Typological voting game

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Porphyrogenitos
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Re: Typological voting game

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

Creyeditor wrote: 10 Feb 2021 18:58 I just wanted to mention that R12C15 does not list all logical possibilities. Maybe any combination of A-E should be included in F.
Thanks, I will do that and clarify that in the post.
Creyeditor wrote: 10 Feb 2021 18:58 Anyway: I vote C15:E and C16:C, assuming that this means we add long vowels.
Yes, if we vote for that option it will necessarily mean we have long vowels. I suppose we can take submissions for vowel length systems, since not necessarily every vowel quality will come in a long/short pair.
Creyeditor wrote: 10 Feb 2021 18:58 Also, when will we submit allophony (and more detailed phonotactics) proposals? Also, will we be able to submit proposals on the details of our stress-tone system?
Hmm, I do want to address a couple of the inflectional questions, since - if we opt for tonal inflections - that may impact what people want the tonal system to look like. But I will make sure it happens sooner rather than later, hopefully the round right after. I think since the tone-stress system will be "small" enough - just a two-way tonal contrast, with predictable stress - I will have people submit proposals for the entire system. Right after that we can pin down the details of the phonotactics and allophony. I suppose since phonotactics and allophony are closely tied, I should also allow those to be submitted and voted on as a package, too.
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Re: Typological voting game

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All of what you said makes perfect sense and I am excited for future rounds of this project.
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Re: Typological voting game

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I vote E for both categories
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Re: Typological voting game

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For Chapter 15, I vote:
First choice: D Right-oriented, antepenultimate involved
Second choice: B Left-oriented, third syllable involved.
Third choice: C Right edge, one of the last two syllables
Fourth choice: A Left edge, one of the first two syllables.

For chapter 16, I vote:
First choice: C long vowels and/or closed syllables.
Second choice: A long vowels
Third choice: B closed syllables.

I’m not sure I understand E or D?

If I do, I guess my fourth choice would probably be E combined?

....

I look forward to the next round!

....

What do we have so far, again? (When this round is over and the next one begins?)
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eldin raigmore
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Re: Typological voting game

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Speaking of C15 F.
In one of the sources WALS references, there are languages which have each of the following combinations.
* one pattern for nouns but a different pattern for non-nouns
* one pattern for verbs but a different pattern for non-verbs
* one pattern for loanwords but a different pattern for native words.
....
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Re: Typological voting game

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eldin raigmore wrote: 12 Feb 2021 05:51 I look forward to the next round!

....

What do we have so far, again? (When this round is over and the next one begins?)
Well, if you mean the language as a whole so far, we have a consistently head-marking language with no dominant word order, a hybrid vigesimal-decimal numeral system, productive full and partial reduplication, a small consonant inventory with one ejective /kʼ/, an asymmetrical five-vowel inventory with no constrastive nasal vowels, a simple tone system with a two-way contrast, and predictable stress. As outlined in the second post in the thread.

If you mean what's next, we will take submissions for the vowel length system (if we select an option for Chapter 16 that requires the existence of vowel length), and we will vote on Chapter 20, Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives. Which addresses the fusion of case and tense marking - if different case and tense formatives are expressed using different morphological strategies, the strategy used for the ergative or accusative and past tense is prioritized (to crudely summarize the procedure).
eldin raigmore wrote:Speaking of C15 F.
In one of the sources WALS references, there are languages which have each of the following combinations.
* one pattern for nouns but a different pattern for non-nouns
* one pattern for verbs but a different pattern for non-verbs
* one pattern for loanwords but a different pattern for native words.
....
Yes, the assignment of different languages to different values for some of these questions, especially the morphosyntactic questions, is quite complicated in some cases. I just say, if we vote for a more complicated option, we will cross that bridge when we get there.
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Re: Typological voting game

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Ch. 15: D
Ch. 16: C
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Re: Typological voting game

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Okay, the votes are in for Round 12! Sorry for not getting to this till later. For Chapter 15: Weight-sensitive stress I deeply regret to announce that we have a tie, in this case between D) Right-oriented and E) Unbounded. So, that triggers a runoff in Round 13

