(L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

[All4Ɇn]

Examples of refusing to spell something with the sequence <wu> include "wolf", "wonder", "wool", "wood", "wound" and "wont", all of which were originally spelled with < u >.

Also "woman" and (ultimately) "won't", which phonetically had rounding of /i/ to /u/, but spelled it with <o> instead.

Also arguably "womb" - this DID originally have <o>, but it later developed a u-like vowel and spelling never altered to match.

Very interesting! I had always assumed these kind of words underwent a vowel shortening of /uː/ -> /ʊ/ with the <o> spelling coming from the GVS /oː/ -> /uː/

[Khemehekis]

I can also think of "swum" and "swung" (past participles). Then there's "wuv", a modern-day phonetic respelling, and "wuxtry! wuxtry!", a strange dialectal variation on "extra! extra!" (not sure which dialect).

But yeah, I was just thinking about this the other day. /w/ can do strange things to the following vowel: think of "wad", "waddle", "wand", "wander", "want", "wash", "wasp", "watch", "water", "swamp", "swan", "swashbuckler", and "swat"; then think of "war", "ward", "warden", "warm", "warn", "warp"< "warrior", and "wart"; then think of "word", "work", "world", "worm", "worry", "worse", "worst", and "worth".



EDIT: Oh! And how could we forget? "Wug"!

[WeepingElf]

Perhaps <wu> is so rare in English because <w> once was <uu> (hence the name "double U"), and <wu> would have been <uuu>.

[Khemehekis]

It just occurred to me that in addition to German borrowings like Sangi's "wunderkind" and "liverwurst", wu is also used in a number of Chinese borrowings: wushu, Wuhan, wuxia, and the surname Wu itself.

[Salmoneus]

Perhaps <wu> is so rare in English because <w> once was <uu> (hence the name "double U"), and <wu> would have been <uuu>.

That's probably the most pressing reason, yes.

The bigger background to this is that in Carolingian minuscule, and even more so in subsequent scripts, the letters 'm', 'n', 'u', 'w' and 'i' all consisted of short vertical lines. The ties between those lines were small and hard to see, while the invention of cursive meant that sometimes unrelated lines were also tied. In later scripts - so aroudn 1400 iirc - the ties between the lines were lost altogether in non-cursive, making sequences of these letters essentially indecipherable. What's more, many other letters, like 'o', 'a', 'c', and 'r' also primarily consisted of short vertical lines and small or absent non-vertical elements in some script forms. So anything that made words more legible was readily received!

A third confounding factor in English was that vowels frequently (and sometimes irregularly) genuinely changed pronounciation after /w/. I'm not aware of /u/ ever actually being lowered to /o/ after it, but it's possible that speakers perceived some legitimate allophonic difference that they felt legitimised a change in the vowel they used.

[collect_gluesticks]

Is anyone here aware of any languages, besides English, with a derivational stress suprafix?
English has initial-stress-derived nouns, but I'm wondering if there are other cross-linguistic examples of stress derivation. I spent an afternoon searching around, but I'm not coming up any good results. (maybe I'm not using the right search query)

[Creyeditor]

Tongan (and some related languages) use stress shift to mark definite nouns. This is more inflectional than derivational but it's the closest thing that I can think of right now.

[Omzinesý]

Is anyone here aware of any languages, besides English, with a derivational stress suprafix?
English has initial-stress-derived nouns, but I'm wondering if there are other cross-linguistic examples of stress derivation. I spent an afternoon searching around, but I'm not coming up any good results. (maybe I'm not using the right search query)

Most masculine nouns in Somali have stress on the penultimate while most feminine nouns have stress on the last syllable.
ínan 'boy'
inán 'girl'

Somali is not a canonical stress language but it is not a tone language either.
I think many languages in Africa do such things.


A Caucasian language, I couldn't quickly find which one, does the same as Tongan.

[Salmoneus]

A borderline case, or at least point of interest, is apparently Spanish, where the general pattern of stress can be deviated from lexically in the process of derivation:
ter"mino - I terminate
"termino - term
And also in the process of inflection, as certain morphemes carry inherent stress:
termi"no - he terminated

However, I don't know whether the irregular initial stress is common enough, or sufficiently related to word class, to qualify here.

Another interesting border case is apparently Chinese, where VN combinations take a different stress pattern from NN combinations. Apparently this is explained by calling the former 'phrases' and the latter 'compounds', but, also apparently, the distinction between phrases and compounds is controversial, so it's possible these are really just verbal vs nominal compounds with part of speech shown by stress... but even if that's true I don't know whether there are actually any VN/NN minimal pairs.

Chinese also, apparently, has exactly the same derivational stress shift in nominal compounding that English has ('black bird' > 'blackbird'), but I assume stress shifts in compounding are common enough not to qualify as what you're looking for.

