Seeking advice about a phonemic inventory

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Seeking advice about a phonemic inventory

Post by Piero »

Hello everyone! Nice to meet you. You can call me Piero,I registered as Pier0 because I've had a technical issue and had to create a second account...
This is my first post here since 15 years (literally a half of my life), so I guess I can say I'm actually new here and need at least to shortly introduce myself. I used to be a relatively active member of the ZBB and I was there when the CBB was first created, but I can't remember anyone's name now... In any case, glad to join you again!

I have been worldbuilding for a couple of decades, with a main project which is still - - and maybe I should accept that probably it will always be - unnamed. Despite lacking a name, the project is actually developed enough to include several physical, ecological, historical maps, and more or less detailed aspects such as geology, biology, history, cultures and languages. To save time and spare you a text wall, I'll try to skip as much as possible of all of this and just mention things related to the post topic, but feel free to ask more if interested.

In this conworld, more than one third of the main continent - about the size of Asia - is harsh desert. Yet, the continent is so large that in the remaining areas there's enough room for a huge diversity, with several habitable zones mainly distributed along the coast, each of them being a cultural macro-region.

A large peninsula, far in the West, that juts out southward into the sea, and the plains surrounding the near Gulf, are home to an incredible civilization cocktail, historically dominated by three main cultural poles: Hippri, Doiric and Dumiric. I won’t go into details for the first two, but the Dumiric societies deserve a couple of words, because they’re probably the most distant from a modern terrestrial reader.

Image

On Earth, the human species has domesticated certain animal and plant species, selecting specific traits that were especially convenient for food production. Domestication exists throughout all the Continent, but a fortunate accident of nature allowed another parallel process to take place in the limited case of Dumiric societies: instead of domestication, “empathetization” occurred, selecting traits associated with empathy, understanding, and communication. This gave rise to new species, descendants of the wild ones, capable of understanding human languages and speaking languages of their own, with the ability to exchange detailed information and even conceiving abstract ideas. In these societies, humans and other non-human animals are considered to belong to the same community, live together and, above all, communicate with the same ease as in human-human contacts.

From this relationship with animals, many social and cultural consequences flow, including the following:
-Specism has the same function as racism in our societies (political conflicts may deal with which animals are considered members of the community and how members share space and resources);
-Domestication-based social forms tend to be disregarded as slavery-based (because humans take advantage of biological differences to establish a structured domination);
-Veganism is the cultural norm (excluding insects, echinoderms, and mollusca, that are conceived and classified separately from animals in Dumiric taxonomy)
-Empathy is overly developed, generally favoring egalitarian social structures, with less marked gender roles and less social inequality (but this is also associated with the fact that most Dumiric societies are formed by flexibly sedentary hunter-gatherers or gardeners).

I hope this introduction has not bored you yet, because we're now approaching the topic of the post. Linguistically speaking, all the above impacts human languages as well. Want to have fun? Here's a list of the general features of Dumiric languages, guess which ones reflect the particular structure of Dumiric societies:

-Contrast labial, linguolabial and apical consonants;
-Generally 3 or 4 tones;
-Extensive use of infixes;
-Common use of singulative/collective number;
-Trigger system (or Austronesian alignment, whatever you call it);
-Pronouns distinguishing "sapience";
-Noun classes based on physical properties of signifiers;
-Use of classifiers;
-Noun classes indicating abstract concepts inflected for affect;
-Verbs inflected for evidentiality;
-Often have at least one register used to speak with non-human animals;
-Special color terms

Most of those points are still only very sketchy ideas and I've not elaborated the details yet (but feel free to ask more, this could help me to come up with something more fleshy and consistent eventually). Instead, the aim of this post is to outline the phonology of the main language of the Dumiric family - still unnamed, sorry - spoken in mountainous regions of Southern Sidmay and Northern Gilapi, if you are curious. Or rather, to ask for advice about its phonemic inventory. Very basic stuff, actually. Sorry for being potentially boring.

