Project Stubby-Holder

[VaptuantaDoi]

Project Stubby-Holder

This is a project inspired by, but not obligatorily conforming to, Australian languages. I haven’t seen many other Australian-inspired conlangs (the only one I can think of is this one which I'm a big fan of) despite the fact that they’re very interesting and unique. Mine doesn’t have a name just yet, so I’ll name it Project Stubby-Holder (or just Stubby for short).

Stubby is most likely located on an island near Kokhene and could well be related to the Click and Tumbleweed languages in a great big bushy Stub-Tumble-Click family. Maybe there is another language in the area which is superficially similar but entirely unrelated – hell, it might even be a Kwreid Isthmus language for all I know. The Stubby people most likely have a boring cringe society with a culture and such, but we can safely ignore all that nonsense and get into the interesting stuff (i.e. repeatedly starting new projects and almost instantaneously scrapping them).


Phonology

Like many Australian languages, Stubby has fairly strong restrictions on consonant distribution. There are basically two structures which determine which consonants go where. All words are polysyllabic without exception, and almost all words have an even number of syllables, being pretty strictly trochaic. Words are formed in the following two ways (using R.M.W. Dixon’s notation since he’s the Aussie-lang guru):

1. C₁V-C₂C₃V…(C₄)
2. 2. C₁V-C₅V…(C₄)

Words can then be extended by “C₂C₃V”s or “C₅V”s. In other words, “C₁” is a word-initial consonant, C₂ is a word-internal coda consonant, C₃ is a word-internal post-consonantal consonant, C₄ is a word-final coda consonant and C₅ is an intervocalic consonant. Each of these positions has a restricted set of possible consonants numbering between six and nine segments:




Consonants

We can see that C₁ and C₃ are subsets of C₅, which makes sense since they’re all onsets. Likewise word-final and internal codas are related. We can sum this up as:

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Onset consonants: b g m ŋ w
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Coda consonants: dh dy nh ny lh
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Either: d n r y

This means there are the following 14 surface consonants –

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ /b ɡ d̻ d ɟ/ b g dh d dy
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ /m ŋ n̻ n ɲ/ m ŋ nh n ny
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ /w l̻ ɽ j/ w l r y

A fairly normal Australian inventory, although a bit on the small side. A few Aussie languages – Dyirbal, Wik-Munkan, Yidiny, and Gugu-Yalandyi – have 13 consonants, and one (Bandjalang) has 12.

However, five of these are in complementary distribution with another five, so we can view Stubby as having only nine consonants:

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ |b~d̻ ɡ~ɟ d|
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ |m~n̻ ŋ~ɲ n|
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ |w~l̻ j ɽ|

The ‘peripheral’ consonants |b ɡ m ŋ w| would then have laminal allophones in codas – a fair stretch in the case of labials, but there is some evidence to view these as variants of the same phoneme. Prefixes and compounding don’t help, since they never force an intervocalic, post-consonantal or word-initial consonant into coda position. However, verbs in the small lh~w-class change their final lh to w when it becomes intervocalic:

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ muranhbulh- + -alhmuny → muranhbuwulh

There aren’t, alas, any examples of other alternations except perhaps in fossilised irregular verbs. On the one hand, laminal consonants (other than /j/) are strictly speaking allophones, but on the other hand, they almost never alternate and wouldn’t be viewed as the same phoneme by native speakers. I think it’s most sensible to use the first inventory I listed, i.e.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ b g dh d dy
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ m ŋ nh n ny
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ w l r y

To anyone not familiar with Australianist conventions, y is /j/, laminals take following h and palatals following j or y – so dh is /d̻/ and ny is /ɲ/ (also retroflexes have preceding r, but that’s not important here). Labials and velars are grouped together as ‘peripheral’ consonants, which is a salient class in Stubby as in many (possibly all) Aussie languages.


Consonant clusters

Consonant clusters are mostly explained by the ‘C₂C₃’ combinations. However, there is some further restriction: double-plosive sequences aren’t allowed, and coronal sonorants aren’t allowed before nasals. All other sequences are allowed, so we get the following clusters:

Code: Select all

     dh-  d-   dy-  nh-  n-   ny-  lh-  r-   y-
-b                  nhb  nb   nyb  lhb  rb   yb
-d                  nhd  nd   nyd  lhd  rd   yd
-g                  nhg  ng   nyg  lhg  rg   yg
-m   dhm  dm   dym  nhm       nym  lhm       ym
-ŋ   dhŋ  dŋ   dyŋ  nhŋ       nyŋ  lhŋ       yŋ

We do see a bit of allophonic assimilation here. nb is sometimes assimilated to [mb], although ng is never [ŋɡ]. /ɽ/ causes retroflexion of apicals, so rd is [ɽɖ] (or even just [ɖ]). nyg yg yŋ might also be assimilated to [ɲɟ jɟ jɲ]; if I do do this then they’ll be written nydy ydy yny and *nyŋ will be disallowed.

