in stops/fricatives. I skimmed the index diachronica and I found that /rʲ/ simply becoming /r/ is very common crosslinguistically even when other palatalized segments become something else. Should I go the route /rʲ/ to /r/?
1. Nay
2. <ny cy sy ry> if you want easy to type and <ṇ c̣ ṣ ṛ> if you want pretty (IMO)
3. A very large YAY

Edit: Creyeditor's suggestion to 3 is very good.
Diachronic Conlanging is the path to happiness, given time. [;)]

Gigxkpoyan Languages: CHÍFJAEŚÍ RETLA TLAPTHUV DÄLDLEN CJUŚËKNJU ṢATT

Other langs: Søsøzatli Kamëzet
somehomo
rupestrian
rupestrian
Posts: 12
Joined: 19 Mar 2015 19:15

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by somehomo »

Thank you all very much!
Creyeditor wrote:1. No, because <i> /i/, but see 2
Well, there is <ı> used in Turkic languages, so I would consider <i> as being dotted even though only one dot exists as opposed to the two diaeresis. Regardless, I think I'll keep it as is. <e ë> are the most common two vowels and its really more of a hassle to switch the two than I'd like.

I'm not too sure on the consonants.
Aś köŕśül üneyhene eytäyöce höya ćinithećötän.
Aṣ köṣṛül üneyhene eytayöce höyä c̣inithec̣ötän.
Aş köŗşül üneyhene eytayöce höya çinitheçötän.
Asy körsyül üneyhene eytayöce höyä cyinithecyötän.
Asj körsjül üneyhene eytäyöce höya cjinithecjötän.
Concerning consonants, here's an example sentence written with each convention. This might tie into a non-yay-or-nay question. I immediately don't like the last two because consonant clusters agree orthographically in palatal-ness (i.e. kör + śül > köŕśül) and that the palatalization was contrastive before /i. First off, I want to ask if these assimilation rules are naturalistic or should be modified:
- Plain alveolar consonants will become palatal consonants (i.e. /n t͡s s r/ > [ɲ t͡ʃ ʃ ʒ]) next to another palatal consonant regardless of order.
- /nj t͡sj sj rj/ become [ɲ t͡ʃ ʃ ʒ]. /j/ is elided after existing /ɲ t͡ʃ ʃ ʒ/.
- /ʃʒ ʒʃ/ are realized as [ʒ: ʃ:] respectively.
The second assimilatory rule is why I suggested <Cy> as /j/ is transcribed <y>. I'll wait for more feedback before I make a definite decision.
User avatar
cedh
MVP
MVP
Posts: 386
Joined: 07 Sep 2011 22:25
Location: Tübingen, Germany
Contact:

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by cedh »

somehomo wrote:
Aś köŕśül üneyhene eytäyöce höya ćinithećötän.
Aṣ köṣṛül üneyhene eytayöce höyä c̣inithec̣ötän.
Aş köŗşül üneyhene eytayöce höya çinitheçötän.
Asy körsyül üneyhene eytayöce höyä cyinithecyötän.
Asj körsjül üneyhene eytäyöce höya cjinithecjötän.
I like the third option best, because it looks a bit like Turkish.

Yet another sound change option for *rj would be to lenite it to /j/.
User avatar
DesEsseintes
mongolian
mongolian
Posts: 4331
Joined: 31 Mar 2013 13:16

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by DesEsseintes »

cedh wrote:Yet another sound change option for *rj would be to lenite it to /j/.
[+1]
User avatar
Adarain
greek
greek
Posts: 511
Joined: 03 Jul 2015 15:36
Location: Switzerland, usually

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Adarain »

Back in ye olden days, I had a plan for Mesak to have a substrate language/civilization, and said language would have clicks. However, I’ve since repurposed Semụr as said substrate.

