ukfl wrote: ↑29 Jan 2019 16:02
Phonology
- b d c m n ɲ ʀ ɾ ç h ɺ ʎ
- s' p' t' q'
- i u e o a
This is a
very strange consonantal inventory. I guess if humans are programmed to speak like this due to the gods making them, it's fine, but this whole thing would collapse the second natural processes start to happen.
What jumps out as weird:
- ejectives with no corresponding pulmonic consonants
- no /t k/ is strange in itself (almost unheard of) but no /t k/ while having /d c/ is doubly strange
- /ç/ as the sole non-glottal pulmonic fricative is weird, especially that you have /s'/
- you have no /l/ while having /ɺ ʎ/
- you have no /j/ while having all these palatals
If this is your conscious choice because the gods didn't care about the human vocal tract and just liking the sound of these particular phonemes, fine. But what you have doesn't look naturalistic, so if your intent was for gods making a reasonable language, I'd suggest making it a bit more normal.
Allophones
I suck at allophones and would appreciate help on this one.
You're safe to ignore allophonies for now, I think.
[*] Light syllable: open syllables and syllables closed by laterals or taps
[*] Heavy syllable: syllables closed by non-lateral and non-tap consonants
Do you make use of syllable weight anywhere? I haven't seen any mentions. Also, coda consonants almost always contribute to syllable weight. If they don't, it's usually the least sonorous ones, i.e., voiceless stops. Having a syllable with a lateral coda be light seems wrong to me. But I am not sure you're actually using this system so perhaps it doesn't matter.
ukfl wrote: ↑29 Jan 2019 16:26
Grammatical Gender
I need help here. Initially, I was thinking of breaking grammatical gender into four classes (inanimate things, animate things, godly things, and everything else).
Each case would be marked as shown below. But given how the language is intended to be outward and function based, I'm wondering if it would make more sense to expand the number of classes. Also, I'm not sure if I'm doing grammatical gender correctly in the first place, so I may need some help there as well.
What would constitute "everything else"? Logically, you can classify anything as inanimate or animate. I would say that if you're just starting out, stick to a limited number of noun classes/genders. The main use for having noun classes is agreement. You mention that articles agree for noun class, but do adjectives agree with nouns for gender? Do verbs?
Pronouns
I'm still trying to work this one out. For the moment, I have first, second, and third person marked by number (collective v. singulative) and case (see list above). Given the nature of the language, I'm now wondering if it would make more sense for there to be greater specificity in first-second-third person. Aside from the usual we/us, I/me, you, he/she/it, they/them pronouns, are there any other pronouns that I should be considering?
Well... you don't have a masculine/feminine distinction, so you probably shouldn't have "he/she/it". You should have 3rd person animate, 3rd person inanimate, etc., instead. I recommend the Wikipedia article on pronouns for an idea of what other types of pronouns you need. The ones you list are just personal pronouns.
Adpositions
Generally, I understand what adpositions are (insofar as they pertain to my native language of English). I'm just not sure how adpositions should work in this language, such as how they work for gerunds versus a relatively simple noun. Ultimately, my concern is that what I'm going to end up with is simply a cipher for English adpositions and not adpositions appropriate for the conlang I'm developing. Some help here would be greatly appreciated.
I feel I needed several years to get semi-decent at conlanging so don't be too hard on yourself. Create your English cipher and you'll make it less English while you learn new stuff. Regarding adpositions, your language is SOV so they'd be more likely to be postpositions (come after the noun).