So, here is the set of consonants in X-SAMPA:

Plosives: p b t_N d_N t d k g
Nasals: m n_N n
Fricatives: s z S Z x
Lateral fricatives: K K\
Taps: r <r>
Approximants: j w <y w>

Here are the vowels:

Front: a { i
Back: M u O

And here are the three tones:

Peaking: 354
Rising: 35
Level: 33

Notes:
-no diphthongs are permitted
-the peaking tone also makes the vowel longer

The syllable structure is very simple, CV(m,n,w,j,r) with V being any vowel with any tone. Some restrictions exist for word structure and consonant clusters, but this is boring and I'm not seeking any advice about it. However, please note that:
-syllable final /j/ and /w/ are possible only if V=a,{ or V=a,O, respectively
-a syllable cannot end by /j,w/ if V is a close vowel, so any of /i,M,u/

Okay, now I have several questions to ask, mainly about how plausible this phonemic inventory is:

1) Is it plausible to contrast apical and linguolabial consonants with a so little total number of points of articulations? This is about plosives but also nasals: is it realistic to have a phonemic linguolabial nasal but not a velar one?
2) Do you think the consonant set is "balanced" or are there too many fricatives for a set of 21? Classical Nahuatl has fricatives covering all three points of articulation, but only voiceless ones. Would a whole voiced set be too much? I know Polish has two sets of fricatives (voiceless vs voiced), on three different points of articulation, but there is no /K/ in Polish...
3) Is the phonemic contrast between K and K\ found anywhere across natural languages?
4) At one point I considered adding a third approximant: /H/. Do you think it would be plausible to have three approximants out of 22 consonants, and at those points fo articulation?
5) Is the vowel set "balanced" or do you feel there are too many back vowels, or too many close vowels? (Please note that the /O/ is actually fully mid , not open-mid. Sorry, don't know how to express that in X-SAMPA).
6) Does it make sense to forbid /j,w/ followed by close vowels? Are there natural languages with restrictions like this?
7) I'm very bad at tones and this is the first time I try to make a tonal conlang. Do you think this simple system is fine? Have I used the right notation? Does this even make sense?

What do you all think? Any comment, criticism or suggestion is welcome. Thank you for your help! I hope that this is good as a (re)first post... finger crossed!

Oh and... don't worry for the orthography: I'll find a way out :D

EDIT: I had forgotten to ask question 6.
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Re: Seeking advice about a phonemic inventory

Post by Flavia »

I know Polish has two sets of fricatives (voiceless vs voiced), on three different points of articulatio
Three POAs?
Depending on analysis, Polish has /f v s z ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ x/ or /f v fʲ vʲ s z [sʲ zʲ] ʂ ʐ [ʂʲ ʐʲ] x [xʲ]/, where the [X] are marginal.

---

That empathetization thing is interesting! It reminds me of Uplift series, although that's not genetic modification in your world.

---

Consonants seem realistic, but the vowels do not.
/æ/ is unlikely to be contrasted with /a/, which you marked front (which is a rare vowel). I think the vowel system could be better if you raised the /æ/ and made the /a/ central:
Front: /e_o i/
Central: /a/ (technically [ä])
Back: /o_o u M/
Sorry for the XSAMPA/IPA mix.

EDIT:

No level tones?
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Re: Seeking advice about a phonemic inventory

Post by Piero »

Titus Flavius wrote: 13 Nov 2021 01:59
I know Polish has two sets of fricatives (voiceless vs voiced), on three different points of articulatio
Three POAs?
Depending on analysis, Polish has /f v s z ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ x/ or /f v fʲ vʲ s z [sʲ zʲ] ʂ ʐ [ʂʲ ʐʲ] x [xʲ]/, where the [X] are marginal.
Oh sorry, my bad. I meant that Polish has two sets of fricatives in three different points of articulation belonging to the same "phonological area", so to say, covered by my conlang. My Dumir fricatives are alveolar and palatal, quite close to /s z ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ/ in Polish. But still... Polish can maybe afford it exactly because there are much more consonants ;)
That empathetization thing is interesting! It reminds me of Uplift series, although that's not genetic modification in your world.
Well... yes. Just occurring slower and fully intentionally, but it is still genetic modification (not less than domestication, actually). I had never heard about Uplift, I had a look and it seems interesting. But I'm really terrible with series, I can't follow any of them and I know I'm not following this one either, no matter how cool [:'(]
/æ/ is unlikely to be contrasted with /a/, which you marked front (which is a rare vowel). I think the vowel system could be better if you raised the /æ/ and made the /a/ central
Thank you very much for your suggestion and sorry for mislabeling /a/. I agree with you regarding the a/{ contrast... actually, previously I didn't even want to have /{/ or any other front vowel apart from /i/. Then I added /{/ to have something to counter-balance the presence of too many back vowels. But I'm still unhappy. How would it feel if I just got rid of any e-vowel, keeping just /a i O M u/?
No level tones?
Do you mean something like a low level or high level tone? I don't know, as I said I know very little about tones. As far as I know, several tonal languages, including Mandarin Chinese and Thai, have just one pure level tone despite complex tone systems. Am I getting it wrong?
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Re: Seeking advice about a phonemic inventory

