Nillahimma: the Thread (NP: Noun Ablaut (Strong vs. Weak))

[thaen]

Some of you have seen Nillahimma popping up in various places on the Board, and now thanks to Des's prompting, I made a thread.
Hopefully I can get some feedback and help with some of the more difficult grammar stuff. I have the phonology down for the most part, although I did recently change out /q/ for a glottal stop represented by <q>, and I still have to go through and change everything that had a /q/ in it...

Anyways, here it is: the Thread

Edit: I will have more examples for everything as soon as possible

____________________________________________________________________________________________--

Overview (from the GoogleDoc for this lang):

Nillahimma is a constructed language created by Kory Bourque for using in his fantasy realm, Kormond, which will be the setting for several stories. As of now, the speakers of Nillahimma are undecided, but maybe by the jungle dwellers in the basin south of Arkai and west of Anuvia.
Nillahimma is polysynthetic, with extensive noun incorporation, and the verbs being the main focus of the clause. It has six nominal cases - ergative, absolutive, dative, oblique, possessor, and possessed - three numbers, thirteen aspects, seven moods, and three tenses. There is proximate/obviative distinction, and a switch-reference system that focuses on the subjects.

Phonological Inventory

Plosives: /p t k ʔ/ <p t k q>
Nasals: /m n/ <m n>
Fricatives: /f s x h/ <f s x h>
Trill: /r/ <r>
Approximants: /w l j/ <w l j>

/w/ is a labiovelar approximant, but I have listed it where I have for conciseness.

Vowels: /i e a ɑ o u/ <i e æ a o u>
It used to be /a ɑ/ <a æ> but /ɑ/ is much more common in Nillahimma, and I got tired of copy/pasting the ligature, so...

Allophony

/p t k ʔ/ > [p͡f t͡θ k͡x q͡χˤ] word-initially. Examples:

Spoiler:

peka /pe.kɑ/ [p͡fe.gɑ] “to love” _____pesor /pe.sor/ [p͡fe.sor] “key”
tos /tos/ [t͡θos] “to run” _____tul /tul/ [t͡θul] “to run”
kusi /ku.si/ [k͡xu.si] _____kel /kel/ [k͡xel]
qirpeka /qir.pe.kɑ/ [q͡χˤɪr.pe.gɑ] "they (two) love me"_____qæmpal /qam.pɑl/ [q͡χˤɑm.bɑl] “celebration”

/p t k/ > [b θ g] in word-medial, low-pitch syllables. Examples:

Spoiler:

hæpæl /hɑ.pɑl/ [hɑ.bɑl] “rumor”_____liwupo /li.wu.po/ [li.wu.bo] “cloud”
xatimæ /xa.ti.mɑ/ [xa.θɪ.mɑ] “harvest”_____mastæl /mɑs.tal/ [mɑs.θal] “to toast; to salute”
pilæko /pi.lɑ.ko/ [p͡fɪ.lɑ.go] “dog” _____maka /mɑ.kɑ/ [mɑ.gɑ] “heaven”

And that is all the allophony I have for now...

Phonotactics

There are two types of syllables in Nillahimma: Non-Word-Final syllables, and Word-Final syllables. Their names are pretty self-explanatory.

F: fricatives
N: nasals
P: plosives

NWF syllable phonotactics:

(C)(C)V(t, N, s, x, h, r, l, j)

WF syllable phonotactics:

(C)(C)V(N, s, l, r)
Allowable clusters:
p, t, k + F, A, r, ʔ
N + ʔ, r, j
F + S, N, A, r
r + w
F + F

Vowel clusters are not allowed. However, since Nillahimma has many affixes, VV occurrences are not uncommon. But the language is well-equipped to handle these.

uV > wV
iV > jV
V1V > V1fV
V1 is any vowel except for /u i/

Not really VV, but they still get special treatment:

uj > uw (or uʷ)
iw > ij



Pitch-Accent

Nillahimma does not have a stress system, but instead employs a pitch-accent system. There are two tones, high and low. Roots will almost always have one high tone, whereas larger words (roots plus any INs and affixes) may have more than one high tone. High tone is marked with an accent diacritic, but may be left out at the writer's discretion, and is not marked at all in the native script. The low-tone syllables leading up to the high tone will be rising from the furthest syllable, which will be low tone. If there are no more high tones after the first high tone, the tones descend back to low; if there are other high tones, the tone drops sharply from high to low, then ascends to the next high tone. Incorporated nouns lose their inherit high tones. If there are more than three non-high-tone syllables in either direction of the high tone, a high tone is placed on either the second syllable (if there are more than three NHTSs to the left) and/or on the penultimate syllable (if there are three or more NHTSs to the right).

