Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread [2011–2018]

[qwed117]

Phonemic /ɱ/ is, as far as I am aware, unattested, but phonemic /ɲ/ and /ŋ/ are both extremely common.

A good place to look for languages with many contrasting nasal stop phonemes is Australia, where a "typical" inventory will include most or all of /m n̪ n ɳ ɲ ŋ/.

Have a look at Kalkatungu for example. Enindhilyakwa (a personal fave) has the added bonus of distinguishing a labialised velar /ŋʷ/ as well.

Hope that helps.

Also, linguolabial nasals aren't ever distinguished, with linguolabial stops as rare as is

Edit: I'm wrong, a couple languages in Ocean (more specifically Vanuatu) disprove me.

[DesEsseintes]

Phonemic /ɱ/ is, as far as I am aware, unattested, but phonemic /ɲ/ and /ŋ/ are both extremely common.

A good place to look for languages with many contrasting nasal stop phonemes is Australia, where a "typical" inventory will include most or all of /m n̪ n ɳ ɲ ŋ/.

Have a look at Kalkatungu for example. Enindhilyakwa (a personal fave) has the added bonus of distinguishing a labialised velar /ŋʷ/ as well.

Hope that helps.

Also, linguolabial nasals aren't ever distinguished, with linguolabial stops as rare as is

Edit: I'm wrong, a couple languages in Ocean (more specifically Vanuatu) disprove me.

Got links for that info? I'd be very interested.

There's also Kukuya, apparently.

[Frislander]

Enindhilyakwa (a personal fave) has the added bonus of distinguishing a labialised velar /ŋʷ/ as well.

On top of that it also contains an /ŋm/ <ngm> cluster along with a /kp/ <kb> and /ŋkp/ <ngb> cluster, which given the language's intolerance for coda consonants otherwise I'd probably analyse as a labial-velar series.

[LinguoFranco]

One more question. I'm thinking about using /a e o/ as a vowel system, with /ʊ/ and /ɪ/ being variants of /o/ and /e/, but idk if they should be allophonic or as part of free variance.

They occur in Yanesha' as realizations of /o/ and /a/.

[DesEsseintes]

One more question. I'm thinking about using /a e o/ as a vowel system, with /ʊ/ and /ɪ/ being variants of /o/ and /e/, but idk if they should be allophonic or as part of free variance.

They occur in Yanesha' as realizations of /o/ and /a/.

Just some ideas:
1. [ɪ ʊ] could be allophones of /e o/ due to prosodic conditioning, e.g. in unstressed syllables, or perhaps in pretonic syllables (i.e. in a syllable before a stressed syllable).
2. [ɪ ʊ] could be allophones of /e o/ according to syllable structure, e.g. open syllables might have [e o], while closed syllables have [ɪ ʊ].
3. [ɪ ʊ] could be allophones of /e o/ before another vowel (I think I mentioned to you before that Cheyenne takes this one step further and has /e o/ become glides [j w] before another vowel).

[Shemtov]

The Umarian language (Dima Umaria), a modern descentdent of Umbrian spoken on a fictional island of the coast of Montenegro, the last survivor of P-Italic:
/p b t d tɕ dʑ k g/ <п б т д ч џ к г>
/m n ɲ/ <м н њ>
/s z ɬ ɕ ʑ h/ <с з l ш ж х>
/l ʎ/ <<л љ>
/ i u e o a/ <и у е о а>

[Micamo]

Abandoned naming language I came up with for a short story I was writing that I probably won't finish.

/ʔ h m m̊ n n̊ r r̊ l l̥ j j̊ w ʍ/ <' h m mh n nh r rh l lh y yh w wh>
/a e i o/ <a e i o>

Words:

yaena
rheoara
a'eina
reah
hael
eyha'ielah
mhae
weowa'ah

[DesEsseintes]

Micamo, isn't that the idea you once described in the channel as a possible 'heartlang'?

[Micamo]

Maybe, I don't remember. Sonorant-only languages are an idea I've been fascinated with for a while though so it wouldn't surprise me if I've made something similar to this.

[Frislander]

/p t̪ t c k ʔ/
/w ð ɾ j ɣ/
/m n̪ n ɲ ŋ/
/l/

/i e a u o/ in long and short

Syllable structure is CV(ʔ, n, l). Only the stops and nasals occur word-initially. The glides /w ð ɾ j ɣ/ are strengthened to their corresponding stop when they appear after the sonorants, while the nasal /n/ assimilates to the POA of a following consonant.

