Øð : a Thaeneous Speedlang (Voice)

[thaen]

Post I: Introduction

I am trying something different, taking a hiatus from Nillahimma. Not too long, I hope.
This is my first true speedlang, and I have a few goals in mind:

Highly fusional. Like, insanely.

Be, perhaps, bi- or triliteral. Maybe not truly. Maybe not at all. Who knows?

Be succinct (therefor the fusion)

Have lots of little superscripts on the vowels that affect consonants in a predictable way (gradation?)

So, without further ado, and no more gilding the lily, I present to you the beginnings of the currently unnamed Thaeneous Speedlang, the first of its kind:

Phonological Inventory

Plosives: /p b t d k ɡ ʔ/ <p b t d k g '>
Nasal: /n/ <n>
Fricatives: /s z ʃ/ <s z ʃ>
Approximants: /r/ <r>

Vowels: /i ɛ ø ə ɔ u/ <ı e ø a o u>

Labialized Vowels: Vowels written with a <ʷ> (either before or after) are labialized. This is often realized on consonants.
Palatalized Vowels: Vowels written with a <ʲ> (either before or after) are palatalized. This is often realized on consonants.
Nasalized vowels: Vowels written with a <ⁿ> (either before or after) are nasalized. This is often reflected on consonants.

Archiphonemes: /ʰ ʷ ʲ ⁿ ˡ ː/

Phonotactics:

(C-[ʔ])(C)V(C)(C)

That is, the first consonant in an onset cluster may not be a glottal stop.
Whee. Very loose for now. May change later.

Disclaimer: for now, roots may be one consonant long, or break cluster rules.

Some allophony:

(Allophony is represented in the orthography)

/i/ > [ɪ] in closed syllables

/ə/ > [ɑ] in unstressed syllables

Some stop to fricative allophony, but not entirely sure what yet.

/ʔ/ > [h] word-initially

/n/ > [m] when adjacent to labials

/n/ > [ŋ] when adjacent to velars or the glottal stop

/r/ > [l] is effected by ˡ and after a long vowel

/k, g/ > [c, ɟ] _ʲV

/t, d/ > [ɕ, ʑ] _ʲV

/p/ > [pʰ] _ʲV

/t, d/ > [θ, ð] V_ʔ (/ʔ/ is dropped)

Some sample roots:

nod "eat"
'ıʃ verb of motion
ktet "see"
rdat "dog"
pezg "surface"
k' "hit"
r "be"
b'ın "speak"
tkur' "make"
bot' "stone"
ʃoʃ "water"

That's all for tonight, folks! Thank you for reading, and in the next post I'll cover basic verb stuff!

Maybe.

Edit: Changing up some stuff. I'm too tired for this. G'night

Edit: Added /ø/ and made the name Øð < ød' "Language" (lame, I know )

[shimobaatar]

Aww, I was hoping the name of the language was really just ø.

That is actually how I first interpreted the title of the tread, but that's not important…

Vowels: /i ɛ ə ɔ u/ <i e a o u>

How Arapahoan of you! Well, at least somewhat… there's a schwa and all.

And I do see a low vowel popping up in the allophony section. Still, I like the vowels and the phonology in general!

---

Looks good so far; can't wait to see more. Is the stuff you've crossed out completely out of the picture for the language, or are you just uncertain at the moment whether or not you'll include these features?

[Prinsessa]

I like the simplicity of the phonemic inventory!

I too am rather curious as to the meaning of that ø in the title.

[thaen]

Ø is simply a null symbol. It will eventually be replaced by the name. But now yall are making me want to add /ø/ <ø> to the language

I want the schwa to fun things. I'm trying to make this Lang not polysynthetic, since that's my favorite, and I want to try something different, but it might end up being just that. I'll try to make the next post this afternoon.

