(Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]

[Nloki]

I've done the last feature, bringing it to its fullest extent in Late Andanese. There's not a whole lot of grammar info on that page, but if it can somehow help even a little bit, Im glad to help out. I should note, though, that Late Andanese is not intended to be naturalistic, and I think not even Swahili has quite so many noun classes as Andanese. More importantly perhaps, I dont think there is any natlang in which the same root can appear in a dozen or more noun classes. but i like it, and i especially like the wild semantic drifts I've come up with such as himaku "money" ~ mimaku "poison" just by changing the noun class prefix.

Some Bantu languages, such as Bemba, mark noun case with a classifier prefix as well, which I think means that the normal classifier is omitted, and words merge. I dont do this in Andanese because there are so many roots that are spread across multiple noun classes ... e.g. if I did what Bemba does, i would have no way to distinguish between "to the book" and "to the school" since both words use the same root. You could do something like this on purpose if you want a quirky grammar, but my guess is that the speakers would just stop borrowing words across multiple noun classes. My solution is to just stack the case markers on top of the classifiers, which gets a little clumsy but I'm okay with it.

i think Pirahã might also get 3rd person pronouns from the syllables of the antecedent, which is similar, but there's not much info about Piraha online. I dont think Piraha has proper noun classifiers.

Well, to be honest, I now deem a classifier-based referent tracking system too challenging to include it in my conlang. Not just challenging, but rather even clashing with what I want my conlang to be. Anyway, thank you Pabappa.

•Updated question: is classifier-based referent marking common or even present among synthetic languages?

For as much as I've found, most languages with classifiers tend to be quite analytical, which I don't aim my conlang to be like. By now, I'd rather prefer synthetism (of any kind in reality).

By the way, which diacritic would you use to represent /ɪ/ and /ɤ/ in a romanization (same diacritic applied to two different letters)? So far I've tried ĕ and ŏ with breves but I wasn't quite satisfied with the resulting orthography. Which one would you use instead?

[Vlürch]

By the way, which diacritic would you use to represent /ɪ/ and /ɤ/ in a romanization (same diacritic applied to two different letters)? So far I've tried ĕ and ŏ with breves but I wasn't quite satisfied with the resulting orthography. Which one would you use instead?

That'd depend on the rest of the orthography, and whether something is satisfying or not is really subjective. Assuming it has to be <e> and <o> that the diacritics are added to, maybe <ẹ> and <ọ>?

[Nloki]

By the way, which diacritic would you use to represent /ɪ/ and /ɤ/ in a romanization (same diacritic applied to two different letters)? So far I've tried ĕ and ŏ with breves but I wasn't quite satisfied with the resulting orthography. Which one would you use instead?

That'd depend on the rest of the orthography, and whether something is satisfying or not is really subjective. Assuming it has to be <e> and <o> that the diacritics are added to, maybe <ẹ> and <ọ>?

Perhaps that might suit my view of the general orthography of my conlang (despite having tried from the Greek to Mongolian Alphabets including a featural syllabary of my own). Anyway thanks, I'll figure out how to resume my work.

[yangfiretiger121]

Love the help thus far.

I plan on posting my lang family's the full phonological but have a few questions relating to dialectical difference beforehand.

1. Is [ç~x] plausible when a dialect's parent language already has [ʝ, h]?
2. is [θ~ð] plausible when <th> was always [t.h] in a dialect's parent language? (nasals to voiced plosives between paleo/protolang and lang's most-recorded early ancestor)
3. Is [s.h~z.h → ʃ] plausible?

[Omzinesý]

Love the help thus far.

I plan on posting my lang family's the full phonological but have a few questions relating to dialectical difference beforehand.

1. Is [ç~x] plausible when a dialect's parent language already has [ʝ, h]?
2. is [θ~ð] plausible when <th> was always [t.h] in a dialect's parent language? (nasals to voiced plosives between paleo/protolang and lang's most-recorded early ancestor)
3. Is [s.h~z.h → ʃ] plausible?

I see no reason why not.
The important thing is how it emerges.

/h/ and /x/ can well be distinct phonemes. German has the distinction, with a small functional load though. The a "ichlaut" change can well happen, i.e. /x/ gets a palatal allophone.
Personally I see th => θ and s.h → ʃ a bit boring, maybe because it looks Englishy, but that surely is possible.