[sangi39]

Little something I've been thinking up for a couple of days:

/p t ʔ/ (P)
/b~β~m d~ɾ~n h₁~ŋ/ (B)
/s h₂/ (F)
/l j/ (R)

/i/
/(ə) o/
/ã/

Syllable structure is strictly CV

/ã/ causes preceding "B" to become nasal which in turn causes the preceding vowel to become nasalised, e.g. /tibã/ > [ˈtɕĩmã]. /ã/ also causes following "B" to become nasal, e.g. /pãdi/ > [ˈpãndʑi]. Note, however, that nasalisation of the following vowel does not occur in this instance. Similarly, "B" preceding nasalised non-/ã/ vowels do not become nasal, e.g. /doh₁ã/ > [ˈdõŋã], not [ˈnõŋã].

When non-nasal and non-initial, "B" become non-plosive, e.g. /ʔobi/ > [ˈʔoβi].

/i/ causes palatalises preceding consonants to a certain degree, but this is most noticeable for the alveolar sounds /t d~ɾ~n s l/ which are realised as [tɕ dʑ~ʑ~ndʑ ɕ ʎ] respectively.

The difference between /h₁/ and /h₂/ lies in the former being subject to nasalisation while the latter is not, with /h₁/ deriving from older *g. /h₂/ also appears in order to break up vowel clusters.

/(ə)/ is an epenthetic vowel appearing to break consonant clusters. It is typically pronounced as [a] but without causing any nasalisation, either preceding or following, although it is subject to nasalisation. When stressed it appears instead as but does not trigger preceding palatalisation.

Unstressed /o/ appears as when the following stressed syllable contains /i/ (but not /ə/ ) or when word-final. Likewise unstressed /i/ appears as [ẽ] when the following stressed syllable has /ã/, but appears as when word-final. Before an unstressed syllable /i/ and /o/ appear simply as [i~ĩ] and [o~õ] and /ə/ appears as [a~ã]

Stress is word-final. In non-compound words, "secondary" stress appears every third syllable back through a word, e.g. CV.CVˌCV.CV.CVˈCV. Syllables carrying stress further back in the word act in the same way as final stressed syllables.

[DesEsseintes]

Thinking about Greek inspired this little sketch for a Limestone rethink. Not sure yet whether I like it.

/m n/
/p t k ʔ/
/p͡s t͡s k͡s/
/t͡sx k͡x/
/t͡ɬ/
/s ɬ x/
/l j w/

/a i o/ or /a e i o/ + syllabic continuants, length and tone

Treating affricates as clusters results in the following reduced consonant inventory:

/m n/
/p t t͡s k ʔ/
/s ɬ x/
/l j w/

Edit: This new inventory also implies that Híí and Limestone may be more closely related than previously thought. Limestone may therefore derive from Proto-Híí rather than Proto-Plains.

[DesEsseintes]

Rhotic madness. Obviously, more phonemes need to be added to this, but I find this sketch thrillingly hideous.

/m n ŋ/
/mb nd ŋg/
/mbʙ ndr ŋgʀ~ɴɢʀ/
/p t k/
/pʙ̥ tr̥ kʀ̥~qʀ̥/
/r ʀ/
/r̥ ʀ̥/

A rhotic-heavy Bantulang perhaps?

[alynnidalar]

"Thrillingly hideous" is one way to describe it.

[DesEsseintes]

"Thrillingly hideous" is one way to describe it.

Do you have another way?

[Omzinesý]

Rhotic madness. Obviously, more phonemes need to be added to this, but I find this sketch thrillingly hideous.

/m n ŋ/
/mb nd ŋg/
/mbʙ ndr ŋgʀ~ɴɢʀ/
/p t k/
/pʙ̥ tr̥ kʀ̥~qʀ̥/
/r ʀ/
/r̥ ʀ̥/

A rhotic-heavy Bantulang perhaps?

Actually that looks like a natural phonology.
If /ŋgʀ~ɴɢʀ/ is a phoneme, I think the uvular pronunciation would be more usual.

[alynnidalar]

"Thrillingly hideous" is one way to describe it.

Do you have another way?

