Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread [2011–2018]

[LinguoFranco]

How would you make vowel harmony out of this vowel system? /æ ɑ e ɤ i ɯ/. It's supposed to have rounding harmony, but I don't know what to do about the low vowels as they are harder to distinguish between than mid or close vowels. Maybe I can make them neutral vowels?

[Auvon]

How would you make vowel harmony out of this vowel system? /æ ɑ e ɤ i ɯ/. It's supposed to have rounding harmony, but I don't know what to do about the low vowels as they are harder to distinguish between than mid or close vowels. Maybe I can make them neutral vowels?

I assume also /y u ø o/. But yeah, having the low vowels be neutral would be best – contrastive rounding in low vowels is very rare.

[Frislander]

How would you make vowel harmony out of this vowel system? /æ ɑ e ɤ i ɯ/. It's supposed to have rounding harmony, but I don't know what to do about the low vowels as they are harder to distinguish between than mid or close vowels. Maybe I can make them neutral vowels?

I assume also /y u ø o/. But yeah, having the low vowels be neutral would be best – contrastive rounding in low vowels is very rare.

Given the system we have here I' surprised you're not planning for front-back harmony as well, because this system's perfect for that.

As for the rounding harmony, I'd say only /æ/ neutral: I myself can easily distinguish /ɑ ɒ/ (though I'm a British-English speaker so I do have an advantage in that regard), and if you give it to them the speakers of your language would be able to distinguish them too.

[LinguoFranco]

How would you make vowel harmony out of this vowel system? /æ ɑ e ɤ i ɯ/. It's supposed to have rounding harmony, but I don't know what to do about the low vowels as they are harder to distinguish between than mid or close vowels. Maybe I can make them neutral vowels?

I assume also /y u ø o/. But yeah, having the low vowels be neutral would be best – contrastive rounding in low vowels is very rare.

Given the system we have here I' surprised you're not planning for front-back harmony as well, because this system's perfect for that.

As for the rounding harmony, I'd say only /æ/ neutral: I myself can easily distinguish /ɑ ɒ/ (though I'm a British-English speaker so I do have an advantage in that regard), and if you give it to them the speakers of your language would be able to distinguish them too.

Good point. Yeah, it makes sense to have front- back harmony, too. I just didn't think about it at the time.

I think I can also distinguish between /ɑ ɒ/ just fine, even the latter phoneme is probably not that common in my dialect of English. Wouldn't be a little too similar to Finnish, except that it has unrounded back vowels?

[Frislander]

How would you make vowel harmony out of this vowel system? /æ ɑ e ɤ i ɯ/. It's supposed to have rounding harmony, but I don't know what to do about the low vowels as they are harder to distinguish between than mid or close vowels. Maybe I can make them neutral vowels?

I assume also /y u ø o/. But yeah, having the low vowels be neutral would be best – contrastive rounding in low vowels is very rare.

Given the system we have here I' surprised you're not planning for front-back harmony as well, because this system's perfect for that.

As for the rounding harmony, I'd say only /æ/ neutral: I myself can easily distinguish /ɑ ɒ/ (though I'm a British-English speaker so I do have an advantage in that regard), and if you give it to them the speakers of your language would be able to distinguish them too.

Good point. Yeah, it makes sense to have front- back harmony, too. I just didn't think about it at the time.

I think I can also distinguish between /ɑ ɒ/ just fine, even the latter phoneme is probably not that common in my dialect of English. Wouldn't be a little too similar to Finnish, except that it has unrounded back vowels?

Not Finnish, but Uralic, certainly. What I'm proposing is essentially the system for Proto-Samoyedic, though that didn't have rounding harmony and also included reduced vowels and diphthongs.

[LinguoFranco]

How would you make vowel harmony out of this vowel system? /æ ɑ e ɤ i ɯ/. It's supposed to have rounding harmony, but I don't know what to do about the low vowels as they are harder to distinguish between than mid or close vowels. Maybe I can make them neutral vowels?

