Sound Change Quickie Thread

[cedh]

IIRC a syntactic change from S Aux O V or Aux S O V to S O V is fairly common, typically with an intermediate S O V-Aux stage (so that the inflected auxiliary, which originally appeared early in the clause, eventually ends up suffixed to the clause-final verb). I suppose such a change can and does happen as a language-internal development, but would be encouraged by intensive contact with a suffixing S O V language.

[Xwtek]

IIRC a syntactic change from S Aux O V or Aux S O V to S O V is fairly common, typically with an intermediate S O V-Aux stage (so that the inflected auxiliary, which originally appeared early in the clause, eventually ends up suffixed to the clause-final verb). I suppose such a change can and does happen as a language-internal development, but would be encouraged by intensive contact with a suffixing S O V language.

Dang it, I was thinking about making Asent'o prefixing. Anyway, how can personal pronoun attach to verb, then.

[Knit Tie]

I have a conlang with a large number of Bantu influence and loanwords, especially Swahili, and I'd like to somehow get rid of the frequent Cw clusters therein, especially for alveolar Cs. What can I do, aside from eliding the /w/?

[Vilike]

• Making them part of diphtongs with the following vowels (then monophtonguizing).
• Hardening them to [v] or [g] (or [f], [k] after unvoiced C), then resolve the clusters as you see fit.
• Assimilating them to the consonnant to get a geminate
• After a vowel, going from Cw to wC

[Raholeun]

Yeah that is a familiar problem. I did: CwV → CuwV → Cə̯͜V. Like Vilike said, you could then turn them into monophthongs or also lengthen the vowel.

[Xwtek]

I have a conlang with a large number of Bantu influence and loanwords, especially Swahili, and I'd like to somehow get rid of the frequent Cw clusters therein, especially for alveolar Cs. What can I do, aside from eliding the /w/?

Partial answer, you can shift labialized velar to labial ones. And you can shift labialized alveolar to labialized velar.

[Nortaneous]

I have a conlang with a large number of Bantu influence and loanwords, especially Swahili, and I'd like to somehow get rid of the frequent Cw clusters therein, especially for alveolar Cs. What can I do, aside from eliding the /w/?

w > k~g / _C has precedent in Kinyarwanda (except there the outcome is kw~gw after illabial consonants, and Cy also has fortition)

[Das Public Viewing]

I'm trying to take a very plosive-cluster-heavy language and simplify the clusters somewhat. However, I'd rather not just reduce these by eliminating the first element. Are there any good precedents I can work off of other than C1C2 > C2 / _?

If it helps, the plosive inventory is /p t k/ /b d g/, the current syllable constraint is (C)(C)(R)V(R)(N)(C)(C), and fricatives are common.

[Pabappa]

I draw tables when I do this .... one axis for the first consonant in the cluster, the other for the second. Then I map out how I want each consonant cluster to resolve. See for example

http://www.pabappa.com/pics/tarise-word-initial.png

Of course, my languages tend not to be very cluster-heavy, so my goal is to get almost all clusters to reduce to a single consonant. This appraoch could still work for you if you can find a way to segment your clusters into two pieces and/or if some of the larger clusters can be approached by applying two different rules ... e.g. /mpl/ behaving first as /pl/ and then as /mp/. See also http://www.frathwiki.com/Tarise#Proto-T ... .283700.29 , which is what the above table produces when I write it out line by line the way I normally do. (And that's just the word-initial clusters.)

I suspect you will want diffferent rules for 1) word initial position , 2) word-final position, 3) pre-tonic, 4) post-tonic, 5) all others. stress and word boundaries do matter a lot.

[Xwtek]

I'm trying to take a very plosive-cluster-heavy language and simplify the clusters somewhat. However, I'd rather not just reduce these by eliminating the first element. Are there any good precedents I can work off of other than C1C2 > C2 / _?

If it helps, the plosive inventory is /p t k/ /b d g/, the current syllable constraint is (C)(C)(R)V(R)(N)(C)(C), and fricatives are common.

ts>tʃ>c

Do the same for the voiced.

[Xwtek]

Is it plausible for /m̻/ (fortis /m/) to shift into /p̻/ (fortis /p/)?