Post by Flavia »

Thank you very much for your suggestion and sorry for mislabeling /a/. I agree with you regarding the a/{ contrast... actually, previously I didn't even want to have /{/ or any other front vowel apart from /i/. Then I added /{/ to have something to counter-balance the presence of too many back vowels. But I'm still unhappy. How would it feel if I just got rid of any e-vowel, keeping just /a i O M u/?
/a i o̞ ɯ u/ is similar to proto-Uto-Aztecan /a i o ɨ u/, however, it’s only a reconstructed language and it isn't 100% sure that the PUA vowel inventory was exactly this; there is also a general tendency for languages to have more front than back vowels, IIRC. But if you really want front /a/ (or /æ/ but it doesn't matter) you have the folloving vowel system:

Code: Select all

i ɯ u
     o̞
æ
, in which you have three close vowels, but the "low" (meaning non-close) vowels are not the same height, one being mid, and other near-open. Vowel system do not have to be entirely symmetric, and I'm sure that a natlang has a similar system.

---

I'm not an expert on tones, but if a language has complex tones, it should also have at least one level tone.
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Re: Seeking advice about a phonemic inventory

Post by Creyeditor »

Your tone invenrory looks like a typical contour tone language. You should have some phonological processes involving tone though. Look at Beijing Mandarin tone sandhi for example.
One thing to keep in mind is that tones are always relative to each other and never absolute. If you don't have any allophonic low tones at all, you could as well re-describe your tone inventory as the following, without any actual change:

Peaking (high): 254
Rising: 25
Level (low): 22
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Re: Seeking advice about a phonemic inventory

Post by Flavia »

Sorry, I didn't notice you already have a level tone!
Can you use IPA (there's a link in my signature to XSAMPA-IPA convertor)?
Question six: I think it makes sense.
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Re: Seeking advice about a phonemic inventory

Post by Piero »

Titus Flavius wrote: 13 Nov 2021 11:51 /a i o̞ ɯ u/ is similar to proto-Uto-Aztecan /a i o ɨ u/, however, it’s only a reconstructed language and it isn't 100% sure that the PUA vowel inventory was exactly this; there is also a general tendency for languages to have more front than back vowels, IIRC. But if you really want front /a/ (or /æ/ but it doesn't matter) you have the folloving vowel system:

Code: Select all

i ɯ u
     o̞
æ
, in which you have three close vowels, but the "low" (meaning non-close) vowels are not the same height, one being mid, and other near-open. Vowel system do not have to be entirely symmetric, and I'm sure that a natlang has a similar system.
Thank you for the good news! Nice to know that a natlang may have worked similarly. Regarding /a/, no, I don't really want it front, it was my mistake: "normally" central /a/ is what I meant and is fine for this Dumiric language [:)] This would still be unbalanced toward back vowels though. Maybe the solution is really to add /E/ or a close sound back to the inventory, or maybe /y/ (but this would make everything unbalanced toward close vowels perhaps?)

As a side note, in my first draft I had the approximant /H/ besides /w/ and /j/. I then deleted it because I thought it was unnatural to have a /H/ without /y/ as a "corresponding" vowel nor any consonant in the same POA. Do you think it makes sense or have I ruled /H/ out too quickly?
Creyeditor wrote: Your tone invenrory looks like a typical contour tone language. You should have some phonological processes involving tone though. Look at Beijing Mandarin tone sandhi for example.
Is tone sandhi something systematically occurring in tonal languages? Aren't there tonal languages with just fixed tones? As I said, I know very little about these processes. I'll have a look at Mandarin as example, thank you very much!
One thing to keep in mind is that tones are always relative to each other and never absolute. If you don't have any allophonic low tones at all, you could as well re-describe your tone inventory as the following, without any actual change:

Peaking (high): 254
Rising: 25
Level (low): 22
I had not even thought about tone allophony. Is there any tendency to have allophonic low tones in specific conditions?

