Conlang Random Thread

[jal]

But there's no such thing as a "plural paradigm" vs "singular paradigm"

Well, "paradigm" might not be the right word, but is there a reason not to use the animate neuter plural from your table for the special neuter as well?


JAL

[AwfullyAmateur]

400th word is sebokušeset, meaning sugar-water, which in Soduar is used as a cosmetic.

[jal]

400th word is sebokušeset, meaning sugar-water, which in Soduar is used as a cosmetic.

For some reason, for a second I read "sexbot". 🤔


JAL

[Raholeun]

400th word is sebokušeset, meaning sugar-water, which in Soduar is used as a cosmetic.

For some reason, for a second I read "sexbot". 🤔

Στην κρεβατοκάμαρα το μυαλό...

[AwfullyAmateur]

I have also, recently, begun on the "shapes" part of the lexicon. For the Sodemeresh (or the Sódetifuk, as they call themselves), math is basically a part of their religion. They even have a god of mathematics.

[AwfullyAmateur]

Btw, when counting dictionary entries, do you count the names of your conculture's deities (if they have any)?

[xxx]

why not...

[malloc]

Over the years, I have noticed that morphologically complex languages seem to restrict tone considerably compared with more isolating languages. Isolating languages like Cantonese and Vietnamese have no problem with half a dozen distinct tones whereas highly agglutinative languages like Cheyenne or the Bantu family generally stick with two or three. Would you consider this an accurate impression or have I simply not been researching the right languages? If this is the case, then what makes morphologically complex languages favor restrictions on tone?

[bradrn]

Over the years, I have noticed that morphologically complex languages seem to restrict tone considerably compared with more isolating languages. Isolating languages like Cantonese and Vietnamese have no problem with half a dozen distinct tones whereas highly agglutinative languages like Cheyenne or the Bantu family generally stick with two or three. Would you consider this an accurate impression or have I simply not been researching the right languages? If this is the case, then what makes morphologically complex languages favor restrictions on tone?

It seems to be an areal thing, rather than relating to typology. African languages tend to have small tone systems with mostly level tones, irrespective of how isolating they are. East Asian languages tend to have larger systems with contours or registers (probably due to the tone splitting processes which were so widespread in the area).

What of other areas? European languages tend to have highly restricted tone systems with contours (the sort that get labelled ‘pitch-accent’). Those Papuan languages which are tonal show various sorts of systems, often using contour tones. I know too little about the Americas to comment, though I do know that Otomanguean languages show highly elaborate systems with both contour and level tones.

[jal]

Btw, when counting dictionary entries, do you count the names of your conculture's deities (if they have any)?

I would not count names, no. Not only names for deities, but also not names for countries, cities etc.

If this is the case, then what makes morphologically complex languages favor restrictions on tone?

I'd say that tonogenesis plays a possible role.Iiuic, in Asian languages with a lot of tones, there's been a lot of erosion going on, with distinction of no-longer-present consonants being transfered to different or more complex tones.


JAL

[Creyeditor]

Btw, when counting dictionary entries, do you count the names of your conculture's deities (if they have any)?

I would not count names, no. Not only names for deities, but also not names for countries, cities etc.

If this is the case, then what makes morphologically complex languages favor restrictions on tone?

I'd say that tonogenesis plays a possible role.Iiuic, in Asian languages with a lot of tones, there's been a lot of erosion going on, with distinction of no-longer-present consonants being transfered to different or more complex tones.


JAL

This! There are also "Asian-type" (lots of contours and levels and external tone sandhi, isolating/analytic morphosyntax) tone languages in West Africa (e.g. Grassfields Bantu languages) and "African-type" (few contours and levels, more word-internal processes, more affixes) in North India (e.g. Tenyidie). The former are probably Niger-Congo languages that underwent lots of contractions and the latter might be more conservative Sino-Tibetan languages.

[WeepingElf]

I'd say that tonogenesis plays a possible role.Iiuic, in Asian languages with a lot of tones, there's been a lot of erosion going on, with distinction of no-longer-present consonants being transfered to different or more complex tones.

Yes. For instance, the "entering tones" in various Chinese varieties emerged from syllable-final stops, and Old Chinese is reconstructed without tones, but with final consonants that were lost and became tones in Middle Chinese.

[Travis B.]

I'd say that tonogenesis plays a possible role.Iiuic, in Asian languages with a lot of tones, there's been a lot of erosion going on, with distinction of no-longer-present consonants being transfered to different or more complex tones.

Yes. For instance, the "entering tones" in various Chinese varieties emerged from syllable-final stops, and Old Chinese is reconstructed without tones, but with final consonants that were lost and became tones in Middle Chinese.

How likely is it that the development of tonality in Sinitic is originally an areal phenomenon resulting initially from contact from the Hmong-Mien languages of present-day southern China, which are today known for having extremely complex tone systems?

[WeepingElf]

I'd say that tonogenesis plays a possible role.Iiuic, in Asian languages with a lot of tones, there's been a lot of erosion going on, with distinction of no-longer-present consonants being transfered to different or more complex tones.

Yes. For instance, the "entering tones" in various Chinese varieties emerged from syllable-final stops, and Old Chinese is reconstructed without tones, but with final consonants that were lost and became tones in Middle Chinese.

How likely is it that the development of tonality in Sinitic is originally an areal phenomenon resulting initially from contact from the Hmong-Mien languages of present-day southern China, which are today known for having extremely complex tone systems?

I don't know, I am no expert on Chinese historical linguistics. All I know about Old Chinese is from Wikipedia

[AwfullyAmateur]

I'm no expert (by any stretch), but it sounds plausible enough to me...