I assume also /y u ø o/. But yeah, having the low vowels be neutral would be best – contrastive rounding in low vowels is very rare.

Given the system we have here I' surprised you're not planning for front-back harmony as well, because this system's perfect for that.

As for the rounding harmony, I'd say only /æ/ neutral: I myself can easily distinguish /ɑ ɒ/ (though I'm a British-English speaker so I do have an advantage in that regard), and if you give it to them the speakers of your language would be able to distinguish them too.

Good point. Yeah, it makes sense to have front- back harmony, too. I just didn't think about it at the time.

I think I can also distinguish between /ɑ ɒ/ just fine, even the latter phoneme is probably not that common in my dialect of English. Wouldn't be a little too similar to Finnish, except that it has unrounded back vowels?

Not Finnish, but Uralic, certainly. What I'm proposing is essentially the system for Proto-Samoyedic, though that didn't have rounding harmony and also included reduced vowels and diphthongs.

With the system I have, would having harmony for both backness and roundness be a little to restricting?

[Frislander]

Spoiler:

How would you make vowel harmony out of this vowel system? /æ ɑ e ɤ i ɯ/. It's supposed to have rounding harmony, but I don't know what to do about the low vowels as they are harder to distinguish between than mid or close vowels. Maybe I can make them neutral vowels?

I assume also /y u ø o/. But yeah, having the low vowels be neutral would be best – contrastive rounding in low vowels is very rare.

Given the system we have here I' surprised you're not planning for front-back harmony as well, because this system's perfect for that.

As for the rounding harmony, I'd say only /æ/ neutral: I myself can easily distinguish /ɑ ɒ/ (though I'm a British-English speaker so I do have an advantage in that regard), and if you give it to them the speakers of your language would be able to distinguish them too.

Good point. Yeah, it makes sense to have front- back harmony, too. I just didn't think about it at the time.

I think I can also distinguish between /ɑ ɒ/ just fine, even the latter phoneme is probably not that common in my dialect of English. Wouldn't be a little too similar to Finnish, except that it has unrounded back vowels?

Not Finnish, but Uralic, certainly. What I'm proposing is essentially the system for Proto-Samoyedic, though that didn't have rounding harmony and also included reduced vowels and diphthongs.

With the system I have, would having harmony for both backness and roundness be a little to restricting?

I suppose it partly depends on the size of your consonant inventory or how permissive you are with clusters, but I'd probably still say no even if you only had 10 consonants. You've still got three levels of height to exploit, and you could always have some circumstances to block the harmony if you want.

Honestly if you ask me I'd say the only true way to find out how satisfying a phonology is is to try it out, so have a go with it!

[LinguoFranco]

Vowel harmony is pretty fun and I love the way it makes languages sounds, idk why I rarely used it before.

The fronting and rounding harmony is pretty interesting, but now I'm experimenting with ATR harmony. I had some elements earlier in my older projects, but it wasn't really harmony as I would have /ʊ/ instead of .u/, but otherwise the vowels were the same as Spanish. I've always really liked /ɪ/ and /ʊ/, but it never really occurred to me to base them on vowel harmony.

[Vlürch]

Something meant to sound as cute uguu~ as a language possibly could. Not really the most successful attempt at a cute phonology, but well.