Also, if it works like this, then wouldn't it be the same thing to write it as peaking 132, rising 13, and level 11?
Titus Flavius wrote:Sorry, I didn't notice you already have a level tone!
Can you use IPA (there's a link in my signature to XSAMPA-IPA convertor)?
No worries at all, quite the contrary: thank you for your help!
And regarding IPA, do you mean for tones? I guess it should be like this: level ˨, rising ˩˥, peaking ˧˦˨
But I find IPA notation for tones quite vague...
Question six: I think it makes sense.
Yay!
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Re: Seeking advice about a phonemic inventory

Post by Flavia »

Pier0 wrote: 14 Nov 2021 01:41 No worries at all, quite the contrary: thank you for your help!
And regarding IPA, do you mean for tones? I guess it should be like this: level ˨, rising ˩˥, peaking ˧˦˨
But I find IPA notation for tones quite vague...
No, IPA is just more legible than X-SAMPA.
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Re: Seeking advice about a phonemic inventory

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Pier0 wrote: 14 Nov 2021 01:41
Creyeditor wrote: Your tone invenrory looks like a typical contour tone language. You should have some phonological processes involving tone though. Look at Beijing Mandarin tone sandhi for example.
Is tone sandhi something systematically occurring in tonal languages? Aren't there tonal languages with just fixed tones? As I said, I know very little about these processes. I'll have a look at Mandarin as example, thank you very much!
There are no languages where all tones are fixed in all contexts, just like there are no languages where all consonants and vowels are fixed in all contexts.

One thing to keep in mind is that tones are always relative to each other and never absolute. If you don't have any allophonic low tones at all, you could as well re-describe your tone inventory as the following, without any actual change:

Peaking (high): 254
Rising: 25
Level (low): 22
Pier0 wrote: 14 Nov 2021 01:41 I had not even thought about tone allophony. Is there any tendency to have allophonic low tones in specific conditions?
Two processes that come to mind are dissimilation and reduction. In many Bantu languages, a sequence of two seperate high tones is changed such that one of them becomes a low tone. This is also known as Meussen's Rule.
In Chinese-style tone sandhi on the other hand, tones are often reduced in some kind of non-prominent position (e.g. the neutral tone in Beijing Mandarin). This can also lead to low tones.
Pier0 wrote: 14 Nov 2021 01:41 Also, if it works like this, then wouldn't it be the same thing to write it as peaking 132, rising 13, and level 11?
Yes [:)]
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Re: Seeking advice about a phonemic inventory

Post by Salmoneus »

Pier0 wrote: 13 Nov 2021 01:32 On Earth, the human species has domesticated certain animal and plant species, selecting specific traits that were especially convenient for food production. Domestication exists throughout all the Continent, but a fortunate accident of nature allowed another parallel process to take place in the limited case of Dumiric societies: instead of domestication, “empathetization” occurred, selecting traits associated with empathy, understanding, and communication. This gave rise to new species, descendants of the wild ones, capable of understanding human languages and speaking languages of their own, with the ability to exchange detailed information and even conceiving abstract ideas. In these societies, humans and other non-human animals are considered to belong to the same community, live together and, above all, communicate with the same ease as in human-human contacts.
This seems a little bit backwards to me.

In real life, domestication WAS focused on traits associated with empathy. As a result, dogs have more empathy for humans than other humans do! Even horses are more empathetic than humans. Dogs (and to a lesser extent, but still far more than almost any non-domesticated species) are far better at both discerning and empathetically experiencing the emotions of humans they are bonded to than humans. Dogs are better at detecting lies, they're better at predicting behaviour, they're better at changing their own behaviour in response to a human's emotional state; they can calculate a human's blood sugar levels, or whether they're about to have an epileptic fit, or how much pain they're in. They're supernatural at knowing what a human wants at any given moment. The famous example of this with horses is a horse known as Clever Hans, who was able to accurate solve complex arithmetical questions, complete calendrical computations, differentiate musical tones, and accurately read and spell German - except he wasn't, he was just preternaturally good at judging what response his owner wanted from him (when his owner worked out the answers ahead of time and was present when Hans was questions, Hans was amazing at answering the questions, by judging imperceptible, unintended microcues from his owner; when his owner was not present or didn't know the answer, Hans was useless).

