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

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

Post by Salmoneus »

Is this not just an austronesian alignment?

[except that in classic AA it would be "John dog A-walk" vs "dog John P-walk", with role marking on the verb rather than on the noun itself]
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Nel Fie »

Salmoneus wrote: 25 Oct 2022 14:21 Is this not just an austronesian alignment?

[except that in classic AA it would be "John dog A-walk" vs "dog John P-walk", with role marking on the verb rather than on the noun itself]
That seemed like the best match to me as well, but I wasn't sure how specific it had to be in order to fit.
As you say, there's a discrepancy in locus of marking (though not necessarily so, I chose marking on nouns for the sake of example), then there's the fact that there's only marking in one place, rather than parallel marking on verbs and their arguments. There's also no exact match for direct marking, and this system would only have an agent voice and a patient voice. Moreso, could an austronesian alignment system also integrate an active-stative system in intransitive constructions?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

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Just wanted to add that Phillipine languages actually have some kind of case marking and (unrelatedly) Indonesian (and probably other Austronesian languages) have a split-S alignment in that the agent voice marker occurs on some intransitive verbs (off the top of my head 'me-nangis' AV-cry, me-ninggal AV-die, but there are probably more.)
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Ahzoh »

There is a phonemic inventory /æ æː ɑ ɑː i iː u uː/. If phonetically, the short vowels /i u/ are realized as [ɪ ʊ] while the long vowels are realized as [iː uː], what would be the equivalent lax-tense distinction for /æ æː ɑ ɑː/? Mind you, there is a lot of variety to be had with vowel qualities, but I'm looking for common or more likely manifestations.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

Nel Fie wrote: 25 Oct 2022 10:35 2) In transitive situations, the same marking is used - but only for one of the arguments. Whether it is the agent or the patient that is marked depends on other grammar design choices.
What does the marking code in transitive verbs, still intentionality or the agent/patient distinction?

If it does not code agent/patient distinction, it is not an alignment at all, but just intentionality marking.
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Post by Omzinesý »

Ahzoh wrote: 26 Oct 2022 16:44 There is a phonemic inventory /æ æː ɑ ɑː i iː u uː/. If phonetically, the short vowels /i u/ are realized as [ɪ ʊ] while the long vowels are realized as [iː uː], what would be the equivalent lax-tense distinction for /æ æː ɑ ɑː/? Mind you, there is a lot of variety to be had with vowel qualities, but I'm looking for common or more likely manifestations.
Proto Slavic nearly had such a phonology at some stage. There the short low vowels become more mid.
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Post by Nel Fie »

Omzinesý wrote: 26 Oct 2022 17:23 What does the marking code in transitive verbs, still intentionality or the agent/patient distinction?

If it does not code agent/patient distinction, it is not an alignment at all, but just intentionality marking.
In transitive verbs, the marking would encode agent/patient distinctions, at least as its primary function.
Creyeditor wrote: 26 Oct 2022 14:51 Just wanted to add that Phillipine languages actually have some kind of case marking and (unrelatedly) Indonesian (and probably other Austronesian languages) have a split-S alignment in that the agent voice marker occurs on some intransitive verbs (off the top of my head 'me-nangis' AV-cry, me-ninggal AV-die, but there are probably more.)
Thank you for chiming in, this is very good information! Does this mean that Indonesian uses the patient voice marker with most other intransitive verbs?

I've also taken another look at the Wikipedia page on symmetrical voice systems since (I haven't had much time to spare, so this is the best I could do for now, sadly), and the examples given on there suggest that Tagalog uses the same marking for the "leftover" argument, regardless of role:
Actor Voice:
B<um>ili ng mangga sa palengke ang lalaki.
<ASP.AV>buy IND mango OBL market DIR man
"The man bought a mango at the market."