[Omzinesý]

[...]

Well, to be honest, I now deem a classifier-based referent tracking system too challenging to include it in my conlang. Not just challenging, but rather even clashing with what I want my conlang to be. Anyway, thank you Pabappa.

•Updated question: is classifier-based referent marking common or even present among synthetic languages?

For as much as I've found, most languages with classifiers tend to be quite analytical, which I don't aim my conlang to be like. By now, I'd rather prefer synthetism (of any kind in reality).

[...]

Different between classifiers and noun class/gender markers is very tricky.

My understanding is that noun classes cause agreement in adjectival modifiers, anaphoric pronouns or verbs, while noun classifiers (and some other class markers dont) don't. But the distinction is blurred in practice.

What do you exactly mean with "referent marking"? I think, if classifiers are used for something I think you mean with "referent marking", they are not pure prototypical classifiers anymore.

[yangfiretiger121]

Love the help thus far.

I plan on posting my lang family's the full phonological but have a few questions relating to dialectical difference beforehand.

1. Is [ç~x] plausible when a dialect's parent language already has [ʝ, h]?
2. is [θ~ð] plausible when <th> was always [t.h] in a dialect's parent language? (nasals to voiced plosives between paleo/protolang and lang's most-recorded early ancestor)
3. Is [s.h~z.h → ʃ] plausible?

I see no reason why not.
The important thing is how it emerges.

/h/ and /x/ can well be distinct phonemes. German has the distinction, with a small functional load though. The a "ichlaut" change can well happen, i.e. /x/ gets a palatal allophone.
Personally I see th => θ and s.h → ʃ a bit boring, maybe because it looks Englishy, but that surely is possible.

Okay. The nasal phonemes went /m, ɱ, n, ŋ → b, v, d, g/, with /ɱ/ as the rarest.

Are the changes below plausible?

1. [t͡ʃ~d͡ʒ → t̠ɹ̠̊˔~d̠ɹ̠˔]
1a. [tɾ~tr, dɾ~dr → θ̠, ð̠] (simultaneous with above)
1b. [pɾ~pr, kɾ~kr → ɸ, x] (simultaneous with both above, related to a)
2. [bh, gh → bɾ~br, gɾ~gr] ([nɾ~nr] was the only nasal+rhotic combo in the protolang)

[Zekoslav]

I've go this consonant inventory and phonotactics. I'm very much happy with it and it's pretty fleshed out both synchronically and diachronically. However, the inspiration to find out which vowels go with it just doesn't strike. Can you help me? What vowels do you think would suite this? If it's of any help the language is supposed to be agglutinative with many polysyllabic words.

/p t k f s χ* t͡s m n ŋ l r w j/ <p t k f s x c m n ŋ l r w y>

(C)V(C)

permitted consonant clusters:

Code: Select all

-	p	t	k	f	s	x	c	m	n	ŋ	r	l	w	y
p	pp	pt					pc				pr			py
t		tt	tk								tr		tw	ty
k			kk								kr		kw	ky
f				ff	fs				fn		fr			fy
s	sp	st	sk		ss	sx							sw	sy
x						xx			xn		xr		xw	xy
c			ck				cc							
m	mp							mm	mn		mr			my
n		nt					nc		nn				nw	ny
ŋ			ŋk						ŋn	ŋŋ	ŋr		ŋw	ŋy
r	rp	rt	rk	rf	rs	rx	rc	rm	rn		rr		rw	
l					ls		lc					ll		ly
w	wp	wt	wk	wf	ws	wx	wc	wm	wn		wr		ww	wy
y	yp	yt	yk	yf	ys	yx	yc	ym	yn		yr		yw	yy

*/χ/ is uvular rather than velar

[Shemtov]

What do you call moods that mean:
A. Y happened because X happened
B. Y should happen because X happened
C. Y should happen because X didn't
?

[Vlürch]

I've go this consonant inventory and phonotactics. I'm very much happy with it and it's pretty fleshed out both synchronically and diachronically. However, the inspiration to find out which vowels go with it just doesn't strike. Can you help me? What vowels do you think would suite this? If it's of any help the language is supposed to be agglutinative with many polysyllabic words.

Personally I'd probably go with /a ɛ e i ɔ o œ ø u y/ with a harmonic system of front/back, high/low and rounded/unrounded in affixes but much less differentiated harmony in roots.