[well, empathy, selective violence, and stamina in running. It's not a coincidence that the only two species that can rival the long-distance running abilities of humans are horses and domesticated dogs]

But this empathy doesn't just not make them intelligent, it actively prevents them from being intelligent. Linguistic intelligence is largely an evolutionary compensation for the human LACK of empathy (or the lack of empathy is caused by language). Humans are worse at empathy than almost any social animal, and even some non-social animals. It's perhaps one of our defining traits as a species. And this makes sense if you think about it: language and empathy are two different and opposite solutions to the same problem. I want to tell you how I feel: so I can rely on you to work out what I feel on the basis of microcues and extrapolation from your own feelings; or I can just tell you. The better you are at knowing what I feel, the less need I have of telling you; conversely, the better I am at telling you how I feel, the less need you have of resorting to empathy to work it out.

[the great advantage of language over empathy is that empathy makes it very difficult to lie, whereas language makes lying very easy. This both enables more complex social structures and triggers an arms race in intelligence, as my desire to lie and your desire not to be lied to force us both to become more and more intelligent; but no matter how smart you are, it's almost impossible to lie to a clever dog, or to Clever Hans...]

So I would expect that if Dumiric dogs were even more empathetic than our dogs, they'd be even less likely to bother learning language...
-Veganism is the cultural norm (excluding insects, echinoderms, and mollusca, that are conceived and classified separately from animals in Dumiric taxonomy)
Are you implying that ALL non-insects have been domesticated? If not, why would more intelligent domestic animals mean more veganism? For one thing, there would still be a bright line between sapient and insapient creatures, just as we have, but more so. Why would dogs being smarter mean you couldn't eat cats, or vice versa? And for another, while not eating sentient creatures seems to make sense, veganism would surely be condemned in this society as a form of racism. Why shouldn't, for example, cows be allowed to sell their milk? If cows were intelligent, wouldn't it be immoral to force them into unemployment, poverty and starvation by refusing to drink milk? [after all, for most of history it's been possible to buy or rent women to provide milk to newborns...]
-Empathy is overly developed, generally favoring egalitarian social structures, with less marked gender roles and less social inequality
I'm not sure of the connexion here. If anything, wouldn't the opposite be true? Egalitarianism is the result of individualism, which tends to indicate a lack of trust, which in turn reflects failures of empathy. Wouldn't, for example, a weaver be more happy with their work if they could more viscerally experience the pleasure felt by those who bought and wore their garments?
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Re: Seeking advice about a phonemic inventory

Post by Piero »

Creyeditor wrote: 14 Nov 2021 17:30 There are no languages where all tones are fixed in all contexts, just like there are no languages where all consonants and vowels are fixed in all contexts.
Okay, so is tonal sandhi something occurring for allophony, or for morphophonology? Or does it apply also to the standard phonology of any tonal language? For example are there necessarily rules like, say, "two consecutive syllables cannot have high tone"?
I had not even thought about tone allophony. Is there any tendency to have allophonic low tones in specific conditions?
Two processes that come to mind are dissimilation and reduction. In many Bantu languages, a sequence of two seperate high tones is changed such that one of them becomes a low tone. This is also known as Meussen's Rule.
In Chinese-style tone sandhi on the other hand, tones are often reduced in some kind of non-prominent position (e.g. the neutral tone in Beijing Mandarin). This can also lead to low tones.
Same here: is this something that belongs to phonology or only morphophonology?
Thank you very much, I will surely have a closer look at all of this!
Salmoneus wrote: 14 Nov 2021 17:51This seems a little bit backwards to me.
Thank you Salmoneus, those are very good questions that push me to elaborate further and clarify some points that I had not considered that ambiguous. I'll try to answer point-by-point.

