Conlang Random Thread

[Whimemsz]

Are [ʌ̞, ɤ, ɯ] plausible outcomes for [æl, el, il]?

Very much so

[Nortaneous]

Are [ʌ̞, ɤ, ɯ] plausible outcomes for [æl, el, il]?

el il > ɤ ɯ happened in some Papuan language or other

[Xwtek]

Is Locative case -> Resultantive realistic? This applies to an adjective. Most verbs can't form resultative though. Later, many adjective gets derived to form stative verbs. But the original adjective is still used for compounding and resultative construction.

Probably from "into" meaning. I spear it into dead one > I spear it dead.

[bradrn]

I’m designing a phonology with vowel reduction*, where there is a one-to-one correspondence between each vowel and its ‘short’ version. Given that the unreduced vowels are /a e i o u/, which of the following is most plausible for the reduced vowels?

1. /ɐ ɛ ɪ ɔ ʊ/
2. /ɐ ə ɪ ɵ ʊ/
3. /æ ɛ ɪ ɔ ʊ/
4. /æ ə ɪ ɵ ʊ/
5. Some other combination I haven’t mentioned

___________
* Well, sort of; there is no stress, but vowels reduce to their ‘short’ versions in closed syllables. I expect to go into more detail in an upcoming post.

[Raholeun]

Reduction by itself is not a very useful term. They are reduced to what under what circumstances? It might be /ɐ ə ɪ ɵ ʊ/ pretonic, but /æ ə ɪ ɵ ʊ/ post-tonic and when the coda is a velar (or something like that).

[bradrn]

Reduction by itself is not a very useful term. They are reduced to what under what circumstances? It might be /ɐ ə ɪ ɵ ʊ/ pretonic, but /æ ə ɪ ɵ ʊ/ post-tonic and when the coda is a velar (or something like that).

You’re right; the term ‘reduction’ is not very useful on its own, which is why I added a footnote. To be more precise, in my situation, all vowels are ‘reduced’ in closed syllables, and I simply want to know which set of proposed ‘reduced’ vowels is more plausible. (This is supposed to be part of a larger vowel system in which there are several series of vowels, and the underlying vowels are changed to one of the other series in various situations.)

[Xwtek]

3 is attested in Andalusian Spanish
1 is attested in Filipino.
I don't know about the rest (English?)

[Nortaneous]

If I were you, I'd look into vowel developments in Natqgu - its inventory is /æ a ɔ e ɞ ə o i ʉ u/, and /æ ɞ ə/ are apparently more common than /a o e/, so that might have developed from vowel reduction. I don't know if its phonological developments are very well understood, though - it's only recently been found to be Austronesian, and I think this is primarily on morphological evidence.

[bradrn]

3 is attested in Andalusian Spanish
1 is attested in Filipino.
I don't know about the rest (English?)

Thanks Xwtek! I think I’ll use 1 then, since I’m already using it at the moment and it is attested.

If I were you, I'd look into vowel developments in Natqgu - its inventory is /æ a ɔ e ɞ ə o i ʉ u/, and /æ ɞ ə/ are apparently more common than /a o e/, so that might have developed from vowel reduction. I don't know if its phonological developments are very well understood, though - it's only recently been found to be Austronesian, and I think this is primarily on morphological evidence.

That looks fascinating! Do you know where I can find more information on it?

[masako]

A comparison of Moya and Omyatloko.

[hwhatting]

I really can't say more than that I like your scripts.

[Nortaneous]

That looks fascinating! Do you know where I can find more information on it?

I'm not sure if there even is information on the vowel developments. Aiwoo seems better-studied - maybe start there? But it has fewer vowels.

[Ares Land]

A comparison of Moya and Omyatloko.

Beautiful!

Are those scripts related? Judging from your blog posts, I'm guessing not, but there's a hint of a resemblance anyway...

[masako]

Beautiful!

Thank you.

Are those scripts related?

Not at all, really.

Omyatloko is about 6 years old, whereas Moya (essentially Moj) is 20 years old, and has only changed in very subtle ways since its inception.

[holbuzvala]

So I have /j w ɥ/ as allophonic consonants for /i u y/. This means when I get strings of vowels together that break the phonotactic rules (more than two in sequence, more or less), then they can resolve easily.

e.g. /iiu/ > /iju/

However, I'm having trouble with what might happen in the environment after /aa/, such as /aau/ and /aai/. I have 3x solutions:

1. just reduce the vowel lengths. /aau/, /aai/ > /au/ /ai/

2. insert an epenthetical consonant - I'm open to ideas here of what might be suitable. My consonant inventory, minus labialised and palatilised consonants, is: /p t k pʰ tʰ kʰ s m n ŋ l r ɣ ʕ/

3. mutate the second /a/ into an allophonic consonant. But I am drawing a blank as to what. /aau/ > /a?u/

Any thoughts much appreciated!

[zompist]

You could borrow an idea from Sanskrit: aau > ao, aai > ae.

Or just allow length as a parameter: aa > ā.

[Pabappa]

I'd recommend #1 or zompist's solutions. I tried both #2 and #3 in earlier conlangs and came to hate both of them. Right now I just dont do anything at all .... /aa/ is [aa], with a slight falling intonation on the second vowel, except rising if word-final.

One problem with idea #2 is explaining it diachronically. Consonants do appear out of nowhere, e.g. the intrusive R of English, but I'd have a hard time imagining anything on your list besides /ʕ/ being the epenthetic consonant.

As for #3, you could do /ʕ/ again, but I dont think /aau/ > /aʕu/ is likely unless you have either /aa/>/aʕ/ or /au/>/ʕu/ as a more general shift. I know you dont have /aa/>/aʕ/ since you already said that. And I think /au/ > /ʕu/ is extremely unlikely, since in almost all natlangs, vowel sequences assign greater prominence to the lower of the two vowels.

(My allophone was [ɣ] by the way. It seemed logical at the time, but I disliked it from the beginning and never warmed to it.)

[cedh]

There are a couple of languages where /a/ has [ɰ] as a non-syllabic allophone, which in your phonology would likely be reinterpreted as /ɣ/; i.e. /aai/ > [aɰi] (/aɣi/) etc.

You could also use the glide allophone of the following vowel instead; i.e. /aai aay aau/ > [aji aɥy awu].

[holbuzvala]

@ zompist, Pabappa, and cedh

Thanks for your swift replies. All good solutions - I'll mull for a bit. Though, I envisage using a mixed solution, depending on whether a syllable is stressed or not.

[Qwynegold]

Ive noticed that diachronics often "get away from me". e.g. a language like Oyster, which I originally had intended to be extremely .... almost impossibly ... conservative, is now just about average and maybe even has more changes than its sister languages. Likewise Icecap Moonshine once had over 200 individual sound changes in its list and is now just down to 52 because I pruned out all the changes that were made irrelevant by other changes. The grand champion right now is Tarise, because while a list of 41 sound changes might not look like a lot, it's only a list of the changes of consonant clusters in the onset ... that is, i havent even gotten to single-consonant onsets, coda consonants, conditioning environments, etc .... and I dont have a single sound change involving vowels up there yet, even though the language is supposed to go from six vowels to three.

I'm the same. Except I have never even tried to keep the SCs a low number.