Pelsodian Scratchpad

[Ælfwine]

Pelsodian is the name of a collection of romance dialects that exist around Lake Balaton. The name "Pelsodian" derives from the Roman name of the lake, Lacus Pelsodis, with the derivative suffix -ian. It is a Gallo-Romance language, albeit one with many characteristics of Eastern Romance languages.

Inspired by Jack, I've rebooted my old thread and invite anyone to make comments and suggestions. If anyone wants to see the first (cringeworthy) thread, it is here. Though I am no longer focused on making the language agglutinative or polsynthetic or whatever, I am focused on making the language naturalistic and apart of the dialect continuum that may have existed between Rhaetia and Dacia.

As a scratchpad, NONE OF THESE IDEAS ARE FINAL. These are the major characteristics I've been drawing up for Pelsodian, listed in no particular order:

Degemination: Present in all North Italian varieties, Rhetoromance, Romanian, and essentially every Romance language outside of Southern Italy. This seems like a no-brainer. Although like Romanian it probably wasn't immediate but came later.

Unlike Dalmatian, my Pelsodian *will* palatalize consonants before /e/ and /i/, although the consonants remain conservative (i.e. no t͡ʃ > t͡s change like French). However, I am tempted to reduce d͡ʒ to ʒ due to the uncommonness of that phoneme in the general region. A second round of palatalization occurs somewhat later, during the middle ages. This wave of palatalization palatalizes all sonorants, as well as velars before /a/ [æ])

Vowel Changes: One major characteristic of Pannonian Romance, evidenced by Gonda, is the fronting of A to E in the inscriptions. This feature is not uncommon to Gallo-Romance languages, and is characteristic of a Celtic substrate. It is also likely, in the vein of many Croatian dialects like Kajkavian and Slovene dialects like Prekmurje, as well as Rhaeto-Romance in general, that /u/ will front to /y/. This causes a chain shift of /ɔ/ > /o/ > /u/ > /y/. This leaves a rather empty space in the bottom right corner of the vowel chart, which may be an impetus for further vowel developments...

Prothesis: A regional characteristic, with variations of it in Friulian, Dalmatian, and Romanian, are the prothesis of j- and w- before front and back vowels respectively. This seems to be a characteristic of Slavic languages too. So far my idea is that rounded vowels (o u y) with add a v- and unrounded vowels (æ e i) add a j-.

Epithesis of /t/ between a liquid and /s/: A common characteristic in Rhaeto-romance is epithesis of /t/ between a liquid and /s/. This seems to be an areal feature. Therefore, Pelsodian will have epithesis of /t/ between a liquid and /s/.

kt -> t: this sound change is attested in Friulian and Vegliot (although in Vegliot it is suspected to be Venetian influence given the relative lateness of the change.) I imagine by analogy ks -> s and gn > n. Furthermore, labiovelars might follow the "French" pattern of simplifying to /kw > k/ before /a/, instead of /p/ like Romanian.

Syllabic liquids: I want to create a rule where a vowel + /r/ or /l/ in certain positions become syllabic. I want to know what you guys think? Perhaps in pretonic or unstressed positions? Between two consonants? Maybe it could have a sort of grammatical impact?

Shortened infinitives: this change seems quite common past Venice. It is present in Romanian, Friulian, Istriot, but seems to be absent in Vegliot. Essentially /r/ is dropped from the infinitives, leaving (for example in Romanian) -a, -ea, -e, -i.

Dipthongization and Monophthongization: A monophthong, perhaps /e/ or /ɛ/, diphthongizes to [jɛ], which later lowers to [jæ]. This sound change is shared with the Slavic languages of the area and is also found in certain Friulian dialects (tiere > tiare). Similarly, /ɔ/ or /o/ diphthongizes to [wɔ] and lowers to [wɑ]. Friulian and Dalmatian monophthongize these diphthongs (and others) again in certain environments, and so will I, but I have to decide on a general plan for the vowels that doesn't directly copy either language.

That is all for now. Not much to go on so far, but it's a start. If you guys have any input, I'd love to hear it!

[Zekoslav]

I like all that I see - I'm especially interested in seeing what the results of the second palatalization will be. Fronting of /u/ as an areal feature (although in OTL Slovene and Kajkavian, it is not really that common - but that might be due to the influence of their respective standard languages) is a nice touch.