As a first general remark, I will say that I am not sure whether the description I provided before was clear enough: I wanted just to outline the bio-cultural background so I realize that I omitted some essential information. I am thinking about domestication and empathetization as two distinct processes that have not involved the same species. Precisely, empathetization has given rise to five new species (two bird and three mammal species) and there is no overlap with domesticated species, because I am considering the two processes as incompatible (maybe wrongly, who knows.. after all this is fantasy!) Therefore, there are no Dumiric dogs or cows. I am assuming that domestication and empathetization are incompatible because the former puts the domesticated animal under human control, whereas the latter somehow holds the involved species, including humans, "at the same level". This is reflected by the cultural representation of the six species, where no one of them is unquestionable master of the others .
In real life, domestication WAS focused on traits associated with empathy. As a result, dogs have more empathy for humans than other humans do! Even horses are more empathetic than humans. Dogs (and to a lesser extent, but still far more than almost any non-domesticated species) are far better at both discerning and empathetically experiencing the emotions of humans they are bonded to than humans. Dogs are better at detecting lies, they're better at predicting behaviour, they're better at changing their own behaviour in response to a human's emotional state; they can calculate a human's blood sugar levels, or whether they're about to have an epileptic fit, or how much pain they're in. They're supernatural at knowing what a human wants at any given moment. The famous example of this with horses is a horse known as Clever Hans, who was able to accurate solve complex arithmetical questions, complete calendrical computations, differentiate musical tones, and accurately read and spell German - except he wasn't, he was just preternaturally good at judging what response his owner wanted from him (when his owner worked out the answers ahead of time and was present when Hans was questions, Hans was amazing at answering the questions, by judging imperceptible, unintended microcues from his owner; when his owner was not present or didn't know the answer, Hans was useless).
I guess we are starting from different assumptions. What do you exactly mean by empathy? Here, I mean the capacity to place oneself in another's position making less distinct the differences between the self and the other. I am not sure that throughout the process of domestication animals were specifically selected for empathy, as they were for docility. As far as I know, domesticated species generally have smaller brains, simplified behavior patterns, extended immaturity, passivity, however they display increased milk production, egg production, possibly hair production and the like. The behavioural changes seem to be associated to an increased control by humans. I can understand what you say about empathy for dogs and horses, but this was functional to direct and dominate them, which kept being the primary goal. But I am not sure this is generally true for domesticated species like sheep, silkworm, chicken or cattle.
But this empathy doesn't just not make them intelligent, it actively prevents them from being intelligent. Linguistic intelligence is largely an evolutionary compensation for the human LACK of empathy (or the lack of empathy is caused by language). Humans are worse at empathy than almost any social animal, and even some non-social animals. It's perhaps one of our defining traits as a species. And this makes sense if you think about it: language and empathy are two different and opposite solutions to the same problem. I want to tell you how I feel: so I can rely on you to work out what I feel on the basis of microcues and extrapolation from your own feelings; or I can just tell you. The better you are at knowing what I feel, the less need I have of telling you; conversely, the better I am at telling you how I feel, the less need you have of resorting to empathy to work it out.
[the great advantage of language over empathy is that empathy makes it very difficult to lie, whereas language makes lying very easy. This both enables more complex social structures and triggers an arms race in intelligence, as my desire to lie and your desire not to be lied to force us both to become more and more intelligent; but no matter how smart you are, it's almost impossible to lie to a clever dog, or to Clever Hans...]
Again, I think we are referring to different things using the same word. I like the way you put it, I had never thought as empathy and intelligence as two opposite poles! I find this very interesting. Still, I don’t think we are meaning the same thing by “empathy”.
Also, your assumption that intelligence develops as a way to overcome the risk of being lied to doesn’t convince me. It somehow assumes that language originated before intelligence, because you are not forced to become intelligent without previously existing lies but lies cannot exist without language.
-Veganism is the cultural norm (excluding insects, echinoderms, and mollusca, that are conceived and classified separately from animals in Dumiric taxonomy)
Are you implying that ALL non-insects have been domesticated? If not, why would more intelligent domestic animals mean more veganism? For one thing, there would still be a bright line between sapient and insapient creatures, just as we have, but more so. Why would dogs being smarter mean you couldn't eat cats, or vice versa?
Okay, good point. I think this was not clear even to me! As I imagined it, they don’t eat animals nor exploit their products (which are not very interesting, after all, because these species have not been selected for, say, producing milk of better quality or thicker fur) because belonging to same society as non-human individuals undermines the idea that humans have superior rights to control the bodies and products of other species.