/e o/ and /ɛ ɔ/ are harmonic variants
/ɛ œ/ and /e ø/ are harmonic variants
/o u/ and /ø y/ are harmonic variants
/e ø/ cause palatalisation of preceding consonants while /ɛ œ/ don't
/o ø/ cause stronger labialisation of preceding consonants than /ɔ œ/
/a i/ are neutral and transparent; /a/ is [ɑ] and [æ] in back and front harmonic words respectively, [ɐ] in words with only neutral vowels
/i y/ cause palatalisation of preceding consonants

So, for example, a suffix like |kE| could be any of /ke/ [kʲe], /kɛ/ [kɛ], /ko/ [kʷo], /kø/ [kᶣø], /kɔ/ [kᵝɔ] or /kœ/ [kᵝœ].

...but roots could contain any of the following vowel combinations:
/a e i o u/
/a e i ø y/
/a ɛ i ɔ u/
/a ɛ i œ y/

Hopefully I explained what I mean well enough, and hopefully it could be helpful to at least give you some ideas for what to do. I know it's a fairly SAE vowel inventory and the harmony is pretty weird, but it feels naturalistic to me and tbh I like it. Maybe you think it's the worst vowel inventory ever, and I wouldn't blame you.

[LinguoFranco]

How do prenasalized consonants arise in a language?

I have a theory that it is through vowel reduction, so that /miba/ becomes /məba/ and later /mba/ and then /ᵐba/. Is this how it occurs or are there other ways?

[sangi39]

How do prenasalized consonants arise in a language?

I have a theory that it is through vowel reduction, so that /miba/ becomes /məba/ and later /mba/ and then /ᵐba/. Is this how it occurs or are there other ways?

I think I've seen both /b/ and /m/ shift unconditionally to prenasalised stops. There's also voiced stops following a nasal vowel.

[loglorn]

How do prenasalized consonants arise in a language?

I have a theory that it is through vowel reduction, so that /miba/ becomes /məba/ and later /mba/ and then /ᵐba/. Is this how it occurs or are there other ways?

I think I've seen both /b/ and /m/ shift unconditionally to prenasalised stops. There's also voiced stops following a nasal vowel.

What sangi said, and also what you said. IIRC plain voiced into prenasalised is more likely if the voicing distinction is only in plosives.

[Ahzoh]

In a ditransitive applicative voice construction with a word order of SOV, I can't decide if the applied object (AplO) should come before the basic object (BasO) or vice versa.

Subject-AplO-BasO-V or Subject-BasO-AplO-V?

[loglorn]

In a ditransitive applicative voice construction with a word order of SOV, I can't decide if the applied object (AplO) should come before the basic object (BasO) or vice versa.

Subject-AplO-BasO-V or Subject-BasO-AplO-V?

Whats the order in inherent ditransitives? AplO and BasO should pattern with direct and indirect objects i gather. If you have no inherently ditrans verbs throw some dice or something i guess, you can pick.

[Ahzoh]

In a ditransitive applicative voice construction with a word order of SOV, I can't decide if the applied object (AplO) should come before the basic object (BasO) or vice versa.

Subject-AplO-BasO-V or Subject-BasO-AplO-V?

Whats the order in inherent ditransitives? AplO and BasO should pattern with direct and indirect objects i gather. If you have no inherently ditrans verbs throw some dice or something i guess, you can pick.

There are no inherent ditransitives so I decided on Subject-AplO-BasO-V and I reason that even if it was originally the other way around I could just say there was a permanent switch of the objects, likely motivated by animacy.

[LinguistCat]

What are some things a habitual marker is likely to turn into, or would it be more likely to just fall out of use somehow?

[Ahzoh]

What are some things a habitual marker is likely to turn into, or would it be more likely to just fall out of use somehow?

Habitual marker could turn into something used to denote a state or ownership.

[yangfiretiger121]

Is a language more likely to have a parent root meaning something like "related to the heavens" and a derivative root, specifically, for stars or unrelated roots for the heavens and stars?

[loglorn]

Is a language more likely to have a parent root meaning something like "related to the heavens" and a derivative root, specifically, for stars or unrelated roots for the heavens and stars?

Sounds cultural/cosmological but also I'd say separate heaven and star roots are more likely