My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

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My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

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My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1


I had an idea for a conlang, where the features that are prosodic in natlangs are segmental, and the features that are segmental in natlangs are prosodic.

Phonology
The idea is a word has the a structure, like the following. "(" and ")" are foot boundaries, "." are syllable boundaries. C is any consonant and V is any vowel.

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(CV)
(CV. CV)
 CV.(CV. CV)
(CV. CV)(CV. CV)
 CV.(CV. CV)(CV. CV)
(CV. CV)(CV. CV)(CV. CV)
 CV.(CV. CV)(CV. CV)(CV. CV)
(CV. CV)(CV. CV)(CV. CV)(CV. CV)
Assume that, the penultimate syllable is stressed. In V:1g3n1n:1 this corresponds to vowel quality. A stressed vowel is always /a/. This yields the following.

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(Ca)
(Ca. CV)
 CV.(Ca. CV)
(CV. CV)(Ca. CV)
 CV.(CV. CV)(Ca. CV)
(CV. CV)(CV. CV)(Ca. CV)
 CV.(CV. CV)(CV. CV)(Ca. CV)
(CV. CV)(CV. CV)(CV. CV)(Ca. CV)

In addition, every foot initial vowel is secondary stressed. This corresponds to /u/ in V:1g3n1n:1. Let's see what this gives us:

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(Ca)
(Ca. CV)
 CV.(Ca. CV)
(Cu. CV)(Ca. CV)
 CV.(Cu. CV)(Ca. CV)
(Cu. CV)(Cu. CV)(Ca. CV)
 CV.(Cu. CV)(Cu. CV)(Ca. CV)
(Cu. CV)(Cu. CV)(Cu. CV)(Ca. CV)
What about foot final vowels? Let's say they are always /i/.

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(Ca)
(Ca. Ci)
 CV.(Ca. Ci)
(Cu. Ci)(Ca. Ci)
 CV.(Cu. Ci)(Ca. Ci)
(Cu. Ci)(Cu. Ci)(Ca. Ci)
 CV.(Cu. Ci)(Cu. Ci)(Ca. Ci)
(Cu. Ci)(Cu. Ci)(Cu. Ci)(Ca. Ci)
What about a vowel that is without a foot? If there is not enough space for a binary foot, we will give this the vowel quality /e/.

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(Ca)
(Ca. Ci)
 Ce.(Ca. Ci)
(Cu. Ci)(Ca. Ci)
 Ce.(Cu. Ci)(Ca. Ci)
(Cu. Ci)(Cu. Ci)(Ca. Ci)
 Ce.(Cu. Ci)(Cu. Ci)(Ca. Ci)
(Cu. Ci)(Cu. Ci)(Cu. Ci)(Ca. Ci)
What about the consonants? Well here are all possible consonant positions and their archiphonemes. The archiphonemes encode manner of articulation and place of articulation. They distinguishe fricatives vs. plosives vs. sonorants and labial vs. coronal vs. dorsal.

k (voiceless dorsal plosive)
in monosyllabics (=only foot, only onset), before /a/

t (voiceless coronal plosive)
stressed onset in polysyllabic words (=final foot, foot-initial onset), before /a/

b (voiced labial plosive)
word-initial onset in odd-numbered polysyllabic words (=unfooted, no foot) , before /e/

d (voiced coronal plosive)
final onset in polysyllabic words (=final foot, foot-medial onset), before /i/

s (coronal fricative)
word-initial onset in even-numbered polysyllabic words (=word-initial foot, foot-initial onset), before /u/

l (coronal sonorant)
second onset in even-numbered polysyllabic words (=word-initial foot, foot-medial onset), before /i/

j (dorsal sonorant)
word-medial foot, foot-initial onset, before /u/

w (labial sonorant)
word-medial foot, foot-medial onset, before /i/

Our examples words have changed now.

Code: Select all

(ka)
(ta. si)
 de.(ta. si)
(bu. li)(ta. si)
 de.(ju. wi)(ta. si)
(bu. li)(ju. wi)(ta. si)
 de.(ju. wi)(ju. wi)(ta. si)
(bu. li)(ju. wi)(ju. wi)(ta. si)
But these are only the prosodically predictably features. All features that are lexical in this language, are prosodic in some other language. The following features are lexically contrastive in this language:

voicing: nasal, aspirated/voiceless/breathy, modal voice, creaky voiced
minor place of articulation: retracted/RTR, plain, labialization/rounded
length: short, normal, half-long, long
tone: low, mid, high

These will be summarized into the following phonemes, that I will call auxiliary phonemes. Combined with the archiphonemes they form the segment inventory of the language. For convenience sake, tone and length are separated, since phonetically they are pretty independent of the other dimensions. Note however that tones assigned to consonants end up on the vowel of the same syllable. Additionally, short stops are often realized as taps or flaps.

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                              labialization plain retracted
nasal:                        m             n     g
aspirated/voiceless/breathy:  f             x     h
modal voice:                  v             z     r
glottalized:                  p             c     q

Code: Select all

           low mid high
normal:     ˩   ˧    ˥
long:      ː˩  ː˧   ː˥
Here are all possible combinations of auxiallary phonemes and archiphonemes (again, except for tone and length).