[thaen]

Post II: Basic Verb Morphology

Verbs are the crux of Øð, being inflected and affixed for tense, mood, aspect, pronomial arguments, and (as of now) some incorporable nouns, in that order of precedence -- they are applied to the verb in that order.

Tense

Øð has three tenses: past, present, and future. Present is not marked on the verb. The past tense is marked by lowering the quality of the stressed vowel in the root. The vowels lower in this order: i > ø > e and u > o > a > e. I am not yet sure how to mark the past on a stem with an <e> as the stressed vowel.
The future is achieved like the past, but in the opposite direction; the stressed vowel in the root is raised. e> ø > i and a > o > u. I am not sure how to handle stressed roots with <i> or <u>.

nod "eat"

ønad
ø-n<a>d
REAL-eat/PST
"He ate"

ønud
ø-n<u>d
REAL-eat/FUT
"He will eat"

k' "hit" Roots without vowels take an epenthetic <a>, which is used as the stressed root vowel

øk'e
ø-k'<e>
REAL-hit/PST
"He hit it"

øk'o
ø-k'<o>
REAL-hit/FUT
"He will hit it"

Mood

Øð has a mood system based on a realis vs. irrealis paradigm of sorts. The irrealis is used to show Non-Affirmative Order, and when it appears, it negates the verb. The other irrealis moods are subjunctive, conditional, potential, imperative, dubiative, admirative, and volitive.
Moods are largely marked through infixation, but this is not a rule.

Realis

The realis is formed by prefixing either <ø> or <t> or both, depending either on circumstances or by preference of the speaker, I am not sure yet.

b'ın "speak"

tøb'ın
tø-b'ın
REAL-speak
"he speaks"

ʃoʃøŋøʃn'u
ʃoʃ-ø-'<ⁿ><ø>ʃ=n'u
water-REAL-move/INST/PST=DEM.PROX
"He swam here (lit. "He move here by water")

Irrealis

The irrealis is used to negate a verb. While unconventional, it is paired with other moods to indicate negativity in the irrealis constructions. It is formed by swapping the length of the stressed root vowel.

ktet "see"

kteet
kte<:>t
see/IRR
"He does not see"

ktøøt
kt<ø><:>t[/i]
see/FUT/IRR
"He will not see"

tkur' "make"

tkuur'
tku<:>r'
make/IRR
"He does not make it"

tkoor'
tk<o><:>r'
make/PST/IRR
"He did not make it"

ndool "paint"

ndar
nd<a><-:>r
paint/PST/IRR
"He did not paint"

Subjunctive and Conditional

In Øð, the Subjunctive and Conditional go hand in hand, quite often. I've only had instances where the Subjunctive has occurred with the Conditional, yet the Conditional has been seen to appear without the Subjunctive -- therefor, I will introduce them both at once.
The Subjunctive is formed by infixing -ø- after the stressed stem.
The Conditional is formed by infixing -b- after the stressed stem.
When they co-occur, they are placed in the order that obeys phonotactics, or by the preference of the speaker, with -b- being drawn to the side with the most similar PoA, and -ø- being drawn to other like vowels, except when this would result in *øøøb; in this case, it would be øøbø. When the main verb incorporates another verb root for Subjunctive-Conditional constructions, the Subjunctive is infixed after the second root, and before any pronomial endings.

r "be" and k' "hit"

raøɲ'uk'be
r-ø-ʲ=n'u=k'-b-e
be-SUBJ-3=DEM.PROX=hit-COND-1>3
"If he were here, I would hit him."

In the above example, the 3rd person morpheme is only for disambiguation; in most speech, it is left out, as it has been in all other examples so far, which, in this case, would yield raøn'uk'be.

ktet "see" and nod "eat"

kteøɕnobʑ
kte<ø>t-i-no<b>d-i
see/SUBJ-3>1-eat/COND-3>1
"If it sees me, it will eat me."


