Conlangjugator
Re: Conlangjugator
also sometimes the spelling difference reflects certain morphophonemic or other contexts that block the change
ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!
kårroť
kårroť
Re: Conlangjugator
Alas, the list of all SCAs that have been created is longer than the list of particles in our galaxy...
...while the list of all SCAs regularly used by anyone other than their creator is extremely small. Partly because when these threads pop up, the interested are generally told to either a) read some books on programming to work out how to make the program work on their computer, and/or b) read some books on programming to work out how to use the program. The discussion then devolves into a cluster of programmers talking about programming issues that outsiders can't understand, and people lose interest.
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regarding string-based SCAs vs featural ones: I just find string-based processes far more intuitive to work with. Everything's visible, in black and white, and you just say what you want to happen, without having to mentally translate everything into features. What's more, ideologically, I prefer a 'thinner' calculus, rather than a metaphysically 'thick' one as found in featural SCAs, in which we have to act as though everything actual is only a representation of the coincidence of numerous invisible real categories. I'm not a platonist in real life, I don't want to have to pretend to be a platonist to derive my conlang!
In more practical terms, I think maybe the clearest objective advantage of strings is that it's easier to be agnostic with strings. I can have my symbols change into transitional symbols that I don't want to have to make up a featural 'reality' for that then becomes irrelevent once the final form has been reached - I can even shunt my symbols through entirely notional transformation sequences that have no 'reality' but just make it easier to conduct other transformations on other symbols without unwanted symbols getting in the way. I can, in chris' example, treat a and b as different for some purposes without having to decide on and remember some specific difference and then if necessary change that difference later on as things develop. And if I want to apply a change to a, b, and q, I can immediately and easily define a new group just for that purpose and never have to worry about it again, and without having it accidentally interfere in other changes.
I suspect strings result in "worse" coding, because they give you more direct control and less need to keep track of things (unless of course you treat 'features' as just an awkward way to define ad hoc groups, in which case you're dealing with strings but in an unnecessarily roundabout way). Certainly the sound change sets I write in zompist's SCA would probably horrify programmers. I suspect featural procedures make it easier to keep things aesthetically neat and concise. But I'm not a programmer, so I don't care (indeed, I actively enjoy chaotic and careless logic, and find neatness of expression offputting).
I tried chris' SCA, and I did indeed find some things easier to do in it than in the SCA. But I also found it constantly counterintuitive and much harder to avoid fatal errors in (which isn't a criticism of chris' implementation, but just the general featural idea). I'm sure, however, that for some people, particularly computer programmers, it's probably the other way around.
Re: Conlangjugator
Personally I'm not surprised. If you wield a programming hammer, everything looks like a program nail.
I'm not sure if you're suggesting this, but hardcoding a phonological model is rather restricting - what if a user wants to make a distinction you didn't account for, or has a conlang in which implosives and voiced stops behave the same way?
The SCA model isn't necessarily either-or. If the program encounters a featureless rule, it could convert the features to segments, apply the rule, and convert everything back to features in the same way it parsed the input. While it's true that working with features is closer to how sound changes work, it has more limited use. Text-based SCA can change spelling to pronunciation, one spelling to another, one writing to another, broad pronunciation to narrow pronunciation, among other things. While it's true these aren't exactly sound changes, they are close in nature and a conlanger is likely to want to make use of them, so it makes sense to have the same grammar and tools for everything.chris_notts wrote: ↑Wed Dec 05, 2018 4:57 pmI mean that they have different semantics. You need to pick one. A good programming or scripting language has simple consistent semantics, but some features naturally fit with a different underlying model of the problem.
As somebody else already pointed out, this would only lead to xkcd 927. What you can do is define a standard and let developers adhere to it if they will.
Speaking of which, here's a rough draft of a grammar I had in mind for a couple of days. It breaks backward compability and I like semantic versioning, so this calls for v2.0:
More: show
Wishlist of other features for the next Conlangjugator:
-Grouping of soundchanges with {} so non-linear directives (if, repeat, chance) can act on more than one thing.
-Ability for resegmentation for when orthography changes too much.
-Intermediate forms, just for clarity: in > ĩ > ẽ > e
-Rules that act only in template preview.
-Words being not only strings, but also having information for class, suppletion, principal and irregular forms and then some.
/j/ <j>
Ɂaləɂahina asəkipaɂə ileku omkiroro salka.
Loɂ ɂerleku asəɂulŋusikraɂə seləɂahina əɂətlahɂun əiŋɂiɂŋa.
Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ.
Ɂaləɂahina asəkipaɂə ileku omkiroro salka.
Loɂ ɂerleku asəɂulŋusikraɂə seləɂahina əɂətlahɂun əiŋɂiɂŋa.
Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ.