[Arayaz]

But yeah, I was just thinking about this the other day. /w/ can do strange things to the following vowel: think of "wad", "waddle", "wand", "wander", "want", "wash", "wasp", "watch", "water", "swamp", "swan", "swashbuckler", and "swat"; then think of "war", "ward", "warden", "warm", "warn", "warp"< "warrior", and "wart"; then think of "word", "work", "world", "worm", "worry", "worse", "worst", and "worth".

This seems like at least partially an effect of the /ɹ/ instead.

[Sequor]

However, I don't know whether the irregular initial stress is common enough, or sufficiently related to word class, to qualify here.

The irregular initial stress on término 'term' is quite odd and not common. And I'd say it exists at all due to it being adapted/adopted from Latin, that is it's a latinism, and the stress location in Latin is initial: términus. If it had been derived via the regular native process with -o on a verb stem, it'd be el *termino.

[collect_gluesticks]

A borderline case, or at least point of interest, is apparently Spanish, where the general pattern of stress can be deviated from lexically in the process of derivation:

Most masculine nouns in Somali have stress on the penultimate while most feminine nouns have stress on the last syllable.

Tongan (and some related languages) use stress shift to mark definite nouns. This is more inflectional than derivational but it's the closest thing that I can think of right now.

Thank you all! I'm planning to include a stress suprafix in my conlang, and researching these examples you gave has been helpful. In particular, I found some papers on the Tongan feature, and theories as to how it emerged, which gave me some ideas for my own feature.

[WeepingElf]

Another example are the PIE deverbal nominals of the type *tómos 'a cut' vs. *tomós 'cutting, sharp'.

[Nel Fie]

Here's a question that I feel dumb for asking, but I couldn't find an answer with a quick search:

Is the glottal stop basically our vocal apparatus's resting position? I.e. when I remain silent, is that technically a prolonged [ʔː]?
Or is there actually something more going on in a "proper" glottal stop? Aside from being contextualized by other sounds, I mean.

[Dormouse559]

Here's a question that I feel dumb for asking, but I couldn't find an answer with a quick search:

Is the glottal stop basically our vocal apparatus's resting position? I.e. when I remain silent, is that technically a prolonged [ʔː]?
Or is there actually something more going on in a "proper" glottal stop? Aside from being contextualized by other sounds, I mean.

No dumb questions here The glottal stop is not the resting position. It's created by blocking airflow in the vocal tract, specifically at the vocal cords themselves. Ideally, for not-dying purposes, your vocal tract's resting position is open If I had to guess the sound closest to resting, I'd go with [h]; you do breathe out to produce it, but that's it.

[eldin raigmore]

What Dormouse559 just said.

[Nel Fie]

No dumb questions here The glottal stop is not the resting position. It's created by blocking airflow in the vocal tract, specifically at the vocal cords themselves. Ideally, for not-dying purposes, your vocal tract's resting position is open If I had to guess the sound closest to resting, I'd go with [h]; you do breathe out to produce it, but that's it.

Ah, I knew I was overlooking something. Thank you, I shall go on not-dying a little bit smarter by dint of your explanation. If we really wanted to take the joke to the finish line, I suppose breathing could roughly be transcribed as (hː(.)h↓ː) ?

[LinguoFranco]

I'm interested in learning more about the pitch accent patterns found in the Ryukyuan languages, and how they differ from Japanese. I personally could not find too much on it.

If you have any knowledge or resources about the Ryukyuan accents, I'd love for you to share!

[LinguistCat]

I'm interested in learning more about the pitch accent patterns found in the Ryukyuan languages, and how they differ from Japanese. I personally could not find too much on it.

If you have any knowledge or resources about the Ryukyuan accents, I'd love for you to share!

Most of my research lately (whether Japanese, Ryukyuan or non-linguistic) goes through academia.edu . The free account has some limitations but you should be able to find something by inputting "Ryukyuan pitch accent" into the search. The only annoyance is that it keeps telling me I have been mentioned or cited in papers that absolutely are not mine, despite having input that I am a researcher and not an academic who has written papers at account creation.

From what I've read in passing while researching pitch accent in earlier forms of Japanese, the Ryukyuan languages/dialects tend to have "word melodies", or general patterns of pitch over the words as a whole, rather than pitch accent that is tied to a specific mora within the word.

[LinguoFranco]

I'm interested in learning more about the pitch accent patterns found in the Ryukyuan languages, and how they differ from Japanese. I personally could not find too much on it.

If you have any knowledge or resources about the Ryukyuan accents, I'd love for you to share!

Most of my research lately (whether Japanese, Ryukyuan or non-linguistic) goes through academia.edu . The free account has some limitations but you should be able to find something by inputting "Ryukyuan pitch accent" into the search. The only annoyance is that it keeps telling me I have been mentioned or cited in papers that absolutely are not mine, despite having input that I am a researcher and not an academic who has written papers at account creation.

From what I've read in passing while researching pitch accent in earlier forms of Japanese, the Ryukyuan languages/dialects tend to have "word melodies", or general patterns of pitch over the words as a whole, rather than pitch accent that is tied to a specific mora within the word.

The Japanese pitch accent can spread over the word, as well, can't it?