You've given good thought into what the language might look like based on attested developments, and it fits into the area it's spoken in.

[Jackk]

o no i am become an inspiration

Seriously, this looks great!

Syllabic liquids: I want to create a rule where a vowel + /r/ or /l/ in certain positions become syllabic. I want to know what you guys think? Perhaps in pretonic or unstressed positions? Between two consonants? Maybe it could have a sort of grammatical impact?

My instinct says do this (or sth similar) in pre and post-tonic position - although I am a sucker for final syllabic /r/.

[Ælfwine]

I like all that I see - I'm especially interested in seeing what the results of the second palatalization will be. Fronting of /u/ as an areal feature (although in OTL Slovene and Kajkavian, it is not really that common - but that might be due to the influence of their respective standard languages) is a nice touch.

You've given good thought into what the language might look like based on attested developments, and it fits into the area it's spoken in.

Thanks!

The attested developments are quite small. For the most part I am using a mixture of trends found in inscriptions around the area along with plausible areal features.

o no i am become an inspiration

Seriously, this looks great!

Syllabic liquids: I want to create a rule where a vowel + /r/ or /l/ in certain positions become syllabic. I want to know what you guys think? Perhaps in pretonic or unstressed positions? Between two consonants? Maybe it could have a sort of grammatical impact?

My instinct says do this (or sth similar) in pre and post-tonic position - although I am a sucker for final syllabic /r/.

Thank you!

Apparently the last speaker of Vegliot Dalmatian, Tuone Udaina, pronounced final [r] in Vegliot as syllabic. However, there won't be too many instances of final syllabic [r] in this conlang, due to the aforementioned shorted infinitives as well as lenition. I would like to have it at least be an allophone of a short vowel + /r/.

[zyma]

Pelsodian is the name of a collection of romance dialects that exist around Lake Balaton. The name "Pelsodian" derives from the Roman name of the lake, Lacus Pelsodis, with the derivative suffix -ian. It is a Gallo-Romance language, albeit one with many characteristics of Eastern Romance languages.

Ah, nice to see a new, more up-to-date thread on this.

I am focused on making the language naturalistic and apart of the dialect continuum that may have existed between Rhaetia and Dacia.

Unlike Dalmatian, my Pelsodian *will* palatalize consonants before /e/ and /i/, although the consonants remain conservative (i.e. no t͡ʃ > t͡s change like French). However, I am tempted to reduce d͡ʒ to ʒ due to the uncommonness of that phoneme in the general region. A second round of palatalization occurs somewhat later, during the middle ages. This wave of palatalization palatalizes all sonorants, as well as velars before /a/ [æ])

I would probably go for /d͡ʒ/ > /ʒ/. What are the results of the sonorant palatalizations, if you've thought about those yet?

Vowel Changes: One major characteristic of Pannonian Romance, evidenced by Gonda, is the fronting of A to E in the inscriptions. This feature is not uncommon to Gallo-Romance languages, and is characteristic of a Celtic substrate. It is also likely, in the vein of many Croatian dialects like Kajkavian and Slovene dialects like Prekmurje, as well as Rhaeto-Romance in general, that /u/ will front to /y/. This causes a chain shift of /ɔ/ > /o/ > /u/ > /y/. This leaves a rather empty space in the bottom right corner of the vowel chart, which may be an impetus for further vowel developments...

Gonda?

Syllabic liquids: I want to create a rule where a vowel + /r/ or /l/ in certain positions become syllabic. I want to know what you guys think? Perhaps in pretonic or unstressed positions? Between two consonants? Maybe it could have a sort of grammatical impact?

Personally, I wouldn't, but it's up to you, of course.

[Ælfwine]

Ah, nice to see a new, more up-to-date thread on this.

Thanks Shimo!

I would probably go for /d͡ʒ/ > /ʒ/. What are the results of the sonorant palatalizations, if you've thought about those yet?

I believe /nj lj/ have a tendency to become palatal consonants, however the latter might have a strong tendency to merge with its non palatalized equivalent.

Gonda?

The author of the studies of the inscriptions in the region, I will post a link to his work later.

Personally, I wouldn't, but it's up to you, of course.

Understandable.

---

(Note: this has been copy pasted from the similar thread on Verduria. I'll update both at the same time, as the audiences may be different.)

Hello again, faithful readers!