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  m   n   g   f   x   h   v   z   r   p   c   q
k ŋkʷ ɲc  ɴq  kʷʰ cʰ  qʰ  kʷ  c   q   kʷʼ cʼ  ʔ
t mp  nt  ɳʈ  pʰ  tʰ  ʈʰ  p   t   ʈ   pʼ  tʼ  ʈʼ
s mpf nts ɳʈʂ f   s   h   v   z   ɣ   pfʼ tsʼ ʈʂʼ 
d ndʷ nd  ŋg  dʷʱ dʱ  gʱ  dʷ  d   g   ɗʷ  ɗ   ɠ   
b mbʷ mb  mb̪  bʷʱ bʱ  b̪ʱ  bʷ  b   b̪   ɓʷ  ɓ   ɓ̪   
l nʷ  n   ɳ   ɬʷ  ɬ   ɬ˞  lʷ  l   ɭ   tɬʷ tɬ  ʈɬ˞
j ŋʷ  ɲ   ɴ   xʷ  ç   χ   ɥ   j   ʁ   ɥ̰   j̰   ʁ̰
w mʷ  m   m̪   ɸ   ʍ   ʋ̥   β   w   ʋ   β̰   w̰   ʋ̰
a õ   ɛ̃   ɑ̃   o̥   ɛ̥   ɑ̥   o   ɛ   ɑ   o̰   ɛ̰   ɑ̰
e ø̃   ẽ   ə̃   ø̥   e̥   ə̥   ø   e   ə   ø̰   ḛ   ə̰
i ỹ   ĩ   ɨ̃   ẙ   i̥   ɨ̥   y   i   ɨ   y̰   ḭ   ɨ̰
u ũ   ʉ̃   ɯ̃   u̻   ʉ̥   ɯ̥   u   ʉ   ɯ   ṵ   ʉ̰   ɯ̰   
This table can also be read as an allophone table. The columns include allophones of one "phoneme" and the rows contain allophones that occur in the same context. It also means that the whole segment inventory is the following, including all allophones (except for length and tone).

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                                Labial Labiodental Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Nasals                          mʷ m   m̪           nʷ n     ɳ         ɲ       ŋʷ    ɴ      
Prenasalized Voiced Plosives    mbʷ mb mb̪          ndʷ nd                     ŋg           
Voiced Plosives                 bʷ b   b̪           dʷ d                       g              
Breathy Plosives                bʷʱ bʱ b̪ʱ          dʷʱ dʱ                     gʱ             
Implosives                      ɓʷ ɓ   ɓ̪           ɗʷ ɗ                       ɠ                   
Prenasalized Voiceless Plosives mp                 nt       ɳʈ        ɲc      ŋkʷ   ɴq      
Voiceless Plosives              p                  t        ʈ         c       kʷ    q       
Aspirated Plosives              pʰ                 tʰ       ʈʰ        cʰ      kʷʰ   qʰ      
Ejectives                       pʼ                 tʼ       ʈʼ        cʼ      kʷʼ          ʔ
Prenasalized Central Affricates mpf                nts      ɳʈʂ                            
Ejective Central Affricates     pfʼ                tsʼ      ʈʂʼ                            
Ejective Lateral Affricates                        tɬʷʼ tɬʼ ʈɬ˞ʼ                            
Voiceless Fricatives            ɸ      f           s                  ç       ʍ xʷ  χ      h
Voiced Fricatives               β      v           z                          ɣ     
Voiceless Lateral Continuants                      ɬʷ ɬ     ɬ˞                            
Voiced Laterals Continuants                        lʷ l     ɭ                                 
Voiceless Central Approximants        ʋ̥                                               
Voiced Central Approximants           ʋ                               ɥ j     w     ʁ
Creaky Voiced Approximants      β̰     ʋ̰                               ɥ̰ j̰     w̰     ʁ̰

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Modal Voiced Oral Vowels
                Front Unrounded Front Rounded Central Unrounded Central Rounded Back Unrounded Back Rounded
High vowels     i               y             ɨ                 ʉ               ɯ              u
Mid high vowels e               ø             ə                                                o
Low mid vowel   ɛ
Low vowel                                                                       ɑ

Modal Voiced Nasal Vowels
                Front Unrounded Front Rounded Central Unrounded Central Rounded Back Unrounded Back Rounded
High vowels     ĩ               ỹ             ɨ̃                 ʉ̃               ɯ̃              ũ
Mid high vowels ẽ               ø̃             ə̃                                                õ
Low mid vowel   ɛ̃                                                                              
Low vowel                                                                       ɑ̃

Voiceless Oral Vowels
                Front Unrounded Front Rounded Central Unrounded Central Rounded Back Unrounded Back Rounded
High vowels     i̥               ẙ             ɨ̥                 ʉ̥               ɯ̥              u̥
Mid high vowels e̥               ø̥             ə̥                                                o̥
Low mid vowel   ɛ̥                                                                              
Low vowel                                                                                      ɑ̥

Creaky voiced Oral Vowels
                Front Unrounded Front Rounded Central Unrounded Central Rounded Back Unrounded Back Rounded
High vowels     ḭ               y̰             ɨ̰                 ʉ̰               ɯ̰              ṵ
Mid high vowels ḛ               ø̰             ə̰                                                o̰
Low mid vowel   ɛ̰
Low vowel                                                                                      ɑ̰
So here are a few examples. I give the auxiallary phonemes in the first row, the archiphonemes in the second and the actual pronunciation in the third.