Verbs

Now we get to the good part. Verbs are the central hub of Nillahimma. There is a three-way telicity distinction that is pretty neat, and plenty of polysynthetic goodies for all of you poly-nerds to give me tips on.

Verb Template

MISC+PA+P/N+LOC+VERB+A1+A2+A3+Mood+Tense+MISC

Spoiler:

PA - pronomial affix
P - pronoun
N - noun
A - aspect
LOC - locative affixes, which affect the verb; these are often used to specify the direction of an action
MISC - nominalizers and other stuff that I'll talk about later.

A1 and A2 are usually reserved for non-telic aspects, and are not obligatory.
A3 is reserved for the aspects dealing with teliciy. Telic is usually left out of glosses unless there is a Quasi-Atelic or Atelic verb in the sample being glossed.

Pronomial Affixes

Pronomial affixes are prefixed onto the verb stem before any other arguments; any following arguments squeeze themselves between the two.
The PAs encode six morphemes: two person/number units (4 morphemes) and which is the subject, and which is the object (two morphemes). PAs break the normal Erg-Abs structure of Nillahimma, only specifying the subject and the direct object. Some argue that it keeps within the Erg-Abs, and the Subject is in the Ergative and the Object is in the Absolutive, but it the point is moot. PAs are still glossed in the manner of person+number>person+number (e.g. 1sg>3du)

I don't have the completed chart up, but it is very large, with, as of now, 144 SUBJ/OBJ combinations, and I haven't added a few other persons, such as the unspecified (as in, "people do ," "it is often said that..." etc). In any case, it is not completed, and I will be turning to several NA languages that use PAs to get some info and inspiration.

Aspects

There are three categories of aspects in Nillahimma: completion, non-completion, and telic. Completion aspects are the perfective and the imperfective. The non-completion aspects are gnomic, inceptive, cessative, habitual, iterative, pausative, resumptive, durative, and protractive. The telic aspects are telic, atelic, and quasi-atelic (Qatelic).

Completion Aspects:

Spoiler:

Imperfective: (unmarked)
Perfective: hehehe
The perfective is the oddball of the aspects in that it is indicated by lengthening the high tone syllable of the verb root. What makes this so unusual is that vowel lengthening is only present morphophonologically, which is why it is not listed in the section on vowels. Unfortunately, the notes on the observations of this phenomenon were misplaced, so I'll have to get back to you on this one. UPDATE: the notes have been found! The perfective is formed as follows:
To form the perfective aspect, the high tone syllable in the verb root is lengthened. There are a number of exceptions:
æ > ææ, except in closed syllables, where æC > eeC
a > aa, except when /l r/ is the coda, where al, ar > ool, oor
u > uu, except in closed syllables, where uC > ooC
i > ii, except when the coda is /r n h x/, where ir, in, ih, ix > eer, een, eeh, eex
o > oo in all instances
e > ee in all instances

Non-Completion Aspects:

Spoiler:

Gnomic: -i-
The gnomic is used for general truths, things that are understood to be true among the speakers, or, more widely, among the community or culture.

Inceptive: -ka-
The inceptive is used with the beginning of an action, but not an action that was previously started, then stopped, and then continued again; for that, the resumptive is used.

Cessative: -u-
Used when an action is stopping, but not used for an action that is temporarily stopping, with the intention of being started again; for that, the pausative is used. this can be used with the resumptive in order to indicate an action that was stopped, with no intention of restarting, and then having it resumed, maybe without the volition of the actor.

Habitual: -æ-
Habitual is used to show that an action is customary to an actor.

Iterative: -e-
The iterative is used to show an action is repeated, but not necessarily a habit. The repetition of said action can span any amount of time.