[Knit Tie]

Would this chain shift make sense:

mp nt ɲt͡ʃ ŋk → mb nd ɲd͡ʒ ŋɡ → b d d͡ʒ ɡ → p t t͡ʃ k → f t͡s ʃ x

Also, would a phonoloɡy of

m n ɲ ŋ p t t͡s t͡ʃ k f s ʃ x h l ɾ w j ± mb nd ɲd͡ʒ ŋɡ

Allow for some exotic consonants, i.e. labio-velars or uvulars? The language was heavily influenced by Arabic early in its history, resulting in an extdnsive uvularized series, uvulars and pharyngeals, and since then has reduced its phonological inventory to what you see above under fhe influence of Bantu languages and dspecially Swahili.

[cedh]

Would this chain shift make sense:

mp nt ɲt͡ʃ ŋk → mb nd ɲd͡ʒ ŋɡ → b d d͡ʒ ɡ → p t t͡ʃ k → f t͡s ʃ x

At first glance it looks a bit strange that prenasalised stops become voiced but plain stops become voiceless. But I think it does make sense if you think of it as a pull chain; i.e. the voiceless stops change to fricatives first, then the voiced plain stops devoice to fill the gap, then the voiced prenasals lose their prenasalisation which is now redundant, and then the voiceless prenasals become voiced, which is a rather natural change by itself. The full chain shift would probably take several generations of speakers to get completed though, my guess would be around 200 years at minimum, likely more.

Also, would a phonoloɡy of

m n ɲ ŋ p t t͡s t͡ʃ k f s ʃ x h l ɾ w j ± mb nd ɲd͡ʒ ŋɡ

Allow for some exotic consonants, i.e. labio-velars or uvulars? The language was heavily influenced by Arabic early in its history, resulting in an extdnsive uvularized series, uvulars and pharyngeals, and since then has reduced its phonological inventory to what you see above under fhe influence of Bantu languages and dspecially Swahili.

Sure; there's nothing in this phonology that would preclude labio-velars or uvulars. Labio-velars (or rather, labial-velars, i.e. /k͡p/ rather than /kʷ/) are quite common in the Sahel zone, so you can probably explain them by contact influence, depending on the precise location of your language. Uvulars make sense as a development from Arabic emphatics, but they are almost completely absent from Central Africa, so they would be typologically very unusual there (but of course still possible).

[Xwtek]

Also, would a phonoloɡy of

m n ɲ ŋ p t t͡s t͡ʃ k f s ʃ x h l ɾ w j ± mb nd ɲd͡ʒ ŋɡ

Allow for some exotic consonants, i.e. labio-velars or uvulars? The language was heavily influenced by Arabic early in its history, resulting in an extdnsive uvularized series, uvulars and pharyngeals, and since then has reduced its phonological inventory to what you see above under fhe influence of Bantu languages and dspecially Swahili.

Outside labiovelar, not likely. There are very few language outside Afroasiatic languages that is influenced by Arab more than Persian and Turkish languages. But only the former has it (Even then, it's mostly a loan phoneme). While it's possible for your language to have uvular, (from split before back vowels, and from loan words) and labio-velar (easy), the rest of them is not.

[Knit Tie]

The language is actually a variety of English from the hypothetical future, one that is spoken by people of mixed Arabo-Afro-American descent, and the uvularized series was developed from the Cr and rC clusters after /ɻ/ became /ʕ/, with uvularized velars subsequently becoming uvulars or pharyngeals.

Anyway, with regards to the consonant pull chain above, what would you say happen if it were to run concurrently with deletion of schwas?

[mèþru]

Is it plausible for /m̻/ (fortis /m/) to shift into /p̻/ (fortis /p/)?

Sure, but I would expect the shift to affect all nasals.

[Xwtek]

Is it plausible for /m̻/ (fortis /m/) to shift into /p̻/ (fortis /p/)?

Sure, but I would expect the shift to affect all nasals.

No, just all fortis nasal. The lenis nasal remains. However, fortis /n̻/ and all fortis nasals is also shifted

[mèþru]

Okay, that makes sense

[Xwtek]

From syllable final /Vs Vh Vw Vj Vʔ Vn Vns Vnʔ Vwʔ Vjʔ/, how can I get rhotacized vowel? It doesn't have to affect all of them, as long as some of them results in rhotacization.

[Xwtek]

How likely is unconditional shift from /s s̻ z/ > /r/(/s̻/ being the fortis /s/).