Project Limestone - Esseintial Scratchings

[kanejam]

Firstly, I'm disappointed that Limestone doesn't have it's own title colour yet!

But it does!

Whoops! I was only looking at the post directly above mine

And I'm still not sure how viable tone on voiceless syllabic fricatives will be. It might devolve into a bit of a stress accent.

Perhaps you are right, but I don't think having one sound behave oddly would necessarily bring the whole pitch-accent system crashing down.

Tentative way out: In the case of a word like śśtnomo śś-tno-mo, I guess an important indicator that the pitch accent is indeed on the first syllable would be low intonation on the last two syllables.

Yeah I think what I have trouble is why it's a pitch-accent when the pitch doesn't contrast with anything, rather than a stress-accent where pitch is more important than volume and length.

---

I really enjoy the words psálkstsawa and kśśımıp, they are awesome! So I think any option that keeps them but keeps them rare is the best. I also like the níyı ~ nííawa and tíksı ~ tíkkawa alternations.

Spoiler:

Also, I know you've moved away from keeping e allophonic, but here is a little bit of inspiration from Javanese: the name of the language is basa jawa [bɔsɔ dʒɔwɔ] where a becomes [ɔ] in word-final open syllables, and then any a's before that a also become [ɔ]. [ɔ] isn't allophonic but also appears as an allophone of /o/.

[DesEsseintes]

Thanks for the comments, guys!

I can't exactly put my finger on what it is that makes the language look/feel Bantu-ish.

I think it's all those mm nn ḿḿ ńń in all the "wrong" places, right?

Looking back, I don't think I've commented on this thread before.

Yeah, I was kinda worried.

What about aa → aı instead?

That sparked an idea in my head to go in the opposite direction. See below for details. So thanks for that.

I really enjoy the words psálkstsawa and kśśımıp, they are awesome! So I think any option that keeps them but keeps them rare is the best. I also like the níyı ~ nííawa and tíksı ~ tíkkawa alternations.

Glad you like them!

Decision Time!

1. Word-final -p -t -k are in.

2. The clusters pt pk kp kt will be permissible. t assimilates to a following stop, but there will be exceptions where it goes to ts instead.

tp tk → pp kk
but sometimes
tp tt tk → tsp tst tsk

This will probably have sth to do with the type of affixation going on.

3. My rules for /a/ allophony now look like this:

a → e / _{ye yı}
constraint: but not after /p k w/

aı → eı
constraint: but not in a stressed syllable or after /p k w/

Long aa is staying for now, and can exist unconditionally in a stressed syllable. In an unstressed syllable, long aa can form under the following circumstances:

ao → aa / _w
aı → aa / _y

---

Right, so those things are more or less settled (until I change my mind, at least). Hopefully, I can put some more morphology stuff here soon.

[zyma]

I think it's all those mm nn ḿḿ ńń in all the "wrong" places, right?

I'm pretty sure you're right.

(Although, now that I think about it, those features also feel somewhat Ryukyuan to me.)

Yeah, I was kinda worried.

Spoiler:

I assume you're kidding, but in case you're not… sorry!

---

The decisions you've made look good to me, especially the conditions surrounding /a/ allophony.

[qwed117]

This is extremely pedantic, but "Essential" is spelled wrong. Other than that, it's going good!

[Dezinaa]

This is extremely pedantic, but "Essential" is spelled wrong. Other than that, it's going good!

It's supposed to be spelled that way. It makes it look like DesEsseintes' name.

[qwed117]

This is extremely pedantic, but "Essential" is spelled wrong. Other than that, it's going good!

It's supposed to be spelled that way. It makes it look like DesEsseintes' name.

I'm a nub

[DesEsseintes]

Limestone Reborn!

It’s been a while since I posted in this poor old neglected thread. In the three-and-a-half years since, my ideas and tastes have changed considerably, and I suddenly felt like sharing some of that. Therefore, without further ado, let’s take a look at what Limestone looks like now.

Phonology

There are fourteen phonemic consonant segments in Limestone. The inventory is unusual for its lack of nasals and the presence of both ejectives and a large number of fricatives in such a small inventory.

/p t k ʔ/ p t k ’
/p’ t’ k’/ p’ t’ k’
/ɸ s ɬ x/ f s ł x
/w ɾ j/ w r y

It would be possible to analyse the ejectives as stop+stop clusters, but I have chosen not to do so for two reasons. Firstly, ejectives are inherited from Proto-Plains. Secondly, the distributions of ejectives and other stop+stop clusters have notable differences.