Oookay, that is all for now! I'll pick up with the other moods and possibly Aspects hopefully tomorrow! My glossing is probably off, so feel free to correct me! Please leave comments/critiques/questions and I'll respond ASAP!

[Prinsessa]

I like it!

ndool "paint"

ndar
nd<a><-:>r
paint/PST/IRR

Isn't that supposed to be ndaar? Or ndaal?

[thaen]

Thank you!

Since ndool starts off with a long vowel, the or irealis shortens it. But first, the quality is lowered from <o> to <a>. /r/ surfaces as [l] after a long vowel, and is reflected in the orthography, so when the vowel is shortened, the underlying /r/ surfaces as [r].

[Prinsessa]

Ooooh. Fancy.

[shimobaatar]

Not much to say in particular, but I like the direction this is going in.

The morphophonology stuff looks interesting. Hopefully you can tell us more about that sometime later.

[thaen]

I'll dedicate a post, perhaps, to the morphophonology.

Does the morphology so far look realistic? Plausible?

[shimobaatar]

I'll dedicate a post, perhaps, to the morphophonology.

Does the morphology so far look realistic? Plausible?

It looks fine to me.

[Dezinaa]

Looks good so far! It's very concise.

[thaen]

Looks good so far! It's very concise.

Huzzah! That was one of my design goals!

[thaen]

Post III: Basic Verb Morphology, cont'd.

Potential

The potential shows that the speaker believes the action to be likely. It is marked by -:r- after the stressed root vowel. This infix indicates that the vowel before the infix is lengthened; in cases where the vowel is already long, the infix undergoes metathesis with the vowel, and comes before it, also dragging a copy of the root vowel with it, yielding the pattern of ...V:-:r-... > ...V:rV:... where the second "V" is the root vowel and the two "V"s are the same vowel.

rbek "v. love"

rbeelku
rbe<:r>k-u
love/POT-3>4
"He probably loves her" or "She probably loves him" etc. (You can probably tell by now that Øð does not distinguish pronomial gender.)

ndoor "paint"

ndoolool
ndoo<:r>r
paint/POT
"He will probably paint it."

r "be"

reeln'u
r<e><:r>=n'u
be/PST/POT=LOC.PROX
"He probably was not here"

Imperative

The Imperative is used to command someone to do something. There are different levels of the Imperative: the Exhortative, the Common, and the Indirect. The Exhortative Imperative (Ex. Imperative) is used for commands given to oneself; this is similar to the Jussive in some languages. The Common Imperative (Imperative) is used for commands given to the second person. The Indirect Imperative (I. Imperative) is used to express the speaker's command to have a second person act in order for a third person to do or not do something. Yep: shamelessly stolen from Arapaho :S
The Imperatives are formed by reduplicating the onset of the stressed syllable and placing it after the coda of the same syllable. (NOTE: I have it written that way in my notes, but I can't find a single example, so we'll have to see how this goes )

tkur'tkø
tkur'~tk-ø
do~IMP-1
"Do it!" (talking to oneself)

tkur'tk
tkur'~tk
do~IMP
"(You) do it!"

tkur'tkaan
tkur'~tk-aa-n
do~IMP-2-IND
"(You) act in such a way that he does it" (If there needed to be a distinction between 3rd and 4th person, the 2>3 or 2>4 morpheme would have been used, instead of the 2nd person -aa-)

As it can be seen, the process for the Imperative is the same for both the E. Imperative and the Common Imperative, but the I. Imperative requires the use of the suffix -n. This may surface as [m ɲ ŋ] depending on the adjacent phonemes.

An alternate form of the Imperative, the Prohibitive, commands someone to not do something. It is formed by the standalone preclitic bar.

bar tkur'tkø
bar=tkur'~tk-ø
PROH=do~IMP-1
"Don't do it!" (talking to oneself)

bar tkur'tk
bar=tkur'~tk
PROH=do~IMP
"(You) don't do it!"

bar tkur'tkaan
bar=tkur'~tk-aa-n
PROH=do~IMP-2-IND
"(You) don't let him do it" (Note, it isn't "(You) don't act in such a way that he does it"; that would be tkuur'tkaan. The prohibitive does not negate the command, but the action in question.)