/m n ɲ ŋ m͊ n͊/ <m n ny ng ṃ ṇ>
/p b t d k g/ <p b t d k g>
/t͡s t͡ɕ d͡ʑ/ <ts ch j>
/s z ɕ/ <s z sh>
/ɸ ʋ j x~χ/ <f v y h>
/r l/ <r l>

Before long vowels, voiceless stops are aspirated and voiced stops become voiceless.
Word-finally and before velar consonants, /n͊/ is [ŋ͊]; adjacent to front vowels, it's [ɲ͊].
Word-finally, /s/ is [θ] and /z/ is ; intervocally /s/ is [z] and /z/ is [ð].
Intervocally, /x~χ/ is [ɣ~ʁ] between back vowels and [ʝ] between front vowels; word-finally [ħ].
Intervocally, /r/ and /l/ are [ɾ~ɾ̞] and [ɺ]; word-finally, they're [ɹ] and [ɬ].
Adjacent to front vowels, /k/ and /g/ are [c] and [ɟ], and /x/ is [ç]; other consonants may also be palatalised adjacent to front vowels, particularly long front vowels.
Fricatives may be labialised adjacent to long rounded vowels.

/ɐ ɘ ɪ ʊ~ʏ/ <a e i u>
/ɒː~ɑː ɛː iː uː~yː/ <á é í ú>

Short vowels are always more or less the same (they may be advanced/retracted or raised/lowered), but long vowels vary in front/back vowel harmony depending on the other vowels in a word; vowel harmony may be shifted by short vowels. As the last vowel of a word, if it's a back vowel, /uː/ is [ɯː]. For example, <kúzerulúh> [cʰyːðɘɾ̞ʊɺɯːħ].

Random words:
chugúṃtáṇ [t͡ɕʊkuːm͊t̪ʰɒːŋ͊]
nyébéz [ɲɛːpʲɛːs̻ʲ]
habáhú [χɐ̠pɑːʁɯː]
sugirjenyár [s̠ʲʏɟɪɾ̠ʲd͡ʑɘɲɒːɹ̠ʷ]
dulfúkú [d̻ʲʏl̠ʲɸʷʲyːcʰyː]
túbuṇas [t̪ʰuːbʊn͊ɐθ]
ádáchuhizévíṃul [ɑːtɒːt͡ɕʉʝɪðʲɛːʋʲiːm͊ʲʏ̟ɬ̠ʲ]

[Omzinesý]

/m n ɲ ŋ m͊ n͊/ <m n ny ng ṃ ṇ>

What do m͊ and n͊ mean?

[qwed117]

/m n ɲ ŋ m͊ n͊/ <m n ny ng ṃ ṇ>

What do m͊ and n͊ mean?

I'm gonna guess that means they're creaky voiced.

[Frislander]

/p t t͡ʃ k ʔ/
/tʰ/
/ɓ ɗ/
/f s x/
/m n ɲ ŋ/
/ɾ/

/i i̯a e ə a u u̯a o/

Stress is word-final.

Syllable structure is C(r)V(C). In stressed syllables all vowels and diphthongs occur: in unstressed syllables only the schwa is found.

[Frislander]

/p t k ʔ/
/f ɬ s ʃ ʂ x h/
/m n/
/w ɾ j/

/(i) (ə) a aː (u)/

There is sibilant harmony both within roots and affixes.

Syllable structure is (C)CV(C)(C). The schwa is used as an epenthetic vowel to break up consonants in clusters and in words with no underlying vowels, unless this would cause a diphthong with a glide..

The close vowels are allophones of the glides when not adjacent to another vowel. There is a three-way ablaut system between a zero-grade, short-a-grade and long-a-grade.

----

/t t͡s k/
/ⁿb ⁿd/
/s x/
/m n/
/w j/

/i ɨ a u ɔ/

[Vlürch]

/m n ɲ ŋ m͊ n͊/ <m n ny ng ṃ ṇ>

What do m͊ and n͊ mean?

I'm gonna guess that means they're creaky voiced.

No, they're denasalised, like /m/ and /n/ are word-initially in Korean. You could've just googled them and the first result would've told you that that diacritic means denasalisation, but well.

[DesEsseintes]

/t t͡s k/
/ⁿb ⁿd/
/s x/
/m n/
/w j/

/i ɨ a u ɔ/

I like this one.

You've posted a lot of minimal inventories, Frislander. Have any of them progressed to a more advanced stage? Or are you waiting to stumble across the "perfect" inventory to work with?