Patient Voice:
B<in>ili-∅ ng lalaki sa palengke ang mangga.
<ASP<buy-PV IND man OBL market DIR mango
"The mango was bought by the man at the market."
If this is correct, then that would at least solve the question of the same markers being used for the "leftover" argument in transitive situations.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Creyeditor »

Nel Fie wrote: 26 Oct 2022 21:26
Creyeditor wrote: 26 Oct 2022 14:51 Just wanted to add that Phillipine languages actually have some kind of case marking and (unrelatedly) Indonesian (and probably other Austronesian languages) have a split-S alignment in that the agent voice marker occurs on some intransitive verbs (off the top of my head 'me-nangis' AV-cry, me-ninggal AV-die, but there are probably more.)
Thank you for chiming in, this is very good information! Does this mean that Indonesian uses the patient voice marker with most other intransitive verbs?
Well, the form that is synchronically closest to a patient voice is unmarked, i.e. does not have a prefix and most intransitive verbs are also unmarked, so yes, in some sense.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

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Ahzoh wrote: 26 Oct 2022 16:44 There is a phonemic inventory /æ æː ɑ ɑː i iː u uː/. If phonetically, the short vowels /i u/ are realized as [ɪ ʊ] while the long vowels are realized as [iː uː], what would be the equivalent lax-tense distinction for /æ æː ɑ ɑː/? Mind you, there is a lot of variety to be had with vowel qualities, but I'm looking for common or more likely manifestations.
In languages with an ATR/RTR contrast the [+ATR] (sic!) counterpart of [-ATR] /a/ is often a schwa or at least a schwa-like vowel. In your case you could use a backed schwa and a fronted schwa, probably notated as /ʌ/ and /ə/ as tense equivalents of low vowels. Some languages also have ATR/RTR contrasts in low vowels, which I like to notate with the IPA diacritic /æ̘ æ̙ ɑ̘ ɑ̙/.

I terms of tense/lax contrasts the vague generalization is often that lax vowels are more centralized. So you could end up with lax low vowels /ɐ~ɛ ə~ʌ/ or something like that. Note how this is kond if the opposite of the ATR/RTR contrast.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

And, diachronically, also in a deeper sense: Austronesian-alignment languages typically have the patient voice as the default (although apparently this sometimes requires some clever analysis to discover, as the distribution isn't as lopsided as the SAE active/passive voice distribution). Even in languages where both patient and agent focus are marked.


Going back to another point: although Philippine alignment has multiple 'voices' (or whatever we call them), there's an alternative 'Indonesian' sub-alignment within 'Austronesian alignment' that only has two voices, equivalent to active and passive, so that's not a problem. [even if Standard Indonesian itself no longer seems to be a symmetrical system?]

[fwiw, perhaps counterintuitively, it's believed that Austronesian languages started off with four voices and most have gradually lost them, rather than vice versa]
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Nel Fie »

Creyeditor wrote: 26 Oct 2022 22:04 Well, the form that is synchronically closest to a patient voice is unmarked, i.e. does not have a prefix and most intransitive verbs are also unmarked, so yes, in some sense.
Salmoneus wrote: 26 Oct 2022 22:36 And, diachronically, also in a deeper sense: Austronesian-alignment languages typically have the patient voice as the default (although apparently this sometimes requires some clever analysis to discover, as the distribution isn't as lopsided as the SAE active/passive voice distribution). Even in languages where both patient and agent focus are marked.

Going back to another point: although Philippine alignment has multiple 'voices' (or whatever we call them), there's an alternative 'Indonesian' sub-alignment within 'Austronesian alignment' that only has two voices, equivalent to active and passive, so that's not a problem. [even if Standard Indonesian itself no longer seems to be a symmetrical system?]

[fwiw, perhaps counterintuitively, it's believed that Austronesian languages started off with four voices and most have gradually lost them, rather than vice versa]
Very interesting! Then again, perhaps not too surprising. Based on your (Salmoneus's) description of Austronesian alignments as originating from a reanalysis of nominalised verbs, it makes at least intuitive sense that the patient role would end up as least marked, and a common default marking for arguments. (Though there's probably still more than enough space for things to turn and twist differently in practice, and relying on "common sense" and "intuition" is probably a risky thing to do in linguistics.)