Re: Conlangjugator
This is the problem. While part of me would welcome an attempt to specify and ultimately implement the One True SCA, I also recognise that not enough people actually use SCA's for standardisation to be really worth the effort. A comparison of the most popular ones would be interesting, if nothing else; more useful would be a survey of who uses which one and why. But, again, do enough people actually use SCA's for this to generate enough useful data?
Self-referential signatures are for people too boring to come up with more interesting alternatives.
Re: Conlangjugator
Is there actually any SCA other than both of Zompist's that is used by more than a couple of users?alice wrote: ↑Thu Dec 06, 2018 12:57 pmThis is the problem. While part of me would welcome an attempt to specify and ultimately implement the One True SCA, I also recognise that not enough people actually use SCA's for standardisation to be really worth the effort. A comparison of the most popular ones would be interesting, if nothing else; more useful would be a survey of who uses which one and why. But, again, do enough people actually use SCA's for this to generate enough useful data?
/j/ <j>
Ɂaləɂahina asəkipaɂə ileku omkiroro salka.
Loɂ ɂerleku asəɂulŋusikraɂə seləɂahina əɂətlahɂun əiŋɂiɂŋa.
Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ.
Ɂaləɂahina asəkipaɂə ileku omkiroro salka.
Loɂ ɂerleku asəɂulŋusikraɂə seləɂahina əɂətlahɂun əiŋɂiɂŋa.
Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ.
Re: Conlangjugator
Honestly, I'd be happy when a sound change applier that adheres to syllabic or stress based developments comes out.
While it can be mimicked, it often creates more problems (and work necessary). For example, if I use a character like (ˈ) then I also have to define when that character causes changes and when it can be ignored.
While it can be mimicked, it often creates more problems (and work necessary). For example, if I use a character like (ˈ) then I also have to define when that character causes changes and when it can be ignored.
Re: Conlangjugator
I know that my exSCA allows you to use syllable boundaries in sound changes. Basically, you give it a regular expression which matches each syllable; then if you add an x modifier to a sound change, exSCA will insert a user-defined character between each syllable before the change is applied, and will delete it afterwards. (Unfortunately there isn't any 'formal' documentation yet, but at the moment reading the linked thread will give a fairly complete overview of all the features.)Ælfwine wrote: ↑Fri Dec 07, 2018 4:27 pm Honestly, I'd be happy when a sound change applier that adheres to syllabic or stress based developments comes out.
While it can be mimicked, it often creates more problems (and work necessary). For example, if I use a character like (ˈ) then I also have to define when that character causes changes and when it can be ignored.
Conlangs: Scratchpad | Texts | antilanguage
Software: See http://bradrn.com/projects.html
Other: Ergativity for Novices
(Why does phpBB not let me add >5 links here?)
Software: See http://bradrn.com/projects.html
Other: Ergativity for Novices
(Why does phpBB not let me add >5 links here?)
Re: Conlangjugator
Cool beans, I'll check it out then.bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Dec 07, 2018 4:33 pmI know that my exSCA allows you to use syllable boundaries in sound changes. Basically, you give it a regular expression which matches each syllable; then if you add an x modifier to a sound change, exSCA will insert a user-defined character between each syllable before the change is applied, and will delete it afterwards. (Unfortunately there isn't any 'formal' documentation yet, but at the moment reading the linked thread will give a fairly complete overview of all the features.)Ælfwine wrote: ↑Fri Dec 07, 2018 4:27 pm Honestly, I'd be happy when a sound change applier that adheres to syllabic or stress based developments comes out.
While it can be mimicked, it often creates more problems (and work necessary). For example, if I use a character like (ˈ) then I also have to define when that character causes changes and when it can be ignored.
Re: Conlangjugator
Update time:
-Improved project documentation. Among other things, it now includes a list and description of the officially supported regex rules.
-Added icons to menus. Menus now also have rounder edges.
-Bug fix: Log can now be cleared.
-Improved project documentation. Among other things, it now includes a list and description of the officially supported regex rules.
-Added icons to menus. Menus now also have rounder edges.
-Bug fix: Log can now be cleared.
/j/ <j>
Ɂaləɂahina asəkipaɂə ileku omkiroro salka.
Loɂ ɂerleku asəɂulŋusikraɂə seləɂahina əɂətlahɂun əiŋɂiɂŋa.
Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ.
Ɂaləɂahina asəkipaɂə ileku omkiroro salka.
Loɂ ɂerleku asəɂulŋusikraɂə seləɂahina əɂətlahɂun əiŋɂiɂŋa.
Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ. Hərlaɂ.
Re: Conlangjugator
This looks much nicer now! I'm particularly impressed with the template system (now that I can figure out how to use it) - it's much nicer than the one in my own SCA.
Conlangs: Scratchpad | Texts | antilanguage
Software: See http://bradrn.com/projects.html
Other: Ergativity for Novices
(Why does phpBB not let me add >5 links here?)
Software: See http://bradrn.com/projects.html
Other: Ergativity for Novices
(Why does phpBB not let me add >5 links here?)