Weight-sensitive stress runoff

D) Right-oriented: The antepenultimate is involved
E) Unbounded: Stress can be anywhere in the word

Some discussion of "unbounded" weight-sensitive stress systems from WALS:
This category, also represented on Map 15A, has an unbounded stress window comprising the whole word (with the possible exclusion of a peripheral syllable). These systems are especially interesting because the location of stress is not restricted to syllables that are near the edge of the word.
There are in fact four types of unbounded weight-sensitive stress systems that we would have to vote on if we selected this option. I will provide descriptions of them based on the WALS descriptions if it comes to that. (They are simple enough, however.)

For Chapter 16: Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems, the winner is C) Long vowel + Coda: long vowels or closed syllables. WALS explains:
For languages that do count codas for weight, and which do have long vowels, the default option is that either one can make a syllable heavy by itself.
So, basically, heavy syllables are defined as in Latin and many other languages we are familiar with.

But what this now means is that the language must have long vowels. And that means we must decide on a vowel length system. It is possible that it may be a perfectly symmetrical system, with the five phonemic vowel qualities each having long and short versions; or it may be asymmetrical to one degree or another, with certain vowel qualities only appearing in short or long form. But I will leave it to you all to propose a symmetrical system or some other system.

Open submission: Vowel length systems
  • The vowel system must include at least one minimal contrast between a long and short vowel of the same quality.
  • All of the following vowel qualities (and no others) must be present:

    (edit: since we've had no defined point at which to address the possibility of diphthongs, and I'm not actually sure how/if they're counted in WALS, you may include diphthongs when submitting a vowel length inventory - though we may also address the topic of diphthongs in the allophony and phonotactics round)
/i ɨ u/
/e/
/a/

Everyone may submit as many vowel length systems as they want.

Next week we will vote on vowel length inventories, and finally vote on Chapter 20: Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives. The week after that, we will address the tonal system, and syllable structure and allophony.

Voting for Round 13 will close at 5:00 PM GMT (12 noon US Eastern time) on Wednesday, February 24.
Last edited by Porphyrogenitos on 18 Feb 2021 06:45, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Typological voting game

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Weight-sensitive stress runoff: E

I suggest there only be long a: and e:, and (if we haven't already ruled this out) that the long high vowels have collapsed into diphthongs (something like ei, əɨ, and ow) at some point in the language's history.
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Re: Typological voting game

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

That's fine. We haven't really had a clearly-defined point to decide whether or not the vowel system has diphthongs, and the grammar-building process will eventually have to become more flexible anyways as we finish up with the WALS categories in each area of grammatical structure.
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Re: Typological voting game

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Weight-sensitive stress runoff
E) Unbounded: Stress can be anywhere in the word

Open submission: Vowel length systems

Submission 1: a single weak vowel and nice diphthongs
/i i: ɨ u u:/
/e e:/
/a a:/
/ai au ei/

Submission 2: Symetrical length and dipthongs
/i i: ɨ ɨ u u:/
/e e:/
/a a:/
/ai au ei eu iu ui ɨu ɨi/

I like the first one, because it is aesthatically pleasing for me, but I think we might need the second one, because this gives us more possible syllable shapes.
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Re: Typological voting game

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Question: How many syllable-weights are there?
If the heaviest syllables are bimoraic, I vote D right-oriented.
As a general rule if a word contains a trimoraic-or-heavier superheavy syllable the primary stress will be on one of its superheavy syllables whether or not it’s in the “stress window” that applies to words without a superheavy syllable.