Vowels

Well, how about vowels? There’s probably some vowels, aye? Right you are. Stubby has three vowels:

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ /ɪ ʊ a/ i u a

I’m considering changing this to /e o a/ e o a for a bit of extra flavour, or I might just make /ɪ/ ı like all the cool kids do. Or the third option would be to make initial-syllable /ɪ ʊ/ → [e o] e o and leave the others [ɪ ʊ] i u. Or still more, the fourth option would be to have all stressed /ɪ ʊ/ → [e o] e o and unstressed [ɪ ʊ] i u. I’ll have to play around with this.

Perhaps these ‘vowels’ are better thought of as ‘prosodies’. Vowel qualities are only unpredictable in the first syllable of a word – subsequently, all stressed (odd-numbered) vowels are the same as the stressed vowel, and all unstressed vowels are a:

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ |gunVrVdVny| → gunarudany

However, unstressed a is modified by the preceding consonant:

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ a → u / m, b, w _
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ a → i / y, g, ŋ _ ! / _ y, #

So we get words like the following:

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ |ŋadhmVrVyVnhbVgVr| → ŋadhmurayinhbagir

The sequences ayi and awu can often be heard as diphthongs [aˑj aˑw] or [ɛˑɪ̯ ɛˑʊ̯], but it’s clear from stress assignment that they’re really VCV sequences (e.g. [ŋád̻mʊɽɛ́ˑɪ̯n̻báɡaɽ]). Word-final ay is obviously [aj] to begin with, but it’s still pretty resistant to being raised to [ɛɪ̯].

Suffixes (there are no prefixes) almost never have a vowel of their own; they just assimilate to the prosody of the root word:

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ munhŋa + -mVndV → munhŋimunda
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ gibuny + -mVndV → gibunyminda

However, some more recently-developed suffixes (such as the aversive marker -wagay ~ -bagay) reset the prosody with their own stressed vowel:

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ wulhgay + -wagay → wulhgaybagay ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (*wulhgaybugay)

These suffixes are also the only suffixes which can violate the even-syllable tendency; most other formations have various ways of adding or deleting a syllable to make things stick to trochees.


Word shapes

At this point I’d better talk about word and morpheme shapes. Roots are all polysyllabic apart from some irregular verbs (verbs may be a closed class, or at least light verbs a closed class, with many irregularities). Nominals and verbs then take generally mono- or bi-syllabic (sometimes trisyllabic) suffixes. Verbs can take a lot of suffixes which tend to be monosyllabic, while nouns can take up to three suffixes which tend to be bisyllabic. Normally speaking, if this leaves a word with an odd number of syllables, the final syllable is deleted:

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ muranhbulh- + -VlhmVny + -dVyV → *múranhbúwulhmúnydayú
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ → múranhbúwilhmúnyday

But if the final suffix is monosyllabic, it tends not to be deleted; most monosyllabic suffixes have bisyllabic forms which are used if necessary when they occur word-finally:

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ munhŋa + -mVndV + -gV → *múnhgimúndagú
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ → múnhgimúndayúga

There’s also a class of clitic pronouns which can be attached to pretty much anything – they’re attached to the last word before the (light) verb, and since Stubby is non-configurational, that can really be anything at all. These are like the suffixes described above in that they can break prosody and violate the even-syllable tendency, although they rarely do that since the phonological word is almost always even-syllabled anyway.

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ wulhgay + =winybu → wulhgaybinybu ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ *wulhgaybunybu

The reason these are treated as clitics is that they’re phonologically reduced from the (rather cumbersome) free pronouns, some of them begin with w r y (regularly hardened to b d g following a sonorant) – phonemes which can’t occur word-initially – and they have fixed syntactic positions unlike all free forms.

---

So that's Project Stubby-Holder. It may not last, but I'll try and speedlang it and as usual I'll fail and chase whatever takes my fancy next. Hopefully I'll eventually come full circle and start working on Nomadic again. Things I'm debating with myself:

• Whether to have mid vowels – instead of high vowels, as stressed allophones of high vowels, or as initial-syllable allophones of high vowels;
• Whether to allow for word-final dactyls rather than making everything trochees;
• Should I use ⟨b g dh dy d⟩ or ⟨p k th ty t⟩ for the stops? I kinda like the look of munhkimuntayuka and wulhkaypinypu and ngathmurayinhpakir. This would also free up ng for the velar nasal.
• Maybe adding in geminate stops to get words like mukkinymuta or even ppayinkamulh. Maybe a geminate archiphoneme Q which can occur in either C₂ or C₃ position creating a surface apical-laminal contrast in geminates only.

