Fun phonemic contrasts?

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LinguistCat
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Fun phonemic contrasts?

Post by LinguistCat »

What are some interesting or less common phonemic contrasts that could be used in conlangs? For example, voiced/voiceless or aspirated/unaspirated are common for consonants and rounded/unrounded, backedness, openness and tenseness are all common for vowels. But what are some that aren't used as often?

I like sibilant vs non-sibilant fricatives, but even that's a pretty common contrast to have.
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Ahzoh
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Re: Fun phonemic contrasts?

Post by Ahzoh »

having a natural class called "postvelars" that makes a binary distinction between uvular consonants, which cause vowel retraction, and pharyngeals, which cause vowel advancement.
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DesEsseintes
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Re: Fun phonemic contrasts?

Post by DesEsseintes »

I like aspiration contrast in fricatives (Korean) and glottalisation contrast in continuants/sonorants (Tlingit, Wakashan).
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Pabappa
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Re: Fun phonemic contrasts?

Post by Pabappa »

when i was in my late teens, and had only irregular access to the Internet, i had a language with tonal consonants (i think 3 tones), "hard" vs "soft" which was about literal articulatory force, three sets of bilabials distinguished by lip shape, three velar series (front, middle, back), and a Xõo-like vowel system with simultaneous distinctions of nasality, pharyngealization, length, and tone. All of this was in the same language. There were also linguolabials .... a place of articulation that I've been meaning to include in recent languages, but which I always seem to forget about. i think at the time my symbol for a linguolabial stop was ♇ and for the nasal was a ligature of M and L. Im not sure I even knew that linguolabials were found in natlangs or that they had a name .... I just called it the "super P".
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Flavia
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Re: Fun phonemic contrasts?

Post by Flavia »

Creaky voice on continuants.
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sangi39
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Re: Fun phonemic contrasts?

Post by sangi39 »

Voiced contour consonants like those found in Juǀʼhoan are fairly interesting (contour consonants in general, outside of, say, affricated and prenasalised stops, aren't used that much)
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Omzinesý
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Re: Fun phonemic contrasts?

Post by Omzinesý »

Contour consonant is a new term to me.
I've been playing with prestopped resonants lately.

Preaspiration is another way to both have and not have geminates.

Glottalized/creaky-voice consonants are nice too, though I don't know how to pronounce them.

Labiovelars (á la Igbo) are nice.

Geminates that start voiced and stop voiceless.

Rhotic vowels are rarely used probably because they appear in English.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Pabappa
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Re: Fun phonemic contrasts?

Post by Pabappa »

which reminds me of the three-way split between stops in Korean, the three-way length contrasts for both vowels and consonants in some Uralic languages, and Americanist phonetic notation's "half-voiced" series, which may be a relic of an earlier age in which we didn't quite understand the reality of some languages .... it may be something like voiceless lenis and therefore I'm not sure it would be wise to use in a conlang if there were two traditional series already. Nonetheless, the other examples above would definitely work.
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Creyeditor
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Re: Fun phonemic contrasts?

Post by Creyeditor »

I like some three-way contrasts, e.g. in length in Estonian and Dinka. Or the three-way rhoticity/retroflexion contrast in vowels in Badaga.
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Re: Fun phonemic contrasts?

Post by Omzinesý »

Phonations are interesting too. They appear much more rarely in conlangs than tones.
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Re: Fun phonemic contrasts?

Post by Creyeditor »

Yes, very true. That's why one of Omlüüts sister languages -De̤tselo- has breathy voiced vowels. Also, do you get the (lame) joke?
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Knox Adjacent
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Re: Fun phonemic contrasts?

Post by Knox Adjacent »

Apical vs laminal contrasts. Especially having plural series of each.
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Re: Fun phonemic contrasts?

Post by eldin raigmore »

I need to finish reading this!
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