Pausative: -s-
The pausative indicates the stoppage of an action with the intention to commence the action at some future point. This can be used with the protractive to show a long pause.

Resumptive: -t-
Used to show the recommencing of an action which was stopped with the intention of being stopped.

Durative: -x-
Used when the action lasts for an unspecified, but not overlong, amount of time.

Protractive: -o-
Used when the action continues on for longer than intended or desired.

Telic Aspects

Spoiler:

The telic aspects are a fun lot. There are three members of this group: telic, atelic, and quasi-atelic. I have not observed the Qatelic-Atelic distinction in any Natlang, so I coined the term Quasi-Atelic to represent what in most languages is simply Atelic, choosing to use Pure Atelic for the other half.
Telic indicates that the action has definite endpoints.
Qatelic indicates that the action has endpoints, but not definite. This is often used with verbs such as "to look (for)." One is searching for something, and once it is found (or not found), the search is over. It has a beginning and an end.
The Pure Atelic is used when an action has neither a beginning nor an end. This is often used for hyperbole, or for things that "always have been and always will be X." Example: "Winter is cold." PAtelic. "This/That winter in particular is cold" Qatelic.

Telic: (unmarked)
Qatelic: -t-
Pure Atelic: -m-

Moods

There are seven moods in Nillahimma: indicative, subjunctive, conditional, optative, imperative, jussive, and interrogative.

Spoiler:

Indicative: (unmarked)
The indicative is the go-to mood for stating that an action occurred.

Subjunctive: -l-
The subjunctive is used to show that an action hasn't happened, and may not happen; something that is not reality; it is also used in the protasis of a conditional construction. "I wish I were president" or "That could be my dog" are some examples of how it could be translated.

Conditional: -qi-
The conditional is used on the verb in the apodosis of a conditional construction, while the verb in the protasis is in the subjunctive mood. If he had eaten Taco Bell, he will be sick "had eaten" is in the subjunctive mood, while "will be" is in the conditional. Also, "If I had gone with him, he would have paid for my food."

Optative: -r-
The optative is used to portray hopefulness or obligation to the commencement or completion of an action. "This should be the right answer." "I hope he comes home on time." "He had ought to be here by now." When obligation is expressed, it is a softer way of expressing it than using the jussive, which can be used as a softer way of expressing it than the imperative.

Imperative: -ke-
The imperative is used to express that the action must be done by someone other than the 1st person. "You!! Clean this room!" "Don't fail this test!" "Do your job!" It can be considered harsh when used from one equal to another, but customary from a superior to a subordinate (e.g. a parent to a child, an employer to his employees).

Jussive: -pas-
The jussive is used primarily for self-exhortation and self-imperatives, but also for for a middle-ground obligation, exhortation, or imperative commands, being more forceful or urgent than the optative, and less so than the imperative.

Interrogative: -tan-
The interrogative turns the verb clause into a question. But, it can affix to any argument within the clause, as well. For example, to ask "who took the cookies?" one would say "who+tan took-tan the cookies?"

Miscellaneous

While it is true that the following can be described in more accurate ways, other than MISC, I will group them here, for now, until I elaborate further.

Spoiler:

The Reflexive: or-
The reflexive prefix can indicate either the presence or lack of volition in the acting of a subject on itself, whenever the subject is a pronoun. When the subject is a noun, it can only indicate the reflexive action; volition must be determined through context or other means. It shows volition based on whether or not the first person>first person PA is used. If it is, then the action is intentional; if it is only the first person pronoun, then it was not intentional. "He hit himself on accident" vs "he hit himself on purpose"

The Negative: -tul
The negative suffix can attach itself to either a verb or to an argument, so that there is an explicit difference between "John didn't eat the sandwhich" and "John didn't eat the sandwhich" and "John didn't eat the sandwhich" (yes, those are bad examples; I'll post better ones later)

The Nominalizer: -ma
The nominalizing suffix is used to make verbs or clauses into nouns. Take, for example, Nillahimma. The word Nillahim means "we speak it," where the -ma makes the clause into a noun, thus, the name of the language.