While I have not had much time to directly work on the language, I have had a lot of time to think about it. So far much of the early Pelsodian language has been worked out, though there are a few things I can still change my mind upon. I invite you, reader, to read my justifications for each distinctive sound change and comment on what you think might be the most obvious decision here.

Vowels

[strike]One of the first decisions I had to make is whether Pelsodian would have a "Western Romance" vowel paradigm of /a ɛ e i ɔ o u/ or an "Eastern Romance" vowel paradigm of /a ɛ e i o u/. It seems plausible at first that Pelsodian might have had an "Eastern Romance" vowel paradigm, given it's further east than any other native Romance language except for Romanian. However, I began to doubt it when I started looking into Slavic languages such as Slovene and Kajkavian Croatian.

Both Slovene and Kajkavian Croatian have the seven vowel system plus schwa comparable to that of western Romance, while Štokavian to the south only has six vowels and schwa, similar to Romanian. I have reason to suspect that this isogloss goes back all the way to ancient times, when the Celts inhabited north of the Drave while Illyrian tribes populated the south. Because of this, I strongly believe that, had a romance language survived in Pannonia, it too would have adopted a "western" romance vowel system of /a ɛ e i ɔ o u/.

According to Atilla Gonda on his paper of , the vowel system of Aquileia in the later part of Roman times was evolving a "mixed" system where the unstressed velar vowels fell in line with the Balkan system while the stressed velar vowels well in line with the "western" system. While Friulian does not seem to preserve this system, Dalmatian in fact does have something identical to this, and so I believe Pelsodian would also adopt this system, if it had not adopted a "pure" Balkan vowel system. The only upset to this theory is that while we have evidence of this unique vowel system in Aquileia, we have no evidence for O ~ U mixture in Pannonian inscriptions, in fact we only have mergers of the U > O variety.[/strike]

A > E

One of the characteristics unique to Pannonian Romance is the fronting of /a/ to what I assume to be /æ/, as an unusually high amount of inscriptions show the presence of the E grapheme in place of A. As you may know, French also fronts /a/ to /e/, and this seems to be a common feature of Gallo-Romance varieties. I have a theory that this change initially began in Pannonia, and spread west after the collapse of the province. This would make sense, as Norman French does not share this change, but many southern French dialects had. I have likewise included this A > E change too in Pelsodian, but only to /æ/ for now...

Consonants

One of the questions I have posited in the OP is how Pelsodian might treat the consonant groups /ks kt gn/. In Romanian we see the velar consonant before an alveolar consonant get conflated with a bilabial consonant, hence why we have noapte < Latin noctem. Friulian and Dalmatian on the other hand simply simplify the cluster /kt/ to /t/.

While it is tempting to share Romanian's unique "eastern" consonant shift, I believe the weight of the evidence from both Gonda's findings in the consonant system of the Danube provinces and Pelsodian's neighbors to the west suggests that Pelsodian would have also simplified the cluster /kt/ to /t/. Additionally, I surmise that similar clusters would also reduce: /ks/ to /s/, /ps/ to /s/, /pt/ to /t/, and /gn/ to /n/.

K(e,i)

Initially in Proto-Romance the velar consonants became the postalveolar consonants /t͡ʃ d͡ʒ/. In Western Romance we see the reflexes of a velar consonant before a front vowel merging with the affricate [ts]. In Eastern Romance, including Italian, the difference between [ts] and [tʃ] is maintained.

Posner in The Romance Languages, p. 113 makes the suggestion that the distinction between [ts] and [tʃ] was largely a distinction between whether [tʃ] was apical or laminal, conservative languages would favor a laminal articulation, being naturally more resistant to palatalization. Pelsodian, being isolated early on, would therefore fall into this "conservative camp." While I have made the point on my blog that palatalization is likely to have occurred in Pannonian Romance, I have made no comment on the exact quality of the palatal consonants. Given that Romanian to the east has followed Italian in preserving /tʃ/ instead of shifting it forward to a pure alveolar affricate, I think it is likely that Pelsodian would follow and keep these two phoneme distinct, especially as nearby Slavic languages also do.

G before a front vowel may initially had also developed a laminal articulation, becoming the post-alveolar affricate /dʒ/. Furthermore, given the rarity of the /dʒ/ phoneme in southern Central Europe, I believe it might later fall together with /j/ medially as it did in Spanish, while initially it might become a simple fricative.

