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

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Nachtuil
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Nachtuil »

Seriously, I feel like a kid in candy land with this site. So many more unexpected and interesting gaps exist in inventories than I would have imagined were realistic. I am utterly fascinated.
Just a link for others:
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~saphon/en/phonemes.php
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Frislander
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Frislander »

Nachtuil wrote:Seriously, I feel like a kid in candy land with this site. So many more unexpected and interesting gaps exist in inventories than I would have imagined were realistic. I am utterly fascinated.
Just a link for others:
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~saphon/en/phonemes.php
I agree, it's an absolutely fantastic resource, and one that should definitely be on every conlanger's list of online bookmarks.

All they need to do now is a similar for New Guinea...
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alynnidalar
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by alynnidalar »

I love how intuitive and easy to use that site is! A great resource.
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kinkinkijkin
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by kinkinkijkin »

what again is the name of the part of the language that dictates how a sentence or phrase within a sentence should sound to sound "not weird" to a speaker? I forgot the name of it and I want to look up tips for implementing and sticking to it.
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qwed117
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by qwed117 »

kinkinkijkin wrote:what again is the name of the part of the language that dictates how a sentence or phrase within a sentence should sound to sound "not weird" to a speaker? I forgot the name of it and I want to look up tips for implementing and sticking to it.
Uhhh. Are you talking about words like "that" (and their part if speech)? It's a group of grammatical words like complementizers and relative pronouns.

Or doyou just mean grammar?
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Chagen
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Chagen »

I think they're talking about marked vs unmarked phrases.
Nūdenku waga honji ma naku honyasi ne ika-ika ichamase!
female-appearance=despite boy-voice=PAT hold boy-youth=TOP very be.cute-3PL
Honyasi zō honyasi ma naidasu.
boy-youth=AGT boy-youth=PAT love.romantically-3S
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DesEsseintes
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by DesEsseintes »

kinkinkijkin wrote:what again is the name of the part of the language that dictates how a sentence or phrase within a sentence should sound to sound "not weird" to a speaker? I forgot the name of it and I want to look up tips for implementing and sticking to it.
A sentence that doesn't violate any of the grammatical principles of the language is said to be "grammatical", whereas a sentence that doesn't violate any of the grammatical and semantic principles of the language (i.e. doesn't sound "weird") is termed "felicitous". Is that what you are asking about?

Or are you just asking about syntax? Syntax is the study of how parts of a sentence fit together to form a grammatical (and hopefully felicitous) utterance.
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Creyeditor
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Creyeditor »

Maybe the question was about Pragmatics? In what contexts are utterances felicitous ('not weird', as Des said)?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by clawgrip »

I was sort of thinking it might be pragmatics as well, even if the description doesn't quite fit.
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DesEsseintes
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by DesEsseintes »

We must patiently await kinkinkijkin's return to see what they meant.
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kinkinkijkin
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by kinkinkijkin »

I meant sonically, by the way, not grammatically, sorry

very, very few conlangs actually take mind of it and most conlangers don't know what it is, but I've known about it since long before I even took interest in linguistics, and saw it brought up by someone on conlanging reddit with an actual official name for it...

like how "that is a cat" sounds weird and robotic in english but "that's a cat" sounds nice, or "henry sniffed the buffoon" sounds weirder than "steven wafted the idiot's scent"
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Creyeditor »

That seems to be a matter of register, i.e. sociolinguistics.
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Frislander
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Frislander »

It sounds like they're trying to make a point about intonation.
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kinkinkijkin
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by kinkinkijkin »

I just thought of a better way to explain it:

phrase-level phonotactics

what is the proper name for this?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Creyeditor »

There is definitely something like phrase level phonology and even utterance level phonology, which includes phonotactics.
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loglorn
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by loglorn »

It might be the case that he just wanted the word "syntax".
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Frislander
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Frislander »

And that, my friends, is why knowing and using the standardised terminology is a good idea.
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Lao Kou
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Lao Kou »

Frislander wrote:And that, my friends, is why knowing and using the standardised terminology is a good idea.
My initial guess was prosody. But not knowing/remembering the standardized terminology is why kinkinkijkin posed a quick question in the first place.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by holbuzvala »

So, there's a close demonstrative prefix 'nu-' that tacks onto nouns to show that they're closeby.

e.g. 'nu-ulok' -> 'nuulok'
THIS-MAN
This man

It's used already as a fixed form 'nuk' meaning 'he/she'. But I thought it would be fun if a gender distinction came about by tacking 'nu-' onto 'ríks' (girl) and having 'nuríks' mean 'she', while 'nuk' remained as 'he'.

However, I think some sound changes would occur. Firstly, 'í' [ɪ] would drop out, leaving 'nurks'. But my lang doesn't allow that sort of triple consonant cluster. So I am left with two viable forms 'nurk' and 'nuks'. Which do you think would be the one that 'nuríks' finally becomes? Or do you think a different soundchange would occur in that cluster?

In summary: nuríks ---> nurk OR nuks ?
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Frislander
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Frislander »

nuks for me, definitely. i was a bit confused at first, because the acute on the í is associated for me with an accented/stressed/long vowel and is therefore not going to be reduced, but your romanisation is your romanisation.
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