Pronouns

Pronouns are fairly simple, only being marked for number and case. When gender is important to the situation, there are classifiers, though I haven't discovered them yet.
There are three grammatical numbers in Nillahimma: singular, dual, and plural.

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

1st Person: æl
2nd Person[sub]1[/sub]: sam
2nd Person[sub]2[/sub]: ul
3rd Person[sub]1[/sub]: mæ
3rd Person[sub]2[/sub]: pæs

Number and person are marked in the same order and manner on pronouns and nouns, although on incorporated nouns and pronouns, case (but not number) my be dropped.

(Pro)Noun Template

(Pro)Noun+Number+Case

Singular: (unmarked)
Dual: -m-
Plural: -r-

Ergative: -o
Absolutive: (unmarked)
Dative: -i
Oblique: -e
Possessor: -æ
Possessed: -jæ

Nillahimma double-marks for possessives; that is, it marks both the possessor and the possessed.

Switch-Reference

I will only touch on this section, and bring it up in greater detail later.

Nillahimma's SR system is fairly simple and is canonical. All conjunctions and relative pronouns have two forms: one for same-subject (glossed CONJ.SS or REL.SS) and one for different subject (glossed CONJ.DS or REL.DS). The anchor clause is the first clause in the sentence, and all subsequent clauses refer back to it for determining whether to have a SS or DS marking.
The DS form of conjunctions and relative pronouns is formed by adding an /l/ to the word, or, in some cases, dropping the coda /r/ and lengthening the vowel.

_________________________________________________________________

Well, that is all for now. I look forward to your criticisms and feedback, and I will have more posted as soon as I get around to it!

[DesEsseintes]

Yay! This looks promising.

Allowable clusters:
...

I gather from the name of the language that geminate consonants are allowed in addition to clusters. Is this assumption correct?

/p t k/ > [b θ k] in word-medial, low-pitch syllables.

I'm guessing this should read /p t k/ > [b θ g]?

uV > wV
iV > jV

Can the rule turning /i u/ into [j w] before another vowel result in clusters of three consonants? As an example, could /ksia/ result in [ksja]?

---

I like the formation of the perfect and the vowel shift patterns it entails.

Looking forward to examples.

[thaen]

Yay! This looks promising.

Thanks, Des

I gather from the name of the language that geminate consonants are allowed in addition to clusters. Is this assumption correct?

I forgot to mention this: after some debate, I have tentatively decided that double consonants are only used in the script and in writing as ways of showing individual morphemes, and not phonemicly (or allophonicly) realized. In the case of Nillahimma, you have nil+lah+i+m+ma.

Can the rule turning /i u/ into [j w] before another vowel result in clusters of three consonants? As an example, could /ksia/ result in [ksja]?

Aha! I did not notice that that could happen! I have been thinking about it today, I have come to a crossroads. I can have:

a) ksia > ksa; dropping the /i/ altogether
b) ksia > kja; dropping the middle consonant;
c) ksia > kça; palatilizing the second consonant allophonically (this would probably be represented by <ksia>, since it is known that /ia/ can't occur)
d) any of these, arbitrarily decided for each instance; I dislike this option.

**the same process occurs with CCuV occurrences, except in c) the pattern goes CCʷV (labializing the consonant)

I will post this quandary on the yay/nay thread and get a vote.

I like the formation of the perfect and the vowel shift patterns it entails.

Thanks!

Well, you were the one to inspire it

Looking forward to examples.

Me too. I shall have them up ASAP.

Actually, I want to make more in-depth posts about each topic (allophony, tenses, moods, aspects, SR, pronouns, etc) with more examples. The only thing is, I hate glossing on here, because I can never get the text to run even with the glosses below it, and I like to have them just so. I guess I could try to use code, but it's a headache, in my opinion. In any case I will give it a whirl.