Nah, that's pretty good. I probably would've done something alliterative ("horrifyingly hideous"? "stomach-churningly sordid"?), but "thrillingly" is a really fantastic word.

I threw it into zompist's gen with /a i u/ as vowels, setting all consonants as equally probable, and came up with some real doozies:

qʀ̥aŋgʀtr̥
rupʙ̥aŋgʀŋgʀ
ŋgʀiŋgʀaau
ŋgmbandru
pʙ̥arpaatukʀ̥qʀ̥u
ɴɢʀikkʀ̥ipʙ̥ndratr̥

[Creyeditor]

I thought of a consonant inventory that only uses the following distinctive features:

• [+/- strident]
  [+/- lateral]
  [+/- approximant]
  [+/- delayed primary release]
  [+/- anterior]
  [+/- distributed]

/s̪ s ɕ ʂ/
/ɬ̪ ɬ ɬ̠ ɬ˞/
/θ θ̠ θ̠ʲ θ̠˞ /
/ts̪ ts cɕ tʂ/
/t̪ɬ̪ tɬ cɬ̠ ʈɬ˞ /
/t̪θ tθ̠ cθ̠ʲ ʈθ̠˞ /
/l̪ l ʎ ɭ /
/ð̞ ɹ j ɻ /

In principle none of these are specified for other featues. For [+/- voice] I just assumed that sonorants/ are inherently voiced and obstruents are inherently voiceless. For [+/-continuant] the non-strident, non-affricate, non-laterals could in principle have stop allophones in free variation. Тhe feature [+/-nasal] is also unspecified. Since there are no lateral or strident nasals, non-lateral non stridents might in principle be nasals, which also entails that they would be voiced. I really don't want nasal approximants, so I am just gonna exclude them. [+/- sonorant] in this language just follows general markedness principles. Stridents are obstruents and laterals are sonorants. Place is also unspecified. I will assume that laterals can never be [Labial]. I will also assume that [+/- strident] distinguished uvulars from velars and labials from labiodentals; the contrasts wrt to [+/- anterior] and [+/- distributed] are neutralized in non-coronal sounds.
Here is a list of allophones for each phoneme:

Spoiler:

/s̪ /[f χ]
/s /[f χ]
/ɕ /[f χ]
/ʂ /[f χ]
/ɬ̪/ [ʟ̝̊]
/ɬ/ [ʟ̝̊]
/ɬ̠/ [ʟ̝̊]
/ɬ˞ /[ʟ̝̊]
/θ/[t̪ n̪ ɸ p m x ŋ]
/θ̠/[t n ɸ p m x ŋ]
/θ̠ʲ/[c ɲ ɸ p m x ŋ]
/θ̠˞ /[ʈ ɳ ɸ p m x ŋ]
/ts̪/[pf qχ]
/ts/[pf qχ]
/cɕ/[pf qχ]
/tʂ/[pf qχ]
/t̪θ/[t̪ⁿ pɸ pⁿ kx kⁿ]
/tθ̠/[tⁿ pɸ pⁿ kx kⁿ]
/cθ̠ʲ/ [cⁿ pɸ pⁿ kχ kⁿ]
/ʈθ̠˞ /[ʈⁿ pɸ pⁿ kχ kⁿ]
/ð̞ / [β w]
/ɹ/ [β w]
/j/ [β w]
/ɻ/ [β w]
/l̪ /[ʟ]
/l/ [ʟ]
/ʎ/ [ʟ]
/ɭ /[ʟ]

Another feature that is actually used in this language is [+/-consonantal], because I want vowels. Vowels are distinguished by [+/-ATR] and [+/-round]. This gives us four vowel phonemes.
/i u/
/a ɔ/

Height features can freely vary in vowels, but backness is inserted by default.

/i/ [e ɘ]
/u/ [o ɵ]
/a/ [ɪ ɛ]
/ɔ/ [ʊ ɒ]

Hope you like the idea. I think I had it before, but hopefully I haven't posted it yet.

[Man in Space]

Rhotic madness. Obviously, more phonemes need to be added to this, but I find this sketch thrillingly hideous.

Surely you meant "trillingly hilarious", right?

[DesEsseintes]

Rhotic madness. Obviously, more phonemes need to be added to this, but I find this sketch thrillingly hideous.

Surely you meant "trillingly hilarious", right?

I must be blind not to have noticed that avenue of possible puns!