Lej Lwaʼaṉoʼ Scratchpad

[náʼoolkiłí]

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[náʼoolkiłí]

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[Xwtek]

Even if your language is very permissive about consonant cluster, you still need to establish the phonotactics. For example, Nuxalk has C(V)(C) phonotactics. In fact, I bet that there is no languge with word consisting of single plosive without being cliticized. And all language with vowelless word that I know disallows disharmonious cluster in the same syllable. For example:

t-ftk-t=stt is syllabified as tf.tk.tstt, where the bolded part is the nucleus. Those people probably can't say a syllable like "string" without splitting it into "s" and "tring" or "st" and "ring"

[náʼoolkiłí]

Even if your language is very permissive about consonant cluster, you still need to establish the phonotactics. For example, Nuxalk has C(V)(C) phonotactics. In fact, I bet that there is no languge with word consisting of single plosive without being cliticized. And all language with vowelless word that I know disallows disharmonious cluster in the same syllable.

Indeed. I'm still exploring what syllable shapes and consonant strings the sound changes from Georgian generate. When I have good generalizations I'll share more. The phonotactics definitely aren't just anything-goes; certain clusters will be broken up with epenthesis.

What is a disharmonious cluster?

[náʼoolkiłí]

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[Xwtek]

Even if your language is very permissive about consonant cluster, you still need to establish the phonotactics. For example, Nuxalk has C(V)(C) phonotactics. In fact, I bet that there is no languge with word consisting of single plosive without being cliticized. And all language with vowelless word that I know disallows disharmonious cluster in the same syllable.

Indeed. I'm still exploring what syllable shapes and consonant strings the sound changes from Georgian generate. When I have good generalizations I'll share more. The phonotactics definitely aren't just anything-goes; certain clusters will be broken up with epenthesis.

What is a disharmonious cluster?

Sorry, I use the wrong words, I mean those that violates sonority hierarchy,

[evmdbm]

Are there any natural analogues for quirk? I understand the point of case, and to some extent of gender too. I can see how some verbs might require subjects in different cases to the usual nominative, but verbs and nouns are quite different animals so a category like quirk that affects both seems implausible. If it is implausible from a natlang perspective that's not a criticism. You can do what you like with a language you invent! I'm just wondering where you got the idea and how you see the category having arisen historically.

[Xwtek]

Are there any natural analogues for quirk? I understand the point of case, and to some extent of gender too. I can see how some verbs might require subjects in different cases to the usual nominative, but verbs and nouns are quite different animals so a category like quirk that affects both seems implausible. If it is implausible from a natlang perspective that's not a criticism. You can do what you like with a language you invent! I'm just wondering where you got the idea and how you see the category having arisen historically.

Just guessing, but it can arise from a verb that can accept a subject from certain genders only. For example, it may be ungrammatical for the verb "to paint" to have a nonhuman subject, or "to eat (for predator animal)" to have a human subject, because there is another verb "to eat" that is specialized for human. Later, the language evolves a way to make an argument from different gender grammatical. For example, the second verb has shifted the meaning into "to eat without utensils".

[náʼoolkiłí]

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[Xwtek]

Are there any natural analogues for quirk? I understand the point of case, and to some extent of gender too. I can see how some verbs might require subjects in different cases to the usual nominative, but verbs and nouns are quite different animals so a category like quirk that affects both seems implausible. If it is implausible from a natlang perspective that's not a criticism. You can do what you like with a language you invent! I'm just wondering where you got the idea and how you see the category having arisen historically.

But we already have diminutive and tense, both are the domain of both noun and verb. (Yes really. In Khoekhoe, the diminutive for both noun and verb is identical. And Guarani has nominal tam)

[evmdbm]

Well Khoekhoe and Guarani are not in my ken! But you learn something new (if not every day then surprisingly frequently).

What do you have in mind by the point of case? Its function as a signal to a noun's syntactic/semantic role?

That is pretty much what I had in mind

[Raholeun]

First off náʼoolkiłí, I love what you have done with this language. Breaking down why Lej Lwaʼaṉoʼ is so attractive:
1) The different phonation types. Not something you see very often. Let alone 4 different ones phonemically. Please, if you will, give us some details on what rearticulated and checked vowels are. How are they pronounced exactly and what is their diachronic origin?

2) There are some romanization choices that fascinate me though. For instance <j> for /x/. You already claimed <x> for the voiceless postalveolar fricative, but left <q> (/qh/ is often mistaken for /x/) free. Also, <ll> for /ʒ/ is unexpected, especially when /dʒ/ is <dx>. Cannot say I dislike it though, were these choices motivated be some posited but unspoken sound changes, or just personal esthetics?
Edit: I am stupid and fully missed you mentioning the orthography is not derived from Georgian, but inspired by Zapotec.

3) The whole quirk thing is very -very- nifty. Described very well too and naturalistically believable too (see Akangka's 23/5 post). Keep it coming.

4) To be honest, you had me when you stated Lej Lwaʼaṉoʼ was lexicalized from Georgian (I'm just a sucker for Kartvelian languages). Could you provide the Georgian roots if asked specifically? Since you're taking the diachronic approach, are there semantic shifts too from the original meaning to the Lej Lwaʼaṉoʼ one?

Also:

What is a disharmonious cluster?

Sorry, I use the wrong words, I mean those that violates sonority hierarchy,

The sonority hierarchy is not the same for every language, so even within the bounds of naturalism there is a lot of leeway to play with. In Georgian, the term "harmonic clusters" refer to 'Clusters of [−dorsal] [+dorsal] obstruents are called harmonic in Georgian because they share a laryngeal specification' (Butskhrikidze, 2002, p.103). So it is a thing amongst Kartvelianists, but I am not enough of an expert to explain the nitty gritty.

And also:

Are there any natural analogues for quirk? I understand the point of case, and to some extent of gender too. I can see how some verbs might require subjects in different cases to the usual nominative, but verbs and nouns are quite different animals so a category like quirk that affects both seems implausible. If it is implausible from a natlang perspective that's not a criticism. You can do what you like with a language you invent! I'm just wondering where you got the idea and how you see the category having arisen historically.

But we already have diminutive and tense, both are the domain of both noun and verb. (Yes really. In Khoekhoe, the diminutive for both noun and verb is identical. And Guarani has nominal tam)

In my language Sataw, there are several derivations that can be equally applied to verbs and nouns. As in Khoekhoe apparently, the Sataw diminutive is identical for noun and verb:

wawta 'fish' (n).
wrawta 'fish<DIM>' (n).

kaŋa 'to eat' (v).
kraŋa 'to nibble' (v).

The reason for mentioning this is, I was unaware this happened in Khoekhoe, but it surely happens regularly in Austronesian languages. If I remember correctly, I was directly inspired by Tsou when inventing the -r- diminutive infix. So conclusion; having both verbs and nouns equally and homomorphemically affected by quirks is not implausible at all.

[Raholeun]

Just returned to the forum, specifically to revisit the system of quirks. Turns out the originals were deleted.

@náʼoolkiłí: why?