Thank you for the questions! Don't hesitate to ask more or to tell me if there is something I'm doing weird or unnaturalisticly! (I know the Qatelic isn't naturalistic, but that is one of the few things I have that I know are unattested in natlangs, and I'm okay with that )

[thaen]

Strong vs. Weak Nouns

Whilst working, I had the idea to make nouns in Nillahimma ablaut for definiteness and number, and came up with this paradigm:

Definite Singular: zero-grade (vowel is dropped)
Definite Dual: e-grade (V>e)
Definite Plural: long-grade (V>V:)
Indefinite Singular: not marked; standard form
Indefinite Dual: u-grade (V>u)
Indefinite Plural: i-grade (V>i) & o-grade (V>o)*

*the indefinite plural has two different ablauts based on the surrounding sounds and, no, I do not know what sounds those are yet...we shall see

Then, I had the epiphany to have strong vs. weak nouns, with only the strong nouns ablauting, and the weak nouns taking a prefix.
So, the difference between the two is that strong noun roots have /a/ or /ɑ/, and weak noun roots do not. The weak noun prefixes are:

Definite: f(e)-
Indefinite: (zero morpheme)

Bam.

That's it. The weak noun roots take on separate number morphemes, which are

Singular: (zero morpheme)
Dual: -m-
Plural: -r-

Now for some examples:

First, we shall take a look at the strong noun root stæl "mouse." Pretty easy.

stl "the mouse"
stel "the two mice"
stǣl "the mice"
stæl "a mouse"
stul "some two mice"
stil or stol "some mice"

"But Mister Thaen! Mister Thaen! What about strong noun roots with two or more strong vowels?"
Ah! I'm so glad you asked! It is quite simple, really. If the root has multiple strong vowels, ablaut the one with the high tone. To clarify, dear pupil, I will provide some more examples.

naxal "pain" High tone on second syllable

næxl "the pain"
næxel "the two pains"
næxǣl "the pains"
næxæl "a pain"
næxul "some two pains"
næxil or naxol "some mice"

qæmpal "celebration" High tone on first syllable

qmpal "the celebration"
qempal "the two celebrations"
qǣmpal "the celebrations"
qæmpal "a celebration"
qumpal "some two celebrations"
qimpal or qompal "some celebrations"

maka "heaven" High tone on first syllable

mka "the heaven"
meka "the two heavens"
māka "the heavens"
maka "a heaven"
muka "some two heavens"
mika or moka "some heavens"

Now for some weak nouns!

mersul "bird"

femersul "the bird"
mersul "a bird"

sumir "passion"

fesumir "the passion"
sumir "a passion"

ræjel "joy"

fræjel "the joy"
ræjel "a joy"

To form the dual and plural forms of the above weak noun roots, simply suffix the aforementioned affixes, and since the absolutive is zero-marked, you'll have the singular, dual, and plural indefinite and definite forms of the roots in the absolutive case.

Okay, I think you get the gist of--
"Mister Thaen! Mister Thaen! But what does this mean for noun incorporation??"
Ah! I'm so glad you asked, dear pupil! You see, strong noun roots may be incorporated fully ablauted, whereas weak noun roots may only be incorporated whilst in the indefinite -- the definite may not be incorporated.
"But how come nouns with other affixes may be incorporated?"
Well, that is just how things are, my dear pupil.

[thaen]

Now, after reading the previous post, some of my observant pupils were confused when the zero-grade ablaut caused illegal clusters. This, I explained, is remedied by the ability of the nasals, fricatives, approximants, and the trill to become syllabic. There are, however, a few allphonic forms with which my dear pupils had to familiarize themselves.

/m n s x r l/ are all unchanged when syllabic.
/f w*/ become voiced.
/h/ becomes /χˤ/

*w is already voiced, but I put here (first by accident) to remind everyone that it is never ever unvoiced as a syllabic.

That's all pretty simple. Now, for some examples:

taf "a coin" /tɑf/ > tf "the coin" [tv̩]

ekah "an arm" /e.kɑh/ > ekh "the arm" [e.kχ̩ˤ]

luwæ "a sheath" /lu.wa/ > luw "the sheath" [lu.w̩]

And, yes, these syllabic rules apply to all conditions where illegal consonant formations occur (such as the most famous word in the language, lpekam, in which the <l> is syllabic).

The next installment in the Nillahimma Thread will be about asking questions, at the very least, polar questions.

[DesEsseintes]

taf "a coin" /tɑf/ > tf "the coin" [tv̩]

ekah "an arm" /e.kɑh/ > ekh "the arm" [e.kχ̩ˤ]

luwæ "a sheath" /lu.wa/ > luw "the sheath" [lu.w̩]

I like this!