[Frislander]

/t t͡s k/
/ⁿb ⁿd/
/s x/
/m n/
/w j/

/i ɨ a u ɔ/

I like this one.

You've posted a lot of minimal inventories, Frislander. Have any of them progressed to a more advanced stage? Or are you waiting to stumble across the "perfect" inventory to work with?

Thank you!

It's just my taste really. The only one which I've actually progressed with so far is this one, and it's seen some severe modification since I posted it, since the daughter language has been altered to resemble this other language a lot more as part of a sprachbund. The proto-language now permits only /N/ (a la Japanese) to appear in the coda, syllable structure overall is now CV(V)(N) (with all vowel combinations possible), and vowels are slightly different (/i ɨ a u/). The daughter-lang is far more severely altered: in the dialect I'm focusing on, /ɨ/ becomes /e/ and /u/ lowers to /o/' /g/ and /h/ are lost completely; the other voiced stops aside from phonetic [r] become implosives; /k/ is debuccalised; and /m n y/ are denasalised except before nasalised vowels. These plus a few other changes gives this inventory:

/t t͡s ʔ/ <t c '>
/ⁿb~m ⁿd~n ⁿd͡z~ɲ/ <b~m d~n j~nj>
/ɓ ɗ/ <b' d'>
/s/ <s>
/w ɾ/ <w r>

/i e a o/ plus or minus nasalisation

Syllable structure is (C)V(V). <r> does not occur word-initially.

[Frislander]

/p t t͡ʃ~ʃ k kʷ/ <p t c k kw>
/θ s x xʷ/ <θ s h hw>
/ɾ w/ <r w>

<c> is realised as [ʃ] intervocalically and before another consonant (except when geminated) and as [t͡ʃ] elsewhere.

/i ɯ a ɔ/ <i u a o>

Syllable structure is (C)V(V)(C), where any consonant may appear in onset or coda. The acceptable vowel combinations are given in the chart below (which is also a chart showing how vowel syncope works). /i/ is realised as [j] when adjacent to another vowel.

Code: Select all

  a  i  o  u
a aa ai oo uu
i ia ii io iu
o oo oi oo uu
u ua ui oo uu

[DesEsseintes]

/m n ɲ ŋ m͊ n͊/ <m n ny ng ṃ ṇ>

What do m͊ and n͊ mean?

I'm gonna guess that means they're creaky voiced.

No, they're denasalised, like /m/ and /n/ are word-initially in Korean. You could've just googled them and the first result would've told you that that diacritic means denasalisation, but well.

Just for the record, Vlürch, the denasalisation symbol is not displaying correctly on my phone, which may have led to Omzinesy's confusion as to their use in your phonology. However, I will remember not to ask about details of your phonologies in future if you find being asked so tiresome.

[Frislander]

About time I posted a less-minimal inventory than the ones I've been showing recently.

/t t͡ʂ t͡ɕ k/
/d d͡ʐ d͡ʑ g/
/ɬ ʂ ɕ/
/n j ɰ/
/ɾ/

/ɪ iː eː ɛ æː ʊ uː oː ʌ ɑː/

Syllable structure is (C)V(F), where F is one of /t k ɬ n ɾ/. Onsetless syllables only occur word-initially.

Stress falls on the first heavy syllable, or word-initially if there are no heavy syllables.

[Auvon]

/m n/ <m n>
/tʰ t kʰ k qʰ/ <θ t k g q>
/ɓ ɗ/ <b d>
/s h/<s h>
/l/ <l>
/i ɨ u/ <i y u>
/ɛ ɑ/ <e a>
Plus high tone, acute.

Most roots are consonant-initial, (C)V(Q) where Q is a consonantal continuant /s h l/. Probably extensive syncope in a later stage of the language, final stress. Maybe I'll do some sort of V harmony, perhaps frontness with neutral /u/?