As for the information on the number of voices - thank you! Yes, I think I even remember this detail coming up when I asked about Austronesian alignment in the natlang thread; it must have slipped my mind. Oddly enough, I feel it actually makes some amount of intuitive sense that they would start out with more voices - wouldn't that provide a better foundation for the alignment to develop and establish itself diachronically by giving it a broader range of applications?

Overall, I think that pretty much settles the original question - many thanks to everyone who contributed answers!
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Arayaz »

If I have /ɟ/ <dj> and /ʎ/ <lj>, and the cluster /dʎ/ assimilates to /ɟʎ/, should I romanize /ɟʎ/ to <dlj> or <djlj>?
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Post by shimobaatar »

Üdj wrote: 28 Oct 2022 14:02 If I have /ɟ/ <dj> and /ʎ/ <lj>, and the cluster /dʎ/ assimilates to /ɟʎ/, should I romanize /ɟʎ/ to <dlj> or <djlj>?
I'd personally go with <dlj>.
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Post by loglorn »

shimobaatar wrote: 28 Oct 2022 14:25
Üdj wrote: 28 Oct 2022 14:02 If I have /ɟ/ <dj> and /ʎ/ <lj>, and the cluster /dʎ/ assimilates to /ɟʎ/, should I romanize /ɟʎ/ to <dlj> or <djlj>?
I'd personally go with <dlj>.
Unless /dʎ/ and /ɟʎ/ contrast, which from what you said they very much don't, i'd go for the shorter and still unambiguous <dlj> (i guess <djl> also shares those properties but we can probably agree its clearly worse)
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Post by Knox Adjacent »

Üdj wrote: 28 Oct 2022 14:02 If I have /ɟ/ <dj> and /ʎ/ <lj>, and the cluster /dʎ/ assimilates to /ɟʎ/, should I romanize /ɟʎ/ to <dlj> or <djlj>?
I always like the latter. It's redundant and phonetically more accurate and stands out.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by LinguoFranco »

So, if you have a register tone language where contour tones can only occur in syllables with a long vowel, does that mean a rising or falling melody is impossible in a morpheme that lacks long vowels?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

What do you mean by 'melody'?

If you mean a tone contour occuring within a single syllable, and rising contour tones can only occur on long vowels, then no, you can't have rising melodies in words without long vowels.

If you mean the tone contour of an entire morpheme or word, and you can have low and high tones on short vowels, then yes, a word with only short vowels could have a rising melody (low tone syllable followed by high tone syllable).

I assume you must mean some third option.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

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LinguoFranco wrote: 29 Oct 2022 10:04 So, if you have a register tone language where contour tones can only occur in syllables with a long vowel, does that mean a rising or falling melody is impossible in a morpheme that lacks long vowels?
Yes and no. On the surface form (or whatever your preferred term is) you do not find them. At the underlying form (or whatever again) however, such CV morphemes might have a HL melody in many tone languages which results in some kind of 'virtual' contour tones. These are similar to floating tones. If the syllable of the morpheme is lengthened for some independent phonological reason the resulting syllable will bear a falling tone. If the following syllable is toneless, it might get a low tone. High tone spreading might be blocked from such morphemes and so on. I hope this helps. Feel free to ask for clarification.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Arayaz »

Is this proto-language consonant inventory natural?

/p pʼ b bʷ t tʼ d dʷ ʨ ʨʼ ʥ ʥʷ k kʼ ɡ ɡʷ/
/m n ɲ ŋ/
/f v s sʼ z zʷ ɕ ɕʼ ʑ ʑʷ x ɣ/
/r l j ʎ/
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Üdj wrote: 30 Oct 2022 02:35 Is this proto-language consonant inventory natural?

/p pʼ b bʷ t tʼ d dʷ ʨ ʨʼ ʥ ʥʷ k kʼ ɡ ɡʷ/
/m n ɲ ŋ/
/f v s sʼ z zʷ ɕ ɕʼ ʑ ʑʷ x ɣ/
/r l j ʎ/
Proto-languages are in no way theoretically distinct from "normal" languages and that is a fine inventory.

(In practice proto-languages tend to be slightly weird because of artifacts of the reconstruction process but since with conlangs we don't actually have to reconstruct anything theres little reason to worry about that)
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