/q˩zː˥/
+/ka/
[ʔɛː˩˥]

/vː˩g˥.n˩nː˩/
+/ta. si/
[pːɑ̃˩˥.ntsĩː˩]

/pː˥gː˧.gː˧v˧.r˧vː˧/
+/de.ta. si/
[ɗʷːə̃ː˥.ɳʈːo˧.ɣyː˧]
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by eldin raigmore »

Comment #1: Fascinating!

Comment #2:
I thought:
Coronal refers to where the hard or immobile articulator is; the roof of the mouth or hard palate and nearby.
I was wrong about “coronal”. It means using the flexible front part of the tongue.
Dorsal refers to the soft or mobile articulator; the back of the tongue.
So a sound can be both dorsal and coronal, if the dorsum of the tongue approaches or touches the crown of the upper jaw.
a consonant can be coronal or dorsal or laryngeal, apparently. It can’t be any two of those at the same time

Is that wrong? (yes.)

If it’s right, how do you oppose dorsal to coronal? Are all the coronal sounds apical or something? Or are all the dorsal sounds velar or uvular or something? Or both? (Or something?) Never mind!

Comment #3:
About the foot boundaries;
I’m tempted to refer to “(“ as “the left sock” and “)” as “the right sock”.

Comment #4:
Short stops? Can you do Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First?” baseball-team multipun in this language?

Comment #5:
Is this table
Creyeditor wrote: 14 Jun 2020 14:42

Code: Select all

                              labialization plain retracted
nasal:                        m             n     g
aspirated/voiceless/breathy:  f             x     h
modal voice:                  v             z     r
glottalized:                  p             c     q
IPA or romanization? I don’t understand all of the system of it.


Comment #6:
Whew! [O.O]
Comment #6.1:
Thanks!

Question A: Lexicon Size
How many morphemes are in the lexicon of this language, (whose name I haven’t yet memorized)?
Edit: V:1g3n1n:1

Question B: Index of Synthesis
Would you say the average number of morphemes per word in a typical conversation is closer to
1 or 1.5 or 2 or 2.5 or 3 or 3.5 or 4 or more than 4.5?

Question C: Index of Fusion
What would you estimate the average number of meanings per morpheme in a typical conversation is?
Last edited by eldin raigmore on 16 Jun 2020 23:22, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by Creyeditor »

Thank you for your comments.
eldin raigmore wrote: 14 Jun 2020 21:48 Comment #5:
Is this table
Creyeditor wrote: 14 Jun 2020 14:42

Code: Select all

                              labialization plain retracted
nasal:                        m             n     g
aspirated/voiceless/breathy:  f             x     h
modal voice:                  v             z     r
glottalized:                  p             c     q
IPA or romanization? I don’t understand all of the system of it.
It is an abstract phonemic notation. I could have also used CAPITALS to better represent the abstract "archiphonemic"/"morphophonemic" character of the notation. But since there is no intermediate level between abstract representation and phonetic representation, I thought I could just use plain lower case letters. I could have also used combinations of IPA diacritics. This would then look something like this (with a dummy segment X).

Code: Select all

                              labialization plain retracted
nasal:                        X̃ʷ            X̃     X̠̃
aspirated/voiceless/breathy:  Xʷʰ           Xʰ    X̠ʰ
modal voice:                  Xʷ            X     X̠
glottalized:                  Xʷˀ           Xˀ    X̠ˀ

This is technically more correct, but I thought it looks a bit clumsy. I will have the next post be on possible romanizations.

eldin raigmore wrote: 14 Jun 2020 21:48 Question A: Lexicon Size
How many morphemes are in the lexicon of this language, (whose name I haven’t yet memorized)?
Edit: V:1g3n1n:1
I think we can actually calculate this very easily. Syllables consist of two auxiallary phonemes that encode lexical meaning. Each slot in a syllable can be one of |{m n g f x h v z r p c q}|=12, so there are 12*12=144 possible syllables. If we allow for four-syllabic roots, this means we have more than 144^4=429 981 696 possible roots. (More than, because you have to add all three syllable, two syllable and one syllable roots.) That looks "enough" to me.
eldin raigmore wrote: 14 Jun 2020 21:48 Question B: Index of Synthesis
Would you say the average number of morphemes per word in a typical conversation is closer to
1 or 1.5 or 2 or 2.5 or 3 or 3.5 or 4 or more than 4.5?

