Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[Vijay]

I seem to have a hard time wrapping my head around Skou phonology.

[bradrn]

Why?

[Creyeditor]

Because it's Skou phonology, maybe? It is really complex, tbh. And the only pdf I have has weird font problems.

[bradrn]

Because it's Skou phonology, maybe? It is really complex, tbh. And the only pdf I have has weird font problems.

Yeah, the weird bitmapped IPA really doesn’t help at all. But the phonology itself looks pretty straightforward from what I’ve seen of it. (Except for the tonology perhaps, which I haven’t looked at in detail yet.)

[Creyeditor]

I think tone and mutation are the weirder parts of Skou phonology, IIRC.

[Otto Kretschmer]

...

[WeepingElf]

You apparently have no idea how "erosion" of grammatical endings works.

[Otto Kretschmer]

You apparently have no idea how "erosion" of grammatical endings works.

nevermind

[WeepingElf]

Otto, I have read some of your posts. You are apparently interested in diachronic a posteriori conlanging, yet you seem to lack the knowledge which way languages change. Hence, some of your questions simply fail to make sense. Of course, you can do something about that - I have two book recommendations for you, both of which are not too hard to find in libraries. First is Historical Linguistics by Lyle Campbell, a well-written textbook of the field, IMHO the best of those I have read. Second is Indo-European Language and Culture by Benjamin W. Fortson IV, which lays out how a large language family works out in practice.

[bradrn]

First is Historical Linguistics by Lyle Campbell, a well-written textbook of the field, IMHO the best of those I have read. Second is Indo-European Language and Culture by Benjamin W. Fortson IV, which lays out how a large language family works out in practice.

Thanks for the recommendations! I’ve been looking for a good historical linguistics textbook for a while.

[Raholeun]

Do y'all have any idea on what is the highest number of contours attested in a pitch accent language (i.e. there can only be one accented syllable per word)?

[malloc]

Do y'all have any idea on what is the highest number of contours attested in a pitch accent language (i.e. there can only be one accented syllable per word)?

From what I understand, pitch accent is not precisely defined. Some linguists reject the concept as anything distinct and prefer to describe pitch accent as minimal tone with constraints resembling stress. Hence it would really depend on impressionistic factors like how many words have multiple high tones, what factors introduce those added high tones, and so forth. If words in your conlang usually have one accent at most but compound words retain the accent of both components, many would have no trouble calling that pitch accent. If roots in your conlang regularly include multiple high tones, however, that would undoubtedly strike people as more classically tonal.

[linguistcat]

Do y'all have any idea on what is the highest number of contours attested in a pitch accent language (i.e. there can only be one accented syllable per word)?

I was looking at pitch accent in Middle and Old Japanese, and I found at least two authors (de Boer and Ramsey) purporting that some longer words (I believe 4+ moré) could have a pitch pattern with two pitch drops. As the language developed into modern times, only one pitch drop was allowed per word, and depending on the pitch accent in various dialects, some dialects would lose the first drop in these classes and other would lose the last drop, effectively merging these words into other pitch accent classes. But because of these words merging with different classes in different dialects, we know they were a separate accent class.

The text by de Boer (really an entire book) that I read mostly focused on 4 moré words with some examples of 5 or 6 moré words, but I don't think there was a mention of more than 2 pitch drops per word.

I can get you a copy of the text hopefully in PDF format if you would like, and the author actually linked to a shorter, more reader-friendly overview of her findings over on the CBB; I can link them here too or send the links as they are still active. It would probably be good for me to dig those up and reread.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I can get you a copy of the text hopefully in PDF format if you would like, and the author actually linked to a shorter, more reader-friendly overview of her findings over on the CBB; I can link them here too or send the links as they are still active. It would probably be good for me to dig those up and reread.

I would also find this interesting and useful, if you wouldn't mind.

[linguistcat]

I can get you a copy of the text hopefully in PDF format if you would like, and the author actually linked to a shorter, more reader-friendly overview of her findings over on the CBB; I can link them here too or send the links as they are still active. It would probably be good for me to dig those up and reread.

I would also find this interesting and useful, if you wouldn't mind.

Here is the overview. And here is the full book. Both are free to download in PDF format.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Thank you.

That's also very good of the author.

[Pabappa]

i assumed the question was asking about how many distinct pitches there are, not how many word tone patterns there are. i have not seen a language with more than five, and even that one language (Munduruku) apparently only has four according to Wikipedia. there are some Bantu languages with as many as five distinct pitch levels but those are fully tonal, not pitch accent, so far as i know.

[vlad]

Do y'all have any idea on what is the highest number of contours attested in a pitch accent language (i.e. there can only be one accented syllable per word)?

Chicahuaxtla Triqui has between 10 and 15 contour tones.

Triqui is not conventionally described as a "pitch accent language", but it meets your definition because only final syllables can have tone.

[vlad]

The semantic shift of "person → man" happened in Germanic (man) and Romance (homo).

The semantic shift of "man → person" happened in Classical Nahuatl (tlacatl).

The semantic shift of "person → woman" happened in Mixtec (ña'a).

Is there any language where the word for "person" formerly meant "woman"?

[Creyeditor]

CLICS reports three languages where person and woman are colexified, here.