[bradrn]

I'd say that tonogenesis plays a possible role.Iiuic, in Asian languages with a lot of tones, there's been a lot of erosion going on, with distinction of no-longer-present consonants being transfered to different or more complex tones.

Yes. For instance, the "entering tones" in various Chinese varieties emerged from syllable-final stops, and Old Chinese is reconstructed without tones, but with final consonants that were lost and became tones in Middle Chinese.

How likely is it that the development of tonality in Sinitic is originally an areal phenomenon resulting initially from contact from the Hmong-Mien languages of present-day southern China, which are today known for having extremely complex tone systems?

I was under the impression that the Hmong-Mien languages underwent tonogenesis around the same time as Sino-Tibetan, Kra-Dai and Austroasiatic (or at least various branches thereof). But I could be wrong.

[Ahzoh]

I have decided to define the distinction between the high register Imperial Vrkhazhian and the low register Common Vrkhazhian.

Mostly the difference lies in that Imperial Vrkhazhian has an accent like that of Ancient Greek though, unlike Ancient Greek, coda consonants are still a factor in determining accent placement even if they are not themselves tone-bearing units. There is also a specific pattern where the main accented vocal mora is high, the following vocal mora is low, and the remaining vocal morae are neutral/mid (examples below), though this is not always the case due to some vowel coalescence. Common Vrkhazhian instead only has stress accent, like Modern Greek does. Unlike Ancient/Modern Greek, in both Imperial and Common Vrkhazhian the accents are predictable and nonphonemic.

The other major difference is that Imperial Vrkhazhian preserves the ejective series of consonants while Common Vrkhazhian does not. Since the plain series of consonants were (at least phonetically) aspirated, the ejective series either merged with the plain series or merged with the voiced series, depending on the region of the empire where Common is spoken.

Examples:

Obsidian - sāras /sɑ̂ː.rɑs/ [t͡sʰɑ̂ː.rɑs] in Imperial; /ˈsɑː.rɑs/ [ˈt͡sɑː.rɑs] in Common
Blood - ṣimas /s’í.mɑs/ [t͡s’í.mɑ̀s] in Imperial; /ˈsi.mɑs~ˈzi.mɑs/ [ˈt͡si.mɑs~ˈd͡zi.mɑs] in Common
Pillar - zimas /zí.mɑs/ [d͡zí.mɑ̀s] in Imperial; /ˈzi.mɑs/ [ˈd͡zi.mɑs] in Common
King - zandim /zɑ́n.dim/ [d͡zɑ́n.dìm] in Imperial; /ˈzɑn.dim/ [ˈd͡zɑn.dim] in Common
Sea - mazâm /mɑ.zɑ̂ːm/ [mɑ.zɑ̂ːm] in Imperial; /mɑ.ˈzɑːm/ [mɑ.ˈzɑːm] in Common

Notable:
Sea, singular, with 1sg possessive -ni - mazâ-ni /mɑ.zɑ̂ː.ni/ [mɑ.zɑ̂ː.ni] in Imperial; /mɑ.ˈzɑː.ni/ [mɑ.ˈzɑː.ni] in Common
Seas, plural, with 1sg possessive -ni - mazâ-ni /mɑ.zɑ̌ː.ni/ [mɑ.zɑ̌ː.nì] in Imperial; /mɑ.ˈzɑː.ni/ [mɑ.ˈzɑː.ni] in Common

I am also thinking of some grammatical differences, at least I know that I want a fixed order for instrumental/manner adverbs in Imperial like so:
with/by hand-GEN hold-1sg = "I grab, I grip, I seize"
with/by foot-GEN go-1sg = "I walk, I travel"
with/by spear-GEN kill-1sg = "I kill with/using a spear, I fish, I hunt"
Other types of adverbs, like direction and location/time, would go after the verb

with hand-GEN hold-3sg man-ACC at shoulder-GEN and=shake-3sg 3sg-ACC
"he grabbed the man by the shoulder and shook him"

[Travis B.]

What I did in my western dialects of Rihall Kaafi was to make voiceless plosives aspirated with the idea that ejectives would be only weakly glottalized as opposed to the stronger ejectives of other Rihall Kaafi dialects. In a descendant of western dialects ejectives may very well become tenuis turning the voiceless plosive/ejective contrast into an aspiration contrast. I think this is more interesting than simply merging the unaspirated voiceless and ejective series altogether. (I do have a merger, but only of both /ts tsʼ/ merging with /s/ (and /dz/ merging with /z/), in central Rihall Kaafi and standard eastern Rihall Kaafi (but not extreme eastern dialects).)

[Travis B.]

I should note in Turoyo the change of voiceless plosive/ejective to aspirated/tenuis specifically occurred.

[Ahzoh]

What I did in my western dialects of Rihall Kaafi was to make voiceless plosives aspirated with the idea that ejectives would be only weakly glottalized as opposed to the stronger ejectives of other Rihall Kaafi dialects. In a descendant of western dialects ejectives may very well become tenuis turning the voiceless plosive/ejective contrast into an aspiration contrast. I think this is more interesting than simply merging the unaspirated voiceless and ejective series altogether. (I do have a merger, but only of both /ts tsʼ/ merging with /s/ (and /dz/ merging with /z/), in central Rihall Kaafi and standard eastern Rihall Kaafi (but not extreme eastern dialects).)

It's kind of like the Armenian situation where the Eastern and Western varieties swap the voicing of some of their stop series

In Vrkhazhian, ejectives are pronounced pretty strongly, except in coda, where they may be quite weak. So the mergers may not be so uniform.