Is there no danger of [w̩] → ?

Another quick observation: in Germanic languages, nouns and verbs that undergo ablaut are normally the ones termed "strong", while the purely affixing ones are termed "weak". There may well be a perfectly good reason for you to use the opposite system in your lang, but I just wanted to point it out to you.

[thaen]

Polar Questions

My dear pupils were bugging me about asking questions in Nillahimma, so I spontaneously jotted down a few examples of polar questions and the usual responses. <apu> is the clitic used to mark polar questions.

Apu næxlmoqa? "Is the pain great?"
Te næxlmoqa "Yes, the pain is great."
Sar næxlmoqatul "No, the pain is not great."
Sar næxlteta "No, the pain is small."

Spoiler:

Apu næxlmoqa?
apu=næx<ø>l-moqa-ø-ø-ø
Question=pain<DEF.SG>-be.great-IMPF-IND-NPST
"Is the pain great?"

Te næxlmoqa
te næx<ø>l-moqa-ø-ø-ø
yes pain<DEF.SG>-be.great-IMPF-IND-NPST
"Yes, the pain is great."

Sar næxlmoqatul
sar næx<ø>l-moqa-ø-ø-ø-tul
no pain<DEF.SG>-be.great-IMPF-IND-NPST-NEG
"No, the pain is not great."

Sar næxlteta
sar næx<ø>l-teta-ø-ø-ø
no pain<DEF.SG>-be.small-IMPF-IND-NPST
"No, the pain is small."

Apu lpeka? "Do I love you?"
Te lpeka "Yes, I love you."
Sar lpekatul "No, I do not love you."
Sar lpeekas "No, I did love you."

Spoiler:

Apu lpeka?
apu=l-peka-ø-ø-ø
Question=1sg>2sg-love-IMPF-IND-NPST
"Do I love you?"

Te lpeka
te l-peka-ø-ø-ø
yes 1sg>2sg-love-IMPF-IND-NPST
"Yes, I love you."

Sar lpekatul
sar l-peka-ø-ø-ø-tul
no 1sg>2sg-love-IMPF-IND-NPST-NEG
"No, I do not love you."

Sar lpeekas
sar l-pe<e>ka-ø-ø-s
no 1sg>2sg-love<PFV>-IND-PST
"No, I did love you."

As it may be seen, <te> and <sar> mean "yes" and "no" respectively.
The <> parts are for ablaut, but I'm not sure if I glossed them right.

Tense

I was quite embarrassed when one of my dear pupils brought my attention to the fact that I had totally left out tense in the OP! So, here I will correct that grievous mistake.

There are three tenses: past, nonpast, and aorist. The past is for actions that started and ended in the past, but not necessarily the whole continuum at once; that is, if it occurs without the perfective, then it most likely means it is referring to an action when it was occurring. The nonpast is for any action that did not start in the past. The aorist is for actions that started in the past, and have continued to the present or are continuing into the future. It is late, and I must sleep, so no examples The tenses are suffixed onto the verb after the mood affix.

Past: -s
Nonpast: (zero marked)
Aorist: -ar

I promise to go into more detail later.

[thaen]

taf "a coin" /tɑf/ > tf "the coin" [tv̩]

ekah "an arm" /e.kɑh/ > ekh "the arm" [e.kχ̩ˤ]

luwæ "a sheath" /lu.wa/ > luw "the sheath" [lu.w̩]

I like this!

Is there no danger of [w̩] → ?

Another quick observation: in Germanic languages, nouns and verbs that undergo ablaut are normally the ones termed "strong", while the purely affixing ones are termed "weak". There may well be a perfectly good reason for you to use the opposite system in your lang, but I just wanted to point it out to you.

Thank you, my dear ninja!

The danger you referenced may occur diachronically, but for now, there is no fear. The syllabic /w/ will stay separate, at least in proper speech. I cannot say that it will never be compromised as you mentioned in colloquial speech.

And I did not intend to switch the two; I thought that was how they were in Germanic languages. I will probably switch them back, unless I cannot then get them straight.

[Khemehekis]

/f w/ become voiced.