Do I add clicks to its phonology?
This is the phone inventory, where parentheses are allophonic only:
Spoiler:
Image
Syllable structure is C₁V(C₂) where C₁ is all consonants and C₂ is quite restricted. I would probably add around 15 click phonemes to the C₁ position. The lexicon is fairly empty, so it wouldn’t feel very tacked on imo. I’d also probably restrict clicks to root-initial position, khoi-san style (i.e. not allow them in affixes and particles). I reckon the inventory would be along the lines of:

PoA: Alveolar !, Palatal ǂ, Lateral ‖
MoA: Tenuis !, Nasal !̃, Voiced !̬, Aspirate !ʰ and maybe one more, perhaps preglottalized or voiceless nasal.
At kveldi skal dag lęyfa,
Konu es bręnnd es,
Mæki es ręyndr es,
Męy es gefin es,
Ís es yfir kømr,
Ǫl es drukkit es.
User avatar
Creyeditor
MVP
MVP
Posts: 5091
Joined: 14 Aug 2012 19:32

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Creyeditor »

Wow, this is a really beautiful phone inventory. It is beautiful on its own, but clicks would also really fit it, because you already have a contrast in aspiration/voicing and also affricates. So I would say, yes add clicks. Be sure to connect the MOAs to the other consonants though, so voiceless nasal (or other something similar) is a must [:D]
Also yay for having clicks in C1 position only. Very naturalistic.



I also have a tiny question, that has no connection to your question: How front is your a? Is it really front or maybe more central?
Creyeditor
"Thoughts are free."
Produce, Analyze, Manipulate
1 :deu: 2 :eng: 3 :idn: 4 :fra: 4 :esp:
:con: Ook & Omlűt & Nautli languages & Sperenjas
[<3] Papuan languages, Morphophonology, Lexical Semantics [<3]
User avatar
Adarain
greek
greek
Posts: 511
Joined: 03 Jul 2015 15:36
Location: Switzerland, usually

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by Adarain »

Creyeditor wrote:Wow, this is a really beautiful phone inventory. It is beautiful on its own, but clicks would also really fit it, because you already have a contrast in aspiration/voicing and also affricates. So I would say, yes add clicks. Be sure to connect the MOAs to the other consonants though, so voiceless nasal (or other something similar) is a must [:D]
Also yay for having clicks in C1 position only. Very naturalistic.
Thanks for the compliments, and I guess clicks it is.
I also have a tiny question, that has no connection to your question: How front is your a? Is it really front or maybe more central?

I wouldn’t have put it there if it wasn’t front. I usually use /a/ as a central vowel tho (I’d never use the symbol /ä/, instead if I had to contrast front and central I’d use /æ a/).
At kveldi skal dag lęyfa,
Konu es bręnnd es,
Mæki es ręyndr es,
Męy es gefin es,
Ís es yfir kømr,
Ǫl es drukkit es.
felipesnark
sinic
sinic
Posts: 413
Joined: 27 Jan 2013 02:12
Contact:

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by felipesnark »

Shonkasika nouns decline differently according to animacy . For the nominative and accusative cases, animate nouns take the suffixes -s and -d while inanimate nouns take -k and -(nothing) respectively. The first and second person pronouns (animate) are different, taking nothing in the animate case.

I'm thinking of changing that so that the 1p and 2p pronouns take -dz in the nominative and -(nothing) in the accusative. Shonkasika is a pro-drop language due to the clear verb endings; thus, accusative forms will appear more often. So yay or nay for new (distinct) case forms for the 1p and 2p pronouns?
Visit my website for my blogs and information on my conlangs: http://grwilliams.net/ It's a work in progress!
User avatar
All4Ɇn
mayan
mayan
Posts: 1765
Joined: 01 Mar 2014 07:19

Re: Yay or Nay?

Post by All4Ɇn »

felipesnark wrote:I'm thinking of changing that so that the 1p and 2p pronouns take -dz in the nominative and -(nothing) in the accusative. Shonkasika is a pro-drop language due to the clear verb endings; thus, accusative forms will appear more often. So yay or nay for new (distinct) case forms for the 1p and 2p pronouns?
I say yay. I don't know if it's more common in natlangs but I think it makes a lot more sense logistically
Locked