(Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

[GoshDiggityDangit]

Say that's 2050 then. I've actually changed my document to reflect that, and I can see why you say that - basically all I did is "monophthongize" some glides. What might happen afterwards? What mergers and splits could you see happening? I can see the food and book sets merging.

[Arayaz]

Say that's 2050 then. I've actually changed my document to reflect that, and I can see why you say that - basically all I did is "monophthongize" some glides. What might happen afterwards? What mergers and splits could you see happening? I can see the food and book sets merging.

I think it'd be fun to unround ʏ ─ merge the feet and book sets.

[Salmoneus]

Say that's 2050 then. I've actually changed my document to reflect that, and I can see why you say that - basically all I did is "monophthongize" some glides. What might happen afterwards? What mergers and splits could you see happening? I can see the food and book sets merging.

It's hard to give advice on a question as open-ended as basically "I want to make a conlang from English, what should the conlang be?" - I mean, that's kind of up to you, that's the whole point of conlanging.

Instead of telling you what I think your conlang's vowel system should be, I'd rather suggest some questions that I've thought of in my attempts to evolve Anglangs:

- how does this language relate to other Anglic languages around it, both in the focused time and in its history to that point? Is it going to converge with neighbouring influential dialects at certain times - if so, which, and what are they like? Or will speakers intentionally diverge from their neighbours? North American vowels are being pulled in various directions - the West, the Northern Cities, New York and the South all have different vowel shifts, in sometimes directly contrary directions. How do you see the Appalachians fitting into those patterns in the coming century, and what happens in the centuries beyond that?

- what gaps do you see in the vowel space for vowels to move into, or split into? Where do you see concentrations of many vowels that are hard to distinguish and that might want to move apart?

- what is the relative frequency distribution of phonemes, and how common are their minimal pairs? Distinctions that carry little load may lead to mergers, while vowels that are super-common may be more likely to undergo splits

[Visions1]

Just to give a look, I think /s/ and /ts/ will merge in codas - dance and pants already are getting merged ("the dancing pants").
I think /r/s will change, as per usual.

I also think English will split really hard - maybe not now or in 30 years, but it's already starting to happen. East coast US English is already undergoing mad changes ("an ahrendge Hollmahk cahd"). Australian lost it. Scottish was always crazy and they're proud of it. And so on.
I think after these divisions things will get both nitty-grittier and more spread out. Expect RP to take over the UK, and Standard American to work in the western areas of the US somewhat, and Standard Aus. to become a bit better enforced. Expect dialects we take for granted (Canadian ones, the million little ones in England) to become diluted, rarer, or go extinct. If the UK keeps at what it does, expect Scottish and Irish English to distance further. Expect Caribbean English to get closer what with globalization and wealth increases.

At least that's what I think. For all I know the world ends tomorrow.

[GoshDiggityDangit]

Here's an updated table of vowel shifts. I'm pretty happy with this, but I wonder what others think? Does this come off as unnatural?
https://ibb.co/J5WW7Z5

[Salmoneus]

Just to give a look, I think /s/ and /ts/ will merge in codas - dance and pants already are getting merged ("the dancing pants").
I think /r/s will change, as per usual.

I also think English will split really hard - maybe not now or in 30 years, but it's already starting to happen. East coast US English is already undergoing mad changes ("an ahrendge Hollmahk cahd").

I'm not sure I follow your example. The main thing you're highlighting is simply non-rhoticity in New York and Eastern New England, which developed in the 17th and 18th centuries and became standard in London and Boston by or around the time of the American Revolution; I'm not sure when it came to New York (or if it was there all along), but it was certainly more than a century ago. Likewise, the "ahrendge" spelling suggests that you're talking about the eastern merger of the "orange" vowel with the "start" vowel... but this is simply the usual American father-bother merger taking place prior to the American r-conditioned lot-cloth split. On the US east coast, FB took place prior to pre-r LC (so "orange" moved from BOTHER to FATHER before it had a chance to merge with THOUGHT), while in Canada pre-r LC took place after FB. In the rest of the US, the two took place simultaneously, so that certain words (orange) have THOUGHT/FORCE/NORTH, while others (sorry) have START/FATHER/PALM. But again, all of this took place in the 18th century, so it's not exactly "undergoing mad changes"!