[Znex]

I haven’t seen many other Australian-inspired conlangs (the only one I can think of is this one which I'm a big fan of)

It doesn't look like he's posted much on here about them, but loglorn has worked on a few Australian-inspired langs too (one lang of his, Yashuhay, is derived from an Australian lookalike lang).

One day I'll also work more on my Tasmanian-lookalike lang (I was planning to fuse it with Patagonian/Paleo-Siberian aesthetics to make a mixed Paleo-Antarctic lang).

Anyway, love how this looks so far! Nailing the Australian phonaesthetics is hard to get right, and it looks like you're doing good. Can't wait to see more, especially some grammar!

[WeepingElf]

Fine - but where are the retroflexes?

[Knox Adjacent]

A bonus but nonessential.

[eldin raigmore]

@VaptuantaDoi:
I really like this so far!
I think (maybe) most first-phonology-posts don’t tell enough detail to be this interesting!

[VaptuantaDoi]

Some slight modifications:

Stubby gets an archiphoneme Q which can appear in C₂ or C₃ position. It can follow any coda, but it can only precede stops, so we get the following geminates:

pp kk tt thth tyty
dnh dn dny
dlh rr

*yy is missing; it became tyty. The sonorants other than r got pre-stopped; I'll talk about r below.

C₃-Q probably reflects old short vowels (i.e. *mapa maːpa → mappu mapu). C₂-Q might be of similar origin – *bithŋa biːthŋa → biththa bithŋi, or something along those lines. They almost always occur in the first foot of a morpheme; this position accounts for 98% of geminates (since proto-Stubby had an initial-only length contrast presumably).


What's the deal with r and rr??

r is also now in default position a tap /ɾ/, only becoming a retroflex approximant [ɻ] before a consonant or after itself. Having [ɻ] in a syllable causes suprasegmental rhotacism; vowels rhotacise and apicals become retroflexes. Hence we have

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ muntar
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ |muntar| → [ˈmʊndaɾ]

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ muntarputytyi
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ |muntar-puQtyi| → [ˈmʊɳɖa˞ɻˌbʊcːɪ]

​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ muntarrutmun
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ |muntar-rutmun| → [ˈmʊɳɖa˞ɻˌɻʊ˞ʈmʊn]

Also the unstressed vowel following a phonetic retroflex is u. Retroflexion on u isn't particularly perceptible since u is fairly retroflexy anyway (R.M.W. reckons it's to do with the position of the back of the tongue; whatever the reason it's clearly accoustically true). For some speakers retroflexed i is close to or identical to u. Retroflexed a may be raised to [ə˞].

It might be the case in some dialect that retroflexion spreads in both directions across an unlimited number of syllables until blocked by a laminal; that would be interesting (to me at least).



As you can see, I'm using voiceless stop symbols now. I think I prefer them. I'm still undecided as to mid vowels.

I also maybe want to make another related Australiany lang with a lot more consonants – perhaps I can restrict myself to a two- or three- language little family that's a bit less daunting than my futile attempts to create Austronesian-sized families. I would love to try an initial-deleting metathesis language (*bithŋa → ŋʸa anyone?) but that might be jumping the shark.

---

I haven’t seen many other Australian-inspired conlangs (the only one I can think of is this one which I'm a big fan of)

It doesn't look like he's posted much on here about them, but loglorn has worked on a few Australian-inspired langs too (one lang of his, Yashuhay, is derived from an Australian lookalike lang).

One day I'll also work more on my Tasmanian-lookalike lang (I was planning to fuse it with Patagonian/Paleo-Siberian aesthetics to make a mixed Paleo-Antarctic lang).

Anyway, love how this looks so far! Nailing the Australian phonaesthetics is hard to get right, and it looks like you're doing good. Can't wait to see more, especially some grammar!

Thanks! It's surprisingly hard to make a believable Australian language. They've got a very distinct aesthetic which can be thrown off by the smallest thing. I'm sure there's plenty of Auslangs out there, I just haven't come across many. I've seen a lot more NAmlangs at least.

Fine - but where are the retroflexes?

Happy now???

(Probably about a third of Australian languages don't have phonemic ones – as you go east you tend to lose more and more POAs until you end up with Bandjalang with only four)

@VaptuantaDoi:
I really like this so far!
I think (maybe) most first-phonology-posts don’t tell enough detail to be this interesting!

I'm a sucker for a first-phonology-post. Hopefully this one makes it off the ground.

[WeepingElf]

Oh, I thought retroflexes were typical of Australian languages, and that there were hardly any without them. But hey, I am not an Australianist, and know only little about those languages.