There are four basic vowels:

/a i o ə/ a i o u

The vowel indicated above as /ə/ is a reduced vowel that only occurs in unstressed (i.e. neutral tone) syllables. It is a reflex of any of *a *e *o with neutral tone in Proto-Híí. It is mostly realised somewhat raised and backed [ɯ̽] following coronals, and raised, backed and rounded [ʊ̽] following velars and labials. Note also that the grapheme u has other uses (see discussion on diphthongs below).

Vowel length is phonemic and /a i o/ all have long counterparts written aa ii oo. Overlong vowels also occur but are generally considered disyllabic.

Diphthongs are plentiful in Limestone, but are restricted to sequences of vowels that must agree either in height or backness. Interestingly, many diphthongs have a high back rounded component /u/ u despite the lack of such a base vowel. The diphthongs are:

ao oa
ai ia
ou
iu ui

Length distinctions also exist in diphthongs with either the first or second component lengthened, but never both. We can therefore see that, monophthongal or diphthongal as the result may be, vowels are limited to sequences of no more than three. Did that rhyme?

The diphthongs ao oa ai (and their lengthened counterparts) are notably more common than the other diphthongs.

There are two triphthongs* and they are aou oai.
*at this point my phone helpfully suggested “trophy bombs”

Oh, and there’s tone. It’s marked with an acute. Contours exist, too, on the long vowels and diphthongs.

Phonotactics is next.

[zyma]

Hey, it's back!

The inventory is unusual for its lack of nasals

Oh, wow. I think I remember nasals being rather prominent in the original version.

Secondly, the distributions of ejectives and other stop+stop clusters have notable differences.

How so? Oh, well, I guess that will be covered under "phonotactics"?

The vowel indicated above as /ə/ is a reduced vowel that only occurs in unstressed (i.e. neutral tone) syllables.

Can the other vowels also appear in such syllables?

*at this point my phone helpfully suggested “trophy bombs”

Oh, naturally!

Oh, and there’s tone. It’s marked with an acute. Contours exist, too, on the long vowels and diphthongs.

Is tone contrastive on every syllable of a word?

[DesEsseintes]

Uh...

Right. Here we go again. Thing is that I hated the last iteration of Limestone, the one I posted all of, uhm, six weeks ago.

To rant a bit, I tried to use it in the latest conlang relay and it looked just awful, so I dropped out and tried to figure out what I was doing wrong. I realised that I hated ł and disliked x, and absolutely despised all the words that came out looking like Ariyułtsáóxxkoróóka. Snip, snip. Snip, snip. And then f þ came to the rescue. And then palatoalveolars happened!

This is what Limestone looks like now:

Welcome to Limestone 4.0!
(At this point, surely none of you are actually going to take me seriously...)

This time, I’m going to be presenting everything in tables!

The consonant inventory contains 14 phonemes. There are still no nasals and the lateral fricative has been removed. Nevertheless, there are no fewer than five fricatives.

Code: Select all

              labial coronal palatal  velar  glottal 

    plosives    p       t               k       ʔ
  fricatives    ɸ       θ               x
  affricates            t͡s      t͡ʃ
   sibilants            s       ʃ 
approximants   (w)              j       w
      rhotic            r

/ɸ θ t͡s t͡ʃ ʃ j ʔ/ are romanised f þ ts ch sh y ’ respectively.

/x/ is romanised h except as the second component of a consonant cluster, where it is romanised x.

I have removed phonemic ejectives. There are stop + glottal stop clusters that are realised as ejectives, but their distribution is the same as that of other clusters, so I don’t see a need to analyse them as phonemes.

The vowel inventory hasn’t really changed, but I also made a pretty table for the vowels, because tables!

Code: Select all

             -round   unspec +round

       +high    i              [u]
 unspecified            ə
       -high    a               o 

/ə/ is romanised u, and so is [u] when it occurs as part of a diphthong. (There is no /u/.)

The diphthongs are still
ao oa
ai ia
ou
iu ui

I also made a relatively meaningless table of the different diphthongs and long vowels as it helps me visualise the possibilities.

Code: Select all

    ii    iu    ui  
    ia        
    ai                ou
    aa    ao    oa    oo

But I’d like to quickly mention that the diphthongs iu ui only occur as a result of phonological processes and do not occur underlyingly in morphemes.

The triphthongs are aou iao oai. The astute reader may notice a small addition there.

Length is contrastive in both monophthongs and diphthongs.

Let there be Tone!

Limestone has three tones, high, low, and neutral. They are marked as follows:

a - neutral tone
á - short high tone
à - short low tone
aa - long neutral tone
áa - long high tone
àa - long low tone

Furthermore, there are a further three contour tones that do not occur underlyingly in morphemes, but rather occur as a result of tone sandhi processes. These are:

áá - raised or “extra high” tone
àà - dropped or “extra low” tone
aà - falling tone

The low and extra low tones are nasalised for some speakers. This is especially true of male speakers.