And then there's "Holl" - I'm not sure if you're talking about general rounding of the COT vowel (which is more likely on the west coast and is indeed novel), or conditioned pre-lateral rounding of the COT vowel (which is probably allophonic all over the place due to the 'darkening' effect of coda /l/), or just the cot-caught merger (which is least likely to happen in precisely the accents that are most likely to be non-rhotic!).

Australian lost it. Scottish was always crazy and they're proud of it. And so on.
I think after these divisions things will get both nitty-grittier and more spread out. Expect RP to take over the UK,

Even if we're talking SSBE rather than classical RP, I really doubt it. Sadly, I'd be more worried SSBE will die out entirely. It does seem higher status (or rather: less despised) than it was a generation ago, but even so, it's a small minority dialect thought of poorly by most people. It's likely to be entirely replaced by a version of Estuary, I think (or rather: Estuary will be relabelled as RP and some new LME will take the role of estuary and then eventually replace it in turn...). Estuary won't take over the country, though - regional dialects in the UK are becoming stronger, not weaker.

You are right that small dialects will go extinct, though. What little I've read has suggested that what's happening is a general regionalisation of English in England - so Mackem, for instance, might merge into Geordie entirely (minus a few local words, perhaps), but it won't be replaced by Estuary or SSBE. In particular, the rural dialects will go extinct, as many of them already have (I'm from the southeast, and strong Kentish/Man-of-Kent/Sussex dialects are already virtually extinct and most people don't know what they sounded like, and even mild local accents are almost dissolved into the SSBE/Estuary continuum).

and Standard American to work in the western areas of the US somewhat

This seems backward to me. Western English is strong, both geographically (most of north america) and culturally (LA, SF, Seattle, Denver, arguably Toronto, etc), and divergent. It seems more likely that Western shifts - like GOOSE fronting or COT-CAUGHT mergers will continue to spread into the other dialects rather than vice versa. I think in 2124, "Standard American" will be some generic Californian dialect. The question, though, is to what extent this will replace, remodel, or simply exist alongside current regional dialects in places like Chicago and New York.

[Visions1]

Firstly, you know more than me in this. You're right, I'm wrong.
Secondly, that's sort of what I meant with the standard English thing. It'll be Western; Western will be it.

[Omzinesý]

What language(s) are both polysynthetic (in the sense of having verbs with very many morphemes) and fusional (in the sense that morpheme boundaries are blurred and much is expressed with mutations and other such processes)?

[sangi39]

What language(s) are both polysynthetic (in the sense of having verbs with very many morphemes) and fusional (in the sense that morpheme boundaries are blurred and much is expressed with mutations and other such processes)?

I think Navajo is usually described like this, from what I can remember

[Arayaz]

What language(s) are both polysynthetic (in the sense of having verbs with very many morphemes) and fusional (in the sense that morpheme boundaries are blurred and much is expressed with mutations and other such processes)?

I think Navajo is usually described like this, from what I can remember

I have a book about Navajo, and, from what I've read, this is pretty much exactly how it is. I don't fully understand it all, though.

[VaptuantaDoi]

What language(s) are both polysynthetic (in the sense of having verbs with very many morphemes) and fusional (in the sense that morpheme boundaries are blurred and much is expressed with mutations and other such processes)?

Several NAM languages are (e.g. Kashaya, Pawnee, ...) – on the surface at least, morphophonologically you can kinda predict it but it basically requires knowing the last four hundred years of sound changes to work things out. There's a brief but interesting summary of fusion in Kashaya which I stumbled across here.

[Visions1]

Inuktitut is like this - lots of sandhi going on.

[Omzinesý]

What language(s) are both polysynthetic (in the sense of having verbs with very many morphemes) and fusional (in the sense that morpheme boundaries are blurred and much is expressed with mutations and other such processes)?

Several NAM languages are (e.g. Kashaya, Pawnee, ...) – on the surface at least, morphophonologically you can kinda predict it but it basically requires knowing the last four hundred years of sound changes to work things out. There's a brief but interesting summary of fusion in Kashaya which I stumbled across here.