Wait . . . isn't /w/ already voiced?

[thaen]

/f w/ become voiced.

Wait . . . isn't /w/ already voiced?

Egads! Well, you are right. I did these on a piece of receipt paper at work, so I wasn't paying too much attention. In any case, if ever /w/ is allophonically devoiced, it is never the case whilst syllabic. Thank you for your astuteness.

[eldin raigmore]

2.3 Phonotactics

There are two types of viable syllables in Nillahimma: those that end a word (Word-Final Syllables) and those that do not (Non-Word Final Syllables). Both syllable types have the same basic structure (CCVC), but the Word-Final Syllables (WFSs) are more lenient in their coda allowance than the Non-Word-Final Syllables (NWFSs). As the language progressed, and generations slowly changed the phonotactics and phoneme inventory, the codas became more strict, but with the allowed codas taking on wide-ranging allophony.

Non-Word-Final Syllables:

(C)(C)V(t, N, s, x, h, r, l, j)

Where C is any consonant, V is any vowel, and N is any nasal.

Word-Final Syllables:

(C)(C)V(N, s, r, l)

It looks like WFSs are more strict, rather than more lenient, about their coda "allowances", than NWFSs.

Which is the mistake?

Should it say

but the Word-Final Syllables (WFSs) are more lenient strict in their coda allowance than the Non-Word-Final Syllables (NWFSs)

?

Or should it instead say

Non-Word-Final Syllables:
(C)(C)V(N, s, r, l)

Word-Final Syllables:
(C)(C)V(t, N, s, x, h, r, l, j)

Where C is any consonant, V is any vowel, and N is any nasal.

?

[thaen]

I don't know what I was thinking. WFS are more strict. They allow five different codes, whereas NWFS are more lenient.

[eldin raigmore]

I don't know what I was thinking. WFS are more strict. They allow five different codes, whereas NWFS are more lenient.

If I were to tell you that I had never made such a mistake; what are the odds that you would believe me?

[thaen]

I don't know what I was thinking. WFS are more strict. They allow five different codes, whereas NWFS are more lenient.

If I were to tell you that I had never made such a mistake; what are the odds that you would believe me?

What do you mean?

[eldin raigmore]

If I were to tell you that I had never made such a mistake; what are the odds that you would believe me?

What do you mean?

I mean it's the type of oversight that's trivially easy to make, whether or not the consequences are trivial.
If you've read all my posts today you've seen me mix up "their there they're".
And spell masculline with a double <ll>.
And if you were reading my stuff yesterday you'd have seen me mix up "egressive" and "ingressive"; I knew what meant what, and I knew what I meant to type, but somehow I typed the opposite of what I meant.

So my question was designed to elicit an answer along the lines of "close to 0%, of course; everybody makes that kind of mistake several times in their life, even you, eldin".

[thaen]

I thought so. just wanted to make sure before I stuck my foot in my mouth, as I have a habit of doing.

[eldin raigmore]

I thought so. just wanted to make sure before I stuck my foot in my mouth, as I have a habit of doing.

I do that often enough that I've formed the habit of selecting my foot-powder based on taste.
(Well, I put my foot in my mouth. I don't put your foot in my mouth, nor do I put my foot in your mouth, nor do I put your foot in your mouth.)

[thaen]

I thought so. just wanted to make sure before I stuck my foot in my mouth, as I have a habit of doing.

I do that often enough that I've formed the habit of selecting my foot-powder based on taste.
(Well, I put my foot in my mouth. I don't put your foot in my mouth, nor do I put my foot in your mouth, nor do I put your foot in your mouth.)

[Prinsessa]

Had to click the link in your signature after your kind interest shown in my own thread, and you did not disappoint me! Really neat language from what you've shown here so far. I see some similarities to my own work, so maybe that's why I caught your attention. c;

You have some formatting errors (BB-code tags visible here and there) and outdated forms in the OP, tho. Might want to fix those!

I'm mainly thinking of the fact that you said that <q> now represents a glottal stop but you still have a section showing its word-initial allophony where it acts like a uvular plosive (with affrication) after all. Is this outdated, or is it a uvular affricate word-initally and a glottal stop elsewhere right now? You have also exemplified words like <qmpal>. Is this a glottal stop after all or a uvular affricate (or just a plain plosive)?

