Introductory linguistics for conlangers

[Tanni]

The truth is, there will never be enough conlanging resources. No one resource can say it all, and there will always be a conlanger who needs a different approach, a new way of looking at things.

Apart from minor differences, I wonder how many different approaches there are?

Phonetics and Phonology

I would then go into a basic description of