Question C: Index of Fusion
What would you estimate the average number of meanings per morpheme in a typical conversation is?
Right now I would say average, but let's talk about this after we talked about morphology.
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by eldin raigmore »

I think we can actually calculate this very easily. Syllables consist of two auxiallary phonemes that encode lexical meaning. Each slot in a syllable can be one of |{m n g f x h v z r p c q}|=12, so there are 12*12=144 possible syllables. If we allow for four-syllabic roots, this means we have more than 144^4=429 981 696 possible roots. (More than, because you have to add all three syllable, two syllable and one syllable roots.) That looks "enough" to me.
Thank you! I wouldn’t have calculated it that way.
But, if we do:
Actually 12^5 = 144^2.5 = 248,832 might be enough; at least it’s almost enough.
12^6 = 144^3 = 2, 985,984 is definitely more than enough.
I don’t know how you could get two-and-a-half-syllable morphemes?
But there are nearly 3 million three-syllable sequences (calculated this way). And your description so far shows that it is always possible to detect the word-boundaries.

—————

I would have calculated it based on feet.
A two-and-a-half-foot word would have the shape De.(Ju.Wi).(Ta.Si)
If each of the uppercase archi-consonants can be replaced by any of 12 values, independently of each other,
there’d be 12^5 = 144^2.5 = 248,832 possible two-and-a-half-foot words.
A three-foot word has the shape (Bu.Li).(Ju.Wi).(Ta.Si)
If each of those uppercase archi-consonants can be replaced by any of 12 values independently of each other,
there could be
12^6 = 144^3 = 2, 985,984 three-foot words.

———

Lots of people think words a foot-and-a-half long are already sesquipedalian.
But I think you need the possibility of two-and-half-foot root-morphemes; and possibly of three-foot root-morphemes as well.
I don’t think you’ll ever need a morpheme, not even a root morpheme, that’s three-and-a-half or four feet long.

But perhaps morphology will allow/require words containing two or more morphemes.
In which case you might want a reliable way of detecting morpheme-boundaries that aren’t word-boundaries, as well as of detecting word-boundaries.

.....

Or are you going with non-concatenative morphology?
Last edited by eldin raigmore on 16 Jun 2020 23:28, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by Creyeditor »

eldin raigmore wrote: 15 Jun 2020 20:31 But perhaps morphology will allow/require words containing two or more morphemes.
In which case you might want a reliable way of detecting morpheme-boundaries that aren’t word-boundaries, as well as of detecting word-boundaries.

.....

Or are you going with non-concatenative morphology?
I will use concatenative morphology. I will also prioritize detecting word boundaries over detecting morpheme boundaries.
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by eldin raigmore »

I will continue to follow this thread!
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by Creyeditor »

Btw, I finally got the socks joke. I don't usually use two socks on a foot though [:D]
Also, thanks for helping me with the calculations.
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by Creyeditor »

Orthography
I can think of three ways to romanize V:1g3n1n:1. A scientific romanization, a popular romanization and a phonetic romanization. Each of these serve some purpose. The scientific romanization is an efficient way to type the lexically contrastive features, the popular romainzation roughly imitates the sound of the language (and makes it look like a language) and the phonetic makes the phonetic IPA more typable and readable.

Scientific Romanization
The scientific notation just encodes the lexically contrastive features and makes them typable. It uses the following symbols: <c f g h m n p q r x v z 1 2 3 :>. Only the auxillary phonemes are written: <c f g h m n p q r x v z>. The prosodically determined archiphonemes and the features they contribute are ignored. Tones and length are made more typable by substituting numbers and punctation. Tones become <1 2 3> and length becomes <:>. I will use this romanization when I need to make a auxillary phonemes typable.
Full Alphabet
<c f g h m n p q r x v z 1 2 3 :>
Tone
<1 2 3>
Length
<:>

Popular Romanization
The popular romanization makes V:1g3n1n:1 (or Pansi) look much nicer and language-like. A huge amount of lexically contrastive features are ignored and some (or even many) prosodically predictable features are written. In general, the popular romanization does not indicate tone or length. As for vowels, it does not indicate voicing and nasality. It also does not indicate the difference between mid high and mid low vowels. Furthermore, it does not indicate the difference between central and front vowels.
As far as consonants are concerned, it does not indicate glottalization, aspiration, breathiness and labialization on consonants. It also does not distinguish between bilabial and labiodental consonants. Furthermore, it does not distinguish between alveolar and retroflex consonants. Finally, it does not distinguish between palatal, velar and uvular consonants. This yields the following alphabet. Note that affricates and prenasalized consonants show up, but not in combination. I am planning on using this romanization to give Pansi a more friendly face.

Full Alphabet
<a b ch d e f g h i ï j k l lh m mb mf mp n nd ng ngg ngk ns nt o ö p pf s t tl ts u ü v w z>
Consonants

Code: Select all

/m n~ɳ ɲ~ŋʷ~ɴ/                   <m n ng>
/mb ndʷ nd ŋg/                   <mb nd ngg>           
/b d g/                          <b d g>
/mp nt~ɳʈ ɲc~ŋkʷ~ɴq/             <mp nt ngk>
/p t~ʈ c~kʷ~q ʔ/                 <p t k '>        
/mpf nts~ɳʈʂ/                    <mf ns>                            
/pfʼ tsʼ~ʈʂʼ/                    <pf ts>
/tɬ/                             <tl>
/ɸ~f~ʋ̥ s ç~ʍ~xʷ~χ h/             <f s ch h>
/β~v~ʋ~β̰ z~ʋ̰ ɥ~j~ɥ̰~j̰ ɣ~w~ʁ~w̰~ʁ̰/  <v z j w>     
/ɬʷ~ɬ~ɬ˞ /                       <lh>
/lʷ~l~ɭ/                         <l>

Vowels

Code: Select all

/i~ɨ y~ʉ ɯ u/ <i ü ï u>
/e~ɛ~ə ø o/   <e ö o> 
/ɑ/           <a>

Phonetic Romanization
This faithfully encodes almost all phonetic detail. Labiodentals are derived from labials. Retroflex consonants are derived from alveolars. Palatals and uvulars are derived from velars. A syllable boundary is marked with a hyphen `-' if neccesary. Length is indicated by doubling a primary symbol. I don't really like this, it' just IPA with extra steps.