If you thought that the human species is not “special” but just one among other species, why would you exploit individuals of other species at a greater degree than human individuals? If a non-human animal can live more or less like you, share feelings with you as well as a great amount of traditional knowledge and cultural background, but at the same time tell you in detail about their experience of the world, which is physiologically different... wouldn’t you be more likely to think that other animals may potentially have a similar degree of consciousness, although they express it in ways different from speaking, and in general different from yours? That is why in their view the idea of exploiting or eating other individuals is just less acceptable, regardless of the sapience of animals.

You may point out that cannibalism is a thing, and you would be right. I am outlining a general overview, but no society is monolithic (and even less so is a “cultural area”)... so I’m not excluding it [;)]
And for another, while not eating sentient creatures seems to make sense, veganism would surely be condemned in this society as a form of racism. Why shouldn't, for example, cows be allowed to sell their milk? If cows were intelligent, wouldn't it be immoral to force them into unemployment, poverty and starvation by refusing to drink milk? [after all, for most of history it's been possible to buy or rent women to provide milk to newborns...]
So, as I said, there is no food product obtained from empathetized species, hence no Dumiric cows feeling discriminated for not being able to sell their milk. I do not imagine veganism as a real choice here: the main reason why they don’t eat animal products is that they mostly don’t have them. At least, technically not in sufficient quantity. Imagine to base our standard everyday diet on human milk... this would never be enough: milk supply in human societies is sustained by domesticated animals and would just not exist without them. In addition, I guess there would be very strict moral lines limiting consumption of milk produced by individuals within societies (just think about this in our world: as far as I know, no culture normally allows regular consumption of human milk by adult individuals). As for eggs, I guess this would be possibly acceptable for some species, but surely not birds: too similar to your neighbour’s babies!
--Empathy is overly developed, generally favoring egalitarian social structures, with less marked gender roles and less social inequality
I'm not sure of the connexion here. If anything, wouldn't the opposite be true? Egalitarianism is the result of individualism, which tends to indicate a lack of trust, which in turn reflects failures of empathy. Wouldn't, for example, a weaver be more happy with their work if they could more viscerally experience the pleasure felt by those who bought and wore their garments?
I think that we are assuming very different definitions for what “egalitarian” actually means. You say egalitarianism is a result of individualism, while I would say literally the opposite. If true, the US should be the most egalitarian society in human history. Which I would say is surely not true.

In any case, just to clarify what the connection is as I imagine it: I assumed that broader biological diversity within Dumiric societies would highlight similarities between individuals of different species, bonding them to each other; at the same time, this would also underline biological differences between species, leading individuals to recognise what they have in common between each other within the same species, thus minimising intra-specific differences and ultimately increasing closeness among humans. This should be regarded as a later step, occurring after the first tens of thousands years of empathetization.

Wow, sorry, I realise I wrote really a lot. Thank you for these questions anyways! I enjoyed answering.
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Re: Seeking advice about a phonemic inventory

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Pier0 wrote: 16 Nov 2021 01:58
Creyeditor wrote: 14 Nov 2021 17:30 There are no languages where all tones are fixed in all contexts, just like there are no languages where all consonants and vowels are fixed in all contexts.
Okay, so is tonal sandhi something occurring for allophony, or for morphophonology? Or does it apply also to the standard phonology of any tonal language? For example are there necessarily rules like, say, "two consecutive syllables cannot have high tone"?
I had not even thought about tone allophony. Is there any tendency to have allophonic low tones in specific conditions?
Two processes that come to mind are dissimilation and reduction. In many Bantu languages, a sequence of two seperate high tones is changed such that one of them becomes a low tone. This is also known as Meussen's Rule.
In Chinese-style tone sandhi on the other hand, tones are often reduced in some kind of non-prominent position (e.g. the neutral tone in Beijing Mandarin). This can also lead to low tones.
Same here: is this something that belongs to phonology or only morphophonology?
Thank you very much, I will surely have a closer look at all of this!
Phonological as well as morphophonological tonal processes exist. Chinese-style Tone Sandhi is usually morphonology. Meussen's Rule can be either, depending on the language. Note, however, that it often interacts opaquely with so-called tone spreading. A famous example of a purely phonological tonal process is automatic downstep. A high tone following a low tone is slightly lower than a high tone preceding the low tone in several languages of Africa.
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