The Labiovelars

Initially /kʷ/ and /gʷ/ in Latin, they came to become the clusters /kw/ and /gw/ in Proto Romance. In Romanian and Sardinian, they became bilabial consonants where they did not become velar ones. The conflation between bilabials and velar consonants again seems to be a uniquely Romanian trait, one not shared by any other language save Sardinian. I see no reason to not follow the Empire's trend here. Labiovelars would simplify to pure velar consonants, even before /a/, as opposed to becoming bilabials.

[Ælfwine]

Since everyone is working on romance conlangs these days, I might as well continue this.

Qwed gave me an excellent idea for my Pannonian Romance conlang in the discord a few weeks back when he highlighted an interested feature of the Sutsilvan dialect of Rhaeto-Romance.

The diphthongization system I employ is similar to the diphthongization in Sutsilvan, where the following occurs:

ɛ > ɛa (in open syllables) caelum > [ˈcɛal]
ɛ > ie (in closed syllables) i.e. terra > [ˈtsie.rə]
ɔ > ɔa (in open syllables) bonus > [ˈbɔan]
ɔ > uo (in closed syllables) noctem > [ˈnuo.te]

Additionally, former /a/ [æ] becomes /ɛ/ previous to this sound change, but only next to palatal consonants. Hence the form [ˈcɛa.sə] < casam

Additionally, /u/ becomes [v] and /i/ becomes [j] initially, this affects the diphthongs /uo/ and /ie/, so vote < uocte < octem (or something like that, I haven't decided on the exact chronology.)

The rest of vowels, /a e i o u/ are subject to lengthening in open syllables, common to most Romance languages at some point. In my orthography they are notated by a caron. The development of the rest of the vowels will be reserved for a future post, though I suppose it will be identical to vowel developments in Middle to Late Common Slavonic, whatever that might be.

[dva_arla]

Hope this thread is still going, for I do have a question:

I have a theory that this change initially began in Pannonia, and spread west after the collapse of the province. This would make sense, as Norman French does not share this change, but many southern French dialects had. I have likewise included this A > E change too in Pelsodian, but only to /æ/ for now...

Which "southern French" dialects are you referring to? I'm not aware of the A fronting outside of Langue d'oïl lects (viz. Occitan, Lingurian, Lombard, etc.)

Also, could you share us a link to the Gonda articles you cited? Thanks.

[Ælfwine]

Hope this thread is still going, for I do have a question:

I have a theory that this change initially began in Pannonia, and spread west after the collapse of the province. This would make sense, as Norman French does not share this change, but many southern French dialects had. I have likewise included this A > E change too in Pelsodian, but only to /æ/ for now...

Which "southern French" dialects are you referring to? I'm not aware of the A fronting outside of Langue d'oïl lects (viz. Occitan, Lingurian, Lombard, etc.)

Also, could you share us a link to the Gonda articles you cited? Thanks.

In many of those dialects A is still rather front, usually [a] or [æ]. It doesn't have to be /ɛ/ as in French. One of my sources I provided below explains it better than I can.

THE AQUINCUM–AQUILEIA–SALONA TRIANGLE* LATIN LANGUAGE IN THE ALPS–DANUBE–ADRIA REGION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Changes in the Consonant System of Pannonia Inferior,Dalmatia and Venetia et Histria

So what do I expect? A Gallo-Romance language, possibly quite similar to Friuilian. Given that we know the reflexes of Proto-Slavic vowels seem to correspond to Western Romance in Slovenia and northern Croatia, it can be extrapolated from here that Pannonian Romance was also a "Western Romance" language. Pannonia's western orientation (due to Catholicism) and conquest by the Franks in the 9th century further solidify this.

Another western romance language hadn't interested me as much as something in between that and eastern romance, however Dewrad's Dravian already fills that roll, and there is nothing different from him that I'd do in the same scenario, which is how well made that language is. I am not sufficiently inspired enough to work on Pelsodian right now and I am not sure how different I could make it from existing romlangs (real life and fictional).

[Zythros Jubi]

https://web.archive.org/web/20080429195 ... 1&pageNo=1

THE AQUINCUM–AQUILEIA–SALONA TRIANGLE* LATIN LANGUAGE IN THE ALPS–DANUBE–ADRIA REGION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Are you serious?

[Ælfwine]

Are you serious?

Fixed