Primary symbols

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/m n/     <m n>
/b d g/   <b d g>  
/p t k ʔ/ <p t k '>
/ɸ s x h/ <f s x h>
/l/       <l>
/β z ɣ/   <v z j>
/ʋ  w/    <w r>
/i y ɨ ʉ ɯ u/ <i ụ į ų ị u>
/e ø ə o/     <e ọ ẹ o>
/ɛ/           <ạ>
/ɑ/           <a>
Phonations
/Cʰ~X̥ Cʼ~C̉~X̰ Ṽ ⁿC/ <Xh X' Vm nC>

Place of Articulation
/Cʷ C̪ C˞ Cʲ Cˠ C̠/<Cw Cv Cr Cy Cg Cq>

Tones and Length

Code: Select all

/i˩ i˧ i˥ i˥˩ i˩˥/     <ì i í î ǐ>
/iː˩ iː˧ iː˥ iː˥˩ iː˩˥/ <ìì ii íí íì ìí>
Here are our three examples in all three romanizations.

/q˩zː˥/
+/ka/
[ʔɛː˩˥]
S: <q1z:3>
Po:<'e>
Ph<'ạ̀ạ́>

/vː˩g˥.n˩nː˩/
+/ta. si/
[pːɑ̃˩˥.ntsĩː˩]
S:<vː1g3n1n:1˩>
Po:<pansi>
Ph:<ppǎmnsììm>

/pː˥gː˧.gː˧v˧.r˧vː˧/
+/de.ta. si/
[ɗʷːə̃ː˥.ɳʈːo˧.ɣyː˧]
S:<p:3g:2g:2v2r2v:2>
Po:<dentowü>
Ph:<ddw'ẹ́mnttrojụụ>
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by DV82LECM »

I thought myself smart UNTIL you came along. I must give you creyedit. I will be studying this for a while.

Edit: I kinda get it now. The weird "algebra equation" thing (auxiliary phonemes) is like a qualitative layer over the moraic structure of the word. Also, keep the popular orthography, because u-Pansi-ing the alternatives...I think it fits, aesthetically. Lol.
Last edited by DV82LECM on 23 Jun 2020 18:41, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by Znex »

I personally love the phonetic romanisation, but you do you.
Spoiler:
(I dunno, it just looks really exotic and isn't impenetrable to me like the IPA or the scientific romanisation without being familiar with how the allophony works, and it doesn't look so simplified and plain as the popular romanisation.)
But yeah, all of this is incredible looking and goes way over my head. Can't wait to see what you do next with it! [:D]
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by eldin raigmore »

We don’t have a “like” button.
I like this!
That’s all I have to say, at least for the moment.
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by Creyeditor »

DV82LECM wrote: 22 Jun 2020 02:57 I thought myself smart UNTIL you came along. I must give you creyedit. I will be studying this for a while.

Edit: I kinda get it now. The weird "algebra equation" thing (auxiliary phonemes) is like a qualitative layer over the moraic structure of the word. Also, keep the popular orthography, because u-Pansi-ing the alternatives...I think it fits, aesthetically. Lol.
Yes, you could say that there is a prosodic layer that determines features like major place of articulation and continuancy/sonorancy which is superimposed on a lexical layer that encodes phonation/nasality and minor/secondary place of articulation. This is actually a nice metaphor, I really like it.

Znex wrote: 22 Jun 2020 18:41 I personally love the phonetic romanisation, but you do you.
Spoiler:
(I dunno, it just looks really exotic and isn't impenetrable to me like the IPA or the scientific romanisation without being familiar with how the allophony works, and it doesn't look so simplified and plain as the popular romanisation.)
I don't think it takes much more effort, so I might as well include it.
eldin raigmore wrote: 22 Jun 2020 19:47 We don’t have a “like” button.
I like this!
That’s all I have to say, at least for the moment.
And thanks for all the positive feedback. This really motivates me for my next post on free variation and positional allophony.
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by Creyeditor »

FUN FACT: Pansi does not have any phonetic trill consonants at all.

Morphophonology
Free Variation Allophony
Short simple non-continuants, i.e. nasals, laterals, and plosives are optionally realized as flaps/taps, if they occur between vowels. Word boundaries and phrase boundaries are ignored for this process. The non-continuants keep their nasality, laterality and voicing.