That is interesting! The thread is a bit too compact but at least a place to start.

Thank you all!

[VaptuantaDoi]

What language(s) are both polysynthetic (in the sense of having verbs with very many morphemes) and fusional (in the sense that morpheme boundaries are blurred and much is expressed with mutations and other such processes)?

Several NAM languages are (e.g. Kashaya, Pawnee, ...) – on the surface at least, morphophonologically you can kinda predict it but it basically requires knowing the last four hundred years of sound changes to work things out. There's a brief but interesting summary of fusion in Kashaya which I stumbled across here.

That is interesting! The thread is a bit too compact but at least a place to start.

Thank you all!

If you've got the time for it, there's a full grammar of Southern Pomo, which neighbours Kashaya, and has some fairly complicated morphophonology too (especially surrounding the "laryngeal increment".

I think fusionality in polysynthetic langs pretty much *has* to be analysed through complicated morphophonology; in a mildly synthetic, fusional language like French you can just list all the PNTAM combinations, but there would be like 200 million suffixes in Pomo if you did it that way.

[Omzinesý]

What language(s) are both polysynthetic (in the sense of having verbs with very many morphemes) and fusional (in the sense that morpheme boundaries are blurred and much is expressed with mutations and other such processes)?

Several NAM languages are (e.g. Kashaya, Pawnee, ...) – on the surface at least, morphophonologically you can kinda predict it but it basically requires knowing the last four hundred years of sound changes to work things out. There's a brief but interesting summary of fusion in Kashaya which I stumbled across here.

That is interesting! The thread is a bit too compact but at least a place to start.

Thank you all!

If you've got the time for it, there's a full grammar of Southern Pomo, which neighbours Kashaya, and has some fairly complicated morphophonology too (especially surrounding the "laryngeal increment".

I think fusionality in polysynthetic langs pretty much *has* to be analysed through complicated morphophonology; in a mildly synthetic, fusional language like French you can just list all the PNTAM combinations, but there would be like 200 million suffixes in Pomo if you did it that way.

Thank you again. It is a biig one. I'll try to understand the important parts, interesting.

[Visions1]

If you've got the time for it, there's a full grammar of Southern Pomo, which neighbours Kashaya, and has some fairly complicated morphophonology too (especially surrounding the "laryngeal increment".

I'll have to remember to save this grammar. Thanks.

(It was very sad to read so far... )

[Shemtov]

If a Culture counts using Base-20, and they only have words up to 20^2 (400), and they encounter a Base-10 culture, would it be realistic for them to borrow the word for 1,000 to mean 20^3 (8,000)? Or is it more likely they would they switch to base-10 for numbers over 1000?

[Arayaz]

If a Culture counts using Base-20, and they only have words up to 20^2 (400), and they encounter a Base-10 culture, would it be realistic for them to borrow the word for 1,000 to mean 20^3 (8,000)? Or is it more likely they would they switch to base-10 for numbers over 1000?

Depending on the technology, it's probable that the word for 1,000 simply means "a huge number," and could easily be borrowed for this purpose.

[Visions1]

Inuit uses base 20, but has a separate word for 1000. Still, you could just macguyver it anyways and borrow a word for, say, 8000.

[Shemtov]

If a Culture counts using Base-20, and they only have words up to 20^2 (400), and they encounter a Base-10 culture, would it be realistic for them to borrow the word for 1,000 to mean 20^3 (8,000)? Or is it more likely they would they switch to base-10 for numbers over 1000?

Depending on the technology, it's probable that the word for 1,000 simply means "a huge number," and could easily be borrowed for this purpose.

Well, the culture they're borrowing from had very advanced mathematics, and they learned math dealing with higher numbers from said donor culture. Perhaps they use base 10 over 1000 (a mixed radix system for numbers like, say, 1994, as 1,000 and 29E, perhaps?) but perhaps they also use a borrowed words for specific numbers in some contexts, like religion and poetry- Beitzein for 20^3, (Lit. 8 thousands, which in base 10 they'd express as Lauzi-Zein, using the Native Number for 8, and see beitzien as its own root), and then 20 Beitzein for 20^4, up to Beitzein-betzein for 20^6