---

Here in spoiler are replies to those of shimobaatar’s questions that still apply in Limestone 4.0.:

Spoiler:

Oh, wow. I think I remember nasals being rather prominent in the original version.

They were, and at some point I may make a conlang with syllabic nasals, but Limestone won’t be it.

Can the other vowels [other than schwa] also appear in such [neutral tone] syllables?

Yes, any vowel can appear with neutral tone.

Is tone contrastive on every syllable of a word?

Yes, it is. However, I am considering ways of not overloading words with tone.

Thank you for your questions, shimo. Your feedback is always appreciated.

---

Hopefully, I will actually, really, post about phonotactics in my next post, because I do like the simple rules I’ve come up with.

[elemtilas]

Good to see some work on an old project!

[DesEsseintes]

Phonotactics

In order to keep things simple, I will restrict myself to the phonotactics of surface forms first.

The maximal syllable is CVVV’C.

There are no word-initial consonant clusters, and intervocalic clusters are limited to sequences of two consonants, with the sole exception of ’CC clusters.

Words cannot end in a consonant. All words end in a short vowel. A word-final vowel cannot carry tone.

The following broad restrictions apply to clusters:
1. A stop other than /ʔ/ cannot occur before another occlusive (stop or affricate).
2. An affricate cannot cluster with another affricate.
3. The approximants /j w/ can cluster with a preceding glottal stop but otherwise do not occur in clusters.
4. The rhotic /ɾ/ can cluster with a preceding glottal stop or a following fricative but otherwise does not occur in clusters.

Permitted clusters are the following:

Code: Select all

     p    t    ts   ch   k    f    s    þ    sh   h
p    -    -    -    -    -    pf   ps   pþ   psh  px
ts   tsp  tst  -    -    tsk  tsf  tss  tsþ  -    tsx
ch   chp  cht  -    -    chk  chf  -    chþ  -    chx
k    -    -    -    -    -    kf   ks   kþ   ksh  kx
’    ’p   ’t   ’ts  ’ch  ’k   ’f   ’s   ’þ   ’sh  ’h
f    fp   ft   fts  fch  fk   ff   fs   fþ   fsh  fx
þ    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    þþ   þsh  þx
s    sp   st   sts  -    sk   sf   ss   sþ   -    sx
sh   shp  sht  shts shch shk  shf  -    shþ  ssh  shx
h    hp   ht   hts  hch  hk   hf   hs   hþ   hsh  hx
r    -    -    -    -    -    rf   rs   rþ   rsh  rh

Some orthographic eccentricities:
ssh represents /ʃʃ/.
hx represents /xx/.
/rx/ is written rh for no good reason.

Although geminate fricatives occur at syllable boundaries, these are always coincidental, and are best treated as consonant clusters rather than true geminates.

Hopefully, some morfofo in my next post, though I’ve also been told I should devote some time to allophony.

[gestaltist]

I like the restrictions you put on affricate+fricative clusters.

[zyma]

Right. Here we go again. Thing is that I hated the last iteration of Limestone, the one I posted all of, uhm, six weeks ago.

To rant a bit, I tried to use it in the latest conlang relay and it looked just awful, so I dropped out and tried to figure out what I was doing wrong. I realised that I hated ł and disliked x, and absolutely despised all the words that came out looking like Ariyułtsáóxxkoróóka. Snip, snip. Snip, snip.

Well, I'm sorry to hear that, but the most important thing, of course, is that you're happy with how the language turns out, so snip away!

The diphthongs are still
ao oa
ai ia
ou
iu ui

The triphthongs are aou iao oai.

Which portions of these, so to speak, are non-syllabic? Is there a significant difference between [i̯ u̯] and [j w]?

Limestone has three tones, high, low, and neutral. They are marked as follows:

Spoiler:

a - neutral tone
á - short high tone
à - short low tone
aa - long neutral tone
áa - long high tone
àa - long low tone

Furthermore, there are a further three contour tones that do not occur underlyingly in morphemes, but rather occur as a result of tone sandhi processes. These are:

Spoiler:

áá - raised or “extra high” tone
àà - dropped or “extra low” tone
aà - falling tone

In terms of tone, do diphthongs function similarly to long vowels (ai ái ài áí àì aì, for example)? How do long diphthongs and triphthongs factor into this?

Here in spoiler are replies to those of shimobaatar’s questions that still apply in Limestone 4.0.:

Thank you for your responses!

There are no word-initial consonant clusters, and intervocalic clusters are limited to sequences of two consonants, with the sole exception of ’CC clusters.

Permitted clusters are the following:

Sorry if this should be obvious, but can all of the clusters presented in the table be preceded by a glottal stop?

though I’ve also been told I should devote some time to allophony.

If you'd like to, I certainly wouldn't mind reading about it.