[mʷ m m̪ nʷ n ɳ ɲ ŋʷ ɴ bʷ b b̪ dʷ d g p t ʈ c kʷ q] ~ [ⱱ̟̃ʷ ⱱ̟̃ ⱱ̃ ɾ̃ʷ ɾ̃ ɽ̃ ɲ̆ ŋ̆ʷ ɴ̆ ⱱ̟ʷ ⱱ̟ ⱱ ɾʷ ɾ ğ ⱱ̟̊ ɾ̊ ɽ̊ c̆ k̆ʷ q̆]

In the example in (1), the voiceless labial plosive [p] freely varies with a voiceless bilabial tap, because it occurs between two vowels.

(1)
/v˥g˩.v˥g˩.q˥ːz˩/
+/de.ta.si/
[dʷə̃˥˩.pɑ̃˥˩.ʈʂːʼi˥˩]~[dʷə̃˥˩.ⱱ̟̊ɑ̃˥˩.ʈʂːʼi˥˩]
<v3g1.v3g1.q3:z1>
<depatsi>
<dwậmpâmssr'î>

Contour tones consisting of a mid tone followed by a high or low tone are optionally realized as a rising or falling tone, respectively. However, they can also be simplified to simple high or low tones respecively.
Similarly, contour tones consisting of a mid tone preceded by a high or low tone are optionally realized as a falling or rising tone, respectively. However, they can also be simplified to simple high or low tones respecively.

[˧˥ ˧˩ ˥˧ ˩˧] ~ [˩˥ ˥˩ ˥˩ ˩˥] ~ [˥ ˩ ˥ ˩]

In (2), a high-to-mid falling tone freely varies with a high tone or a high-to-low falling tone.

(2)
/pː˥gː˧.gː˧v˧.r˧vː˧/
+/de.ta.si/
[ɗʷːə̃ː˥.ɳʈːo˧.ɣyː˧]~[ɗʷːə̃ː˥˧.ɳʈːo˧.ɣyː˧]~[ɗʷːə̃ː˥˩.ɳʈːo˧.ɣyː˧]
<dentowü>
`brass instrument'

Positional Allophony:

Sufixes cause crazy allophony, because they alter the position of the stem syllables with regard to the right edge. This is because major phonological features are determined by the metrical position of a given segment. All of these allophones can be read of the allophone table from the first post. Nevertheless, I will describe the main consonant changes without going into to much detail. Vowel changes will be written, but not explained. Note, that the changes occuring are determined by the number of syllables that the suffix and the stem have. In the following, all suffixes are monosyllabic.

Monosyllabic stems change the place of articulation of their initial consonant from dorsal to coronal. In this example the glottal stop in the unsuffixed stem is not dorsal in the narrow sense, but the change still applies. This is due to the archiphoneme /k/ being dorsal and the glottal stop being derived from it.

(3)
/q˩zː˥/-/z˥mː˩/
thing-DAT
+/ta.si/
[ʈʼɛː˩˥.zỹː˥˩]
<q1z:3z3m:1>
<tezü>
<tr'ạ̀ạ́zụ́ụ̀m>
`to a/the thing'

cf. (4)
/q˩zː˥/+/ka/
[ʔɛː˩˥]
Pp:<'e>
`a/the thing'

Disyllabic stems change the voicing of their initial consonant from voiceless to voiced. Additional changes in place of articulation might result from the asymetric plosive inventory in the archiphonemes. Their second consonant changes from an obstruent continuant to an coronal plosive.

(5)
/vː˩g˥.n˩nː˩/-/z˥mː˩/
Pansi-DAT
+/de.ta.si/
[dʷːə̃˩˥.ntɛ̃˩.zỹː˥˩]
<v:1g3n1n:1z3m:1>
<dentezü>
<ddwẹ̌ntạ̀mzụ́ụ̀m>
`to Pansi'

cf. (6)
/vː˩g˥.n˩nː˩/
+/ta. si/
[pːɑ̃˩˥.ntsĩː˩]
<pansi>
`Pansi'

Trisyllabic stems change the place of articulation of their initial consonant from coronal to labial. Their second consonant changes from a coronal plosive to a coronal sonorant. Their third consonant changes from an obstruent continuant to a coronal plosive.

(7)
/pː˥gː˧.gː˧v˧.r˧vː˧/-/z˥mː˩/
brass-DAT
+/bu.li.ta.si/
[ɓʷːɯ̃˥˧.ɳːy˧.ʈo˧.zỹː˥˩]
<p:3g:2g:2v2r2v:2z3m:1>
<bïnütozü>
<bbw'ị̂mnnrụtrozụ́ụ̀m>
`to a/the brass instrument'

cf. (8)
/pː˥gː˧.gː˧v˧.r˧vː˧/
+/de.ta.si/
[ɗʷːə̃ː˥.ɳʈːo˧.ɣyː˧]
<dentowü>
`brass instrument'

Prefixes undergo crazy allophony depending on the number of syllables the base consists of. This is because they occur in different metrical positions and are thus combined with different archiphonemes. Again, all of these allophones can be read of the allophone table from the first post, but I will still describe the rough main consonant changes, again ignoring vowel alternations. In the following, all prefixes are monosyllabic.

Monosyllabic stems are exceptional in that they change their archiphonemes when getting prefixed. Their initial consonant changes to an obstruent continuant.