Dubiative

The Dubiative indicates that the speaker is doubtful the action will come to pass, and is quite the opposite of the Potential. It is formed by infixing -ⁿp- after the stressed vowel. This effectively nasalizes the vowel.

rãm'u
r-ⁿp=n'u
be-DUB=LOC.PROX
"He might be here." or, even, "I doubt he is here"

nõbʑ
no<ⁿp>d-ı
eat/DUB-3>1
"It might eat me."

Admirative

The Admirative is used to express the speaker's surprise at an action. It is formed by the prefix dóó-. dóó- is special in that it reallocates the stress in the word to itself. Since mood is applied after tense, the tense ablaut is unaffected, and since the Admirative mood is a sub-mood of the Irrealis, the irrealis vowel chroneme is not affected. What is affected, however, is Aspect, most of which are infixed before the stressed onset. In the Admirative mood, the Aspects are pulled to the conjunction of dóó and the root, not all the way to before the <d>. But we shall cover that later.

dóók'ı
dóó-k'-ı
MIR-hit-3>1
"He hit me!"

The focus can be shifted by using the passive voice. I would give examples, but I haven't gotten to passive voice yet. It would sound something like "He hit me!?" (lit. "I was hit by him") or "He won the race!?" (lit. "The race was won by him")

dóó'ııʃn'u
dóó-'ı<:>ʃ=n'u
MIR-verb_of_motion/IRR=LOC.PROX
"He came here!?"

Volitive

The Volitive is used to express the wish or desire of the speaker. It can also be a soft command. It is marked by the circumfix n'(a)- -g.

n'andoolgı
n'a-ndool-g-ı
VOL-paint-VOL-3>1
"I wish that you paint me" (or, possibly, "(please) paint me," etc)

n'arbegu
n'a-rbek-g-u
VOL-love-VOL-3>4
"I want him to love her!" (etc.)


And that about sums it up for Moods! Let me know what you think, ask me any questions, and in the next post, I'll try to get out Aspects!

[Prinsessa]

So many cool types of affixes mixed. You should figure out some ad-hoc diachronics for them. c;

[DesEsseintes]

This is looking better with each post, thaen. I'm going to give it a proper read later on when I have a mo'.

[thaen]

So many cool types of affixes mixed. You should figure out some ad-hoc diachronics for them. c;

I think I will! Once I get this more settled, it will become a Conlang Proper and lose its Speedlang status.

This is looking better with each post, thaen. I'm going to give it a proper read later on when I have a mo'.

Thank you! I won't lie and say that you, Princessa, Micamo, and Pirka were not big influences on this language, so thank you all for that. Anyway, I look forward to your critiques and comments!

[Prinsessa]

And those are ironically probably the two conlangers I've had the most contact with alongside a few others~

[Thrice Xandvii]

Dumb question maybe... But I don't see <ð> in the post on phonemes and orthography... Am I missing something?

Edit: Nevermind. I found it. Apparently, d becomes a voiced fricative when preceding /ʔ/, which then drops out. I guess I didn't realize this caused an orthography change.

[thaen]

Dumb question maybe... But I don't see <ð> in the post on phonemes and orthography... Am I missing something?

Edit: Nevermind. I found it. Apparently, d becomes a voiced fricative when preceding /ʔ/, which then drops out. I guess I didn't realize this caused an orthography change.

I haven't really addressed it yet, so I imagine there is a bit of confusion. The orthography marks allophones with their IPA symbols, most of the time. This is to a) help in pronunciation, and b) I think it's cool and let's me use a lot of cool symbols. That is why there appear to be alveolo-palatal fricatives when they are not listed in the phoneme inventory.