It would be nice in general to have IPA transcriptions of words instead of having to consult your initial presentation of the inventories and try to puzzle pronunciations together oneself (especially since it seems that not everything is up to date ATM).

You've also been using the old values for <a æ> in some of your OP examples. Either way, changing them around was a good idea, because it makes more sense to have <æ> represent the fronter vowel.

Verbal goodness is my cup of tea! I really like how short most morphemes are. Packing lots of meaning into few syllables is really neat. The three-way telicity is cool too and obviative is very handy (Vanga has it too).

It's also nice to see that not all morphemes are concrete consonants or vowels but also effects on other sounds, for verbs and nouns alike.

Double marking is always pretty.

Who are these "pupils" you keep referring to, anyhow? Fictional?

I'd love to see more, but I think you should clean up the outdated information and add some transcriptions here and there first. c:

[thaen]

Had to click the link in your signature after your kind interest shown in my own thread, and you did not disappoint me! Really neat language from what you've shown here so far. I see some similarities to my own work, so maybe that's why I caught your attention. c;

Aww, thanks! And you're right: Vanga caught my attention because it was polysynthetic, and it does bear some semblance to Nillahimma.

You have some formatting errors (BB-code tags visible here and there) and outdated forms in the OP, tho. Might want to fix those!

Ah! Noted. I believe I was doing them by hand for that, which would explain it! I'll change those.

I'm mainly thinking of the fact that you said that <q> now represents a glottal stop but you still have a section showing its word-initial allophony where it acts like a uvular plosive (with affrication) after all. Is this outdated, or is it a uvular affricate word-initally and a glottal stop elsewhere right now? You have also exemplified words like <qmpal>. Is this a glottal stop after all or a uvular affricate (or just a plain plosive)?

There are a lot of inconsistencies because I had it as /q/, with it being /q͡χ/ word-initially initially. Then I decided to drop /q/ and add the glottal stop, and I just kept <q> as the Romanization, just because <'> is used everywhere (I actually prefer <'>, though ). Then I had it as the glottal stop, but being realized as /q͡χ/ word-initially; partly because of laziness, and partly because I thought it'd be interesting.

Recently (since you brought it up), I have contemplated having it a glottal stop, but realized as /h/ word (syllable?) initially. But I haven't decided. So, as of when I wrote it, <qmpal> is [q͡χm̩.bɑl]. But it may very well become [hm̩.bɑl] or [ʔm̩.bɑl].

It would be nice in general to have IPA transcriptions of words instead of having to consult your initial presentation of the inventories and try to puzzle pronunciations together oneself (especially since it seems that not everything is up to date ATM).

Another result of laziness. I'll add them when I revamp the thread.

You've also been using the old values for <a æ> in some of your OP examples. Either way, changing them around was a good idea, because it makes more sense to have <æ> represent the fronter vowel.

I got tired of having to copypasta the ligature every time (/ɑ/ is much more prominent than /a/), so I switched, although I love the aesthetic of the lig! I'll make the necessary changes during the Revamp.

Verbal goodness is my cup of tea! I really like how short most morphemes are. Packing lots of meaning into few syllables is really neat. The three-way telicity is cool too and obviative is very handy (Vanga has it too).

It's also nice to see that not all morphemes are concrete consonants or vowels but also effects on other sounds, for verbs and nouns alike.

Double marking is always pretty.

I LOVE complex verbal goodness! It's so sexy and beautiful! I wanted Nillahimma to be full of it! I dislike having big morphemes for agglutinating or polysynthetic languages: it makes simple constructions painfully, if not comically, large and bulky.
It's been months since I've really looked at it, so could you tell me to what double marking to which you are referring?

Who are these "pupils" you keep referring to, anyhow? Fictional?

Quite fictional! They are just a way to spice up the grammar. Is my referencing them distracting? I'm genuinely curious; if they are, I won't include them in the Revamp.

I'd love to see more, but I think you should clean up the outdated information and add some transcriptions here and there first. c:

I'd love to show more! I will do so when I have the time to make more material and clean up the material I have already. Thank you so much for looking at it!