So to conform to real, natural languages, I’d like to vote
E unbounded if word contains a superheavy syllable
D right-oriented if word does not contain any superheavy syllables.
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Re: Typological voting game

Post by eldin raigmore »

Speaking of superheavy syllables, I propose:
* an open syllable whose nucleus is a short monophthong is light (monomoraic).
* an open syllable whose nucleus is a long monophthong or a diphthong is heavy (bimoraic)
* a singly-closed syllable (coda is not a cluster) whose nucleus is a short monophthong is also heavy (bimoraic)
* any doubly-closed syllable (coda is a cluster) is superheavy (trimoraic)
* any closed syllable whose nucleus is a long vowel or a diphthong is superheavy (trimoraic)

(Do we want to distinguish what happens with sonorant consonants in the coda from what happens to, say, obstruent codas?)

If anything like that happens — that is, if there are any superheavy syllables at all — I propose something like;
* if a word has a superheavy syllable stress always goes on the last superheavy syllable no matter where it is in the word.
* if a word has no superheavy syllable stress goes on one of the last three syllables; which one depends on their weights.
Last edited by eldin raigmore on 31 Oct 2023 04:30, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Typological voting game

Post by eldin raigmore »

Long vowels:
/i: ɨ: u:/
/e:/
/a:/
i.e. one to go with each short vowel.

Diphthongs:
/iu ui eu au ei ai ue ua ie ia/
i.e. post- and pre- -labialize and -palatalize each peripheral short vowel.
(Not counting ii nor uu as diphthongs; I think they’re long monophthongs instead.

So a total of twenty vowels;
5 short vowels (4 peripheral and 1 interior)
5 long vowels (4 peripheral and 1 interior)
10 diphthongs:
* two even diphthongs, iu and ui
* four falling diphthongs, eu au ei ai
* four rising diphthongs, ue ua ie ia
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Re: Typological voting game

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eldin raigmore wrote: 18 Feb 2021 13:59 * any doubly-closed syllable (coda is a cluster) is superheavy (trimoraic)
IIRC, we do not allow code clusters per earlier vote. Apart from that, your stress idea looks like a promising first half of a proposal for the stress tone system.
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Re: Typological voting game

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Creyeditor wrote: 18 Feb 2021 14:56
eldin raigmore wrote: 18 Feb 2021 13:59 * any doubly-closed syllable (coda is a cluster) is superheavy (trimoraic)
IIRC, we do not allow code clusters per earlier vote. Apart from that, your stress idea looks like a promising first half of a proposal for the stress tone system.
Even so we could have superheavy syllables.
Are we going to distinguish between closed syllables with a non-sonorant coda vs closed syllables with a sonorant coda?
In some languages the former might be light while the latter might be heavy — assuming the nucleus was a short monophthong in both cases.

Our /m n w r j/ are all sonorant. The rest aren’t. Possibly a sonorant coda could add a mora while a non-sonorant coda wouldn’t.
If so a syllable with a long or diphthong nucleus and a sonorant coda might be trimoraic superheavy.
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Re: Typological voting game

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I think we can decide on the exact status and criteria for syllable weight once we have finished voting on the WALS weight categories and settled the phonotactics.
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Re: Typological voting game

Post by eldin raigmore »

Are we going to have either polar secondary stress or rhythmic secondary stress?
If so should we vote on it before or after we vote on how many syllable-weights to have?
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Re: Typological voting game

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eldin raigmore wrote: 22 Feb 2021 01:04 Are we going to have either polar secondary stress or rhythmic secondary stress?
If so should we vote on it before or after we vote on how many syllable-weights to have?
Hmm. Thank you for pointing this out. I totally missed the rhythm types chapter.

I think what we will do is split that chapter up into three steps:

1. Rhythm or no rhythm? (i.e. practically speaking, from what I understand, secondary stress or no secondary stress?)
2. If there is rhythm/secondary stress, is it left-edged or right-edged?
3. Is it weight-sensitive or weight-insensitive?

We can leave the further details of it (e.g. whether rhythm is iambic, trochaic, or a mix of the two) to the choice of users who submit tone-stress systems. This will all run concurrently with the questions I have previously said we are going to address.
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Re: Typological voting game

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Ch. 15 Runoff: D

Vowel Length System Submission:

/i iː ɨ ɨː u uː/
/e eː/
/a aː/
(Any diphthongs are phonemically /Vj/ or /Vw/.)
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