(9)
/c˥r˩/-/q˩zː˥/
WH-thing
+/ta. si/
[tʼɑ˥˩.ʈʂʼiː˩˥]
<c3r1q1z:3>
<tatsi>
`what (lit. which thing)?'

Disyllabic stems do not change. Prefixes start with a voiced coronal plosive here.

(10)
/c˥r˩/-/vː˩g˥.n˩nː˩/
WH-Pansi
+/de.ta.si/
[ɗə˥˩.pːɑ̃˩˥.ntsĩː˩]
<depansi>
`Which Pansi?'

Trisyllabic stems do not change either. The prefix begins with a labial plosive here.

(11)
/c˥r˩/-/pː˥gː˧.gː˧v˧.r˧vː˧/
WH-brass
+/bu.li.ta.si/
[ɓɯ.ɗʷːə̃ː˥.ɳʈːo˧.ɣyː˧]
<bïdentowü>
`Which brass instrument?'

TL;DR:
Contour tone simplification and generalized flapping. Suffixes cause positional allophony in stems, prefixes undergo positional allophony.
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by DV82LECM »

You have taken a project that I'm working on, now (one where phonetic realization is dependent upon a phoneme's place within a word), put it on all the hallucinogenics, and it STILL graduated with a PhD.

Edit: I just realized that you derived Ook. It all makes sense.
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by Creyeditor »

I do not always make hallucinogenics graduate conlangs, but when I do, I put them on here. No, seriously, most of my conlangs are more naturalistic. Also, if you have a similar project that goes more into the naturalistic conlang direction, it might be cool to have a comparison. I mean, the underlying idea is the same, just the implementation would be different.
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by DV82LECM »

Creyeditor wrote: 10 Jul 2020 10:06 I do not always make hallucinogenics graduate conlangs, but when I do, I put them on here. No, seriously, most of my conlangs are more naturalistic. Also, if you have a similar project that goes more into the naturalistic conlang direction, it might be cool to have a comparison. I mean, the underlying idea is the same, just the implementation would be different.
The truth is, there is no comparison. Yours is exceedingly more complex. As for naturalism, let's just put mine in this way, it does not have a proto-language, it IS one. Literally, it is a FIRST language. /p t k u i a/ for the phonemes, and depending upon where they end up in a word, there is a buttload of allophony.

Example: /p/ is [p~b~f~v~m~w]. It's all for the sake of dissimilation of realizations for few phonemes.
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by Creyeditor »

I still would love to read about, if you have something worked out. One example of the differences I was looking for is, that your phonemes do not change their major place of articulation depending on the position.
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by sasasha »

Thoughts:

1. Woooah
2. wow
3. Reminds me of the interplay of taal and raag in Indian classical music; and in general rhythmic and melodic material coming together to create something more than the sum of its parts in the composite. Also maybe bellringing and knitting patterns...
4. If you were to choose a different underlay (...'beat'?) of archiphonemes, you would have a fascinating kind of cipher / madly different dialect or register to be able to switch into and out of.
5. I get that this is an engelang and the point is partly just to see what it's like if you try it, but can you say anything about what this language might be useful/useable for, other than blowing our minds?
6. Related question: are you just coining a priori words at random at the moment, or is there some deeper plan/structuralist scheme of meaning to which you're working?
6.1(.2) Really wow, that was fascinating; thank you for sharing. Have you got any further with it? [:)]
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by DV82LECM »

Creyeditor wrote: 10 Jul 2020 23:32 I still would love to read about, if you have something worked out. One example of the differences I was looking for is, that your phonemes do not change their major place of articulation depending on the position.
Actually, they can, but not by much. I'll expound more in my post pertaining to it. My words are rooted around dissimilation and stress within the word, pronouncing phonemes accordingly from the stress point.

Example: /pápupa/ would be ['pavuma], but /pácupa/ would be ['paʒuwa]. However, /papúpa/ would be [ha'puma].

For the record, [h] is a lexically allophonic dissimilation archiphoneme, but ONLY, as such, at the beginning of a word in unstressed position of alike onsets. However, it can be pronounced in a stressed onset position, if the NEXT syllable cannot avoid dissimilation; onsets as the second of a cluster cannot avoid it, stressed or not. (Ex. /técta/ ['heʃta] "eat") Otherwise, it's an epenthetic consonant between vowels where /p t k/ is not present, but never realized in the ultimate syllable, which is a glottal plosive.

Bottom line, I'm taking liberties. I'm inspired by Papuan languages, like Iau. But I'm ALSO, largely, influenced by CrazyEttin's Yiraciqa (which there ISN'T much about anymore, sadly).
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Re: My reverse enge-lang: V:1g3n1n:1

Post by Creyeditor »

DV82LECM wrote: 11 Jul 2020 07:56
Creyeditor wrote: 10 Jul 2020 23:32 I still would love to read about, if you have something worked out. One example of the differences I was looking for is, that your phonemes do not change their major place of articulation depending on the position.
Actually, they can, but not by much. I'll expound more in my post pertaining to it. My words are rooted around dissimilation and stress within the word, pronouncing phonemes accordingly from the stress point.

