Conlang Random Thread

[mèþru]

I've made plenty similar things in past conworlds

[Xwtek]

Do you know any sound change applier that can handle suprasegmental phonology? (My language is tonal, and vowel dropping don't just make the tone disappear)

[Salmoneus]

I've made plenty similar things in past conworlds

A little cruel, I think. I wasn't claiming to have broken any new ground in the world. I'm sure your conworlds are better than mine, but it needn't be a competition...

[Salmoneus]

Do you know any sound change applier that can handle suprasegmental phonology? (My language is tonal, and vowel dropping don't just make the tone disappear)

Well, you could just do it in Zomp's SCA, or, probably, any SCA.

It might be a bit easier in a featural SCA like chris', if that way of thinking comes easily to you.

[akam chinjir]

Do you know any sound change applier that can handle suprasegmental phonology? (My language is tonal, and vowel dropping don't just make the tone disappear)

More or less as Sal said, I think you're probably going to have to fake it. Of the ones I've tried, Phonix probably comes closest. With it, I can imagine defining diacritics that express tone features, and having a dummy segment that can host tone features; but it's not obvious that'd make things substantially easier than just having a bunch of fake tone segments in SCA.

I've actually put substantial work into an SCA that would allow you to assign arbitrary features to syllables or words, though I haven't so far thought much about how it would handle floating tones, and I don't know if it'll ever see the light of day; currently I'm hard-coding sound changes in C. (In my case the sticking point was stress-sensitive changes and changes to stress.)

[dhok]

Morrigan's SCA allows you to create ad hoc categories and even treat multi-character sequences as individual segments. It's probably easiest to just do something like  = â ê î ô û, À = à è ì ò ù and then  > À.

[bradrn]

While we’re on the subject of SCAs, does anyone know if there’s a list of SCAs anywhere? I know that any list will probably be non-exhaustive (e.g. I doubt they would contain my own SCA), but it would be interesting to see what SCAs exist and what features they support.

[mèþru]

I've made plenty similar things in past conworlds

A little cruel, I think. I wasn't claiming to have broken any new ground in the world. I'm sure your conworlds are better than mine, but it needn't be a competition...

Sorry, I didn't mean it that way! It was supposed to be a statement of bonding of common ground

[Nortaneous]

Do you know any sound change applier that can handle suprasegmental phonology? (My language is tonal, and vowel dropping don't just make the tone disappear)

More or less as Sal said, I think you're probably going to have to fake it. Of the ones I've tried, Phonix probably comes closest. With it, I can imagine defining diacritics that express tone features, and having a dummy segment that can host tone features; but it's not obvious that'd make things substantially easier than just having a bunch of fake tone segments in SCA.

I am not looking forward to having to deal with this myself. The answer is probably to use fake tone segments. Here's how I coded loss of unstressed vowels followed by epenthesis to break up consonant clusters:

Code: Select all

V > Vʜ / #C_#
V > Vʜ / _CV# or _C#
V > 0 / _ not _ʜ not #_# not #C_#
ʜ > 0

% -- a lot of cluster resolution etc. omitted --

0 > ə / CC_C
0 > ə / C_C not C_R not Y_C

[mèþru]

Can I combine Hawaiian and Inuit kinship?
Parental siblings are not called mothers and fathers but aunts and uncles. On the other hand, their children are still siblings.

[jal]

Can I combine Hawaiian and Inuit kinship?

What do you mean by "can"?


JAL

[mèþru]

Is it plausible

[Vijay]

Isn't that basically how Serbo-Croatian works?

[mèþru]

No, Serbo-Croatian merely derives the terms for first cousins from siblings. My system doesn't distinguish them.

[Vijay]

Are you sure of that for Serbo-Croatian? Wiktionary says bratić means 'first cousin' in Bosnian and Serbian, 'cousin (distant relative)' in all(?) varieties, and 'nephew' in some varieties, but also says it's a diminutive form for 'brother'. Ronelle Alexander and Ellen Elias-Bursać list bratić in Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian: A Textbook exclusively as a Croatian term for 'cousin' and just brat, which also means 'brother' in all three varieties, as the term for 'cousin' in Bosnian and Serbian.

[mèþru]

no, not sure

[Salmoneus]

I don't think it makes much sense to do that. If it's so important to distinguish your aunt from your mother, why is it not also important to distinguish your cousin from your sister?

Generally it's more important to distinguish siblings from cousins than it is to distinguish mothers from aunts - because you're usually not meant to sleep with either your mother or your aunt, whereas in most societies you're expected to sleep with your cousin.

But of course, these systems have the same problems as any set of vocabulary, subjected to the same vicissitudes of time and soundchange and semantic drift, and a system such as you describe could of course arise.

I just don't think it would be very common or long-lasting...

I could be wrong, though!

[Vijay]

I think it is common, but I'm not sure. There are words for different kinds of aunts and uncles in Malayalam, but there's no word for 'cousin' except for 'cross-cousin' in families in the Nair caste because Nairs traditionally married/marry their cross-cousins. We address our older cousins as name/nickname + 'older brother'/'older sister' (and our younger cousins just by name or nickname), although if we wanted to tell someone how we were related, we'd probably say 'he's my dad's younger brother's son' etc. I'm not aware of any other kind of term for cousin elsewhere in South Asia, either, except in Pashto.

[mèþru]

Second cousins and further relations are distinguished in this system from siblings. The incest taboo in this culture targets first cousins as well as siblings.

[Richard W]

I'm not aware of any other kind of term for cousin elsewhere in South Asia, either, except in Pashto.

Thai feels similar. The terms for elder and younger sibling are somewhat overused, being used for friends of the same age as well. On the other hand, four of the eight types of uncle and aunt are distinguished by single morphemes - parent's elder brother; parent's elder sister; father's younger sibling; mother's younger sibling. The dictionaries do give a compound word for 'cousin', but it literally means nephew or niece.