Example: /pápupa/ would be ['pavuma], but /pácupa/ would be ['paʒuwa]. However, /papúpa/ would be [ha'puma].

For the record, [h] is a lexically allophonic dissimilation archiphoneme, but ONLY, as such, at the beginning of a word in unstressed position of alike onsets. However, it can be pronounced in a stressed onset position, if the NEXT syllable cannot avoid dissimilation; onsets as the second of a cluster cannot avoid it, stressed or not. (Ex. /técta/ ['heʃta] "eat") Otherwise, it's an epenthetic consonant between vowels where /p t k/ is not present, but never realized in the ultimate syllable, which is a glottal plosive.

Bottom line, I'm taking liberties. I'm inspired by Papuan languages, like Iau. But I'm ALSO, largely, influenced by CrazyEttin's Yiraciqa (which there ISN'T much about anymore, sadly).
I still think this is a valuable comparison.
sasasha wrote: 11 Jul 2020 05:25 3. Reminds me of the interplay of taal and raag in Indian classical music; and in general rhythmic and melodic material coming together to create something more than the sum of its parts in the composite. Also maybe bellringing and knitting patterns...
4. If you were to choose a different underlay (...'beat'?) of archiphonemes, you would have a fascinating kind of cipher / madly different dialect or register to be able to switch into and out of.
5. I get that this is an engelang and the point is partly just to see what it's like if you try it, but can you say anything about what this language might be useful/useable for, other than blowing our minds?
6. Related question: are you just coining a priori words at random at the moment, or is there some deeper plan/structuralist scheme of meaning to which you're working?
6.1(.2) Really wow, that was fascinating; thank you for sharing. Have you got any further with it? [:)]
I am verry sorry. I must have missed this post somehow. I am very thankful for your compliment. As for (3), I am not really an expert on Indian music, but in a way most music I know is a combination of rhythm and melody. This was probably the inspiration for many versions of Autosegmental Phonology theory. They even call one tier rhythmic and the other melodic sometimes.

Regarding (4), this is an interesting idea. As for naturalistic dialects, I would expect sound changes to work on the surface forms and not so much on the underlying form, except for restructuring maybe. As for other engelangs based on the same idea, there could be plenty, and some might even look like natlangs. Which leads me to my answer to (5), I think that this engelang shows a language that is predicted radical Autosegmental Phonology theory, where all phonological features can in principle be treated autosegmentally, i.e, also prosodically predictable. For one, this might be interpreted as a reductio ad absurdum, but on the other hand it shows, that we might not consider this phonological at all, if we found such a language. This looks like massive suppletive morphology on the surface.

My answer to (6) is a little preview to some far future stage of this language. Up to now, I only have a vague idea, that I want feature that distinguish lexical words in natlangs to be less relevant in Pantsi and semantic features that are usually left unspecified in natlangs would distinguish words in Pantsi. For example, I could use fragile verbs like break or open. These are often unspecified for transitivity in natlangs, but they are usually specified for the kind of "destruction". In Pantsi, I could have two general "destruction" verbs, rigidly specified for transitivity. But in general vocab is my weak point.

And the last part of the post is my answer to you question 6.1. I worked a bit on morphology, but I could not finish the whole post on morphology. Its on general morphology and wh-features.

Morphology
The general idea is that categories that are expressed by word order in some language are expressed by segmental affixes in Pansi. A transcategorical morphological features is predicativeness, a word can be either the main predicate of a clause, an argument of a predicate or an attribute of a noun. Different parts of speech mark these differently. Especially the distribution of zero markers is distinct.

Verb: PRED=0/ATTR,MATRIX=0/SUBORDINATE,QUESTION/VERUMFOCUS
Noun: WH,NOM=0/ACC/DAT/PRED/ATTR,TOPIC/FOCUS
Adjective: ATTR=0/PRED, LOW-SCOPE/HIGH-SCOPE
Adverb: LOW-SCOPE/HIGH-SCOPE

Nominal Morphology

Nouns are marked for a WH-feature, for case, and for information structural status. The wh-marker is a prefix, whereas case marker and information structural status are suffixes. Note that predicativeness is included within the case paradigm.

WH-ROOT-CASE-INFORMATION.STR

Nominal Prefixes
WH: /c˥r˩/-

Nominal Suffixes
NOM: -0
ACC: -/x˥q˥/
DAT: -/z˥mː˩/
PRED: -/gː˩n˩/
ATTR: -/rː˩cː˥/
TOP: -/cː˧pː˧/
FOC: -/z˩nː˧/

WH-Marking

The wh-prefix /c˥r˩/- derives wh-question words from common nouns. In the default situation, the meaning of this prefix can be translated as "which X?". In a few special cases, a more basic wh-word is derived.

thing -> what
place -> where
person -> who
manner -> how
reason -> why

The idea is based on colloquial German word-order changes to indicate the difference between indefinite pronouns and question words. In the following example, the word 'was' acts as an indefinite pronoun if it follows the verb, but a wh-word if it precedes the verb.

(1) Du willst 'was.
2SG.NOM want.2SG.PRS.IND something
'You want something.'

(2) Was willst du?
what want.2SG.PRS.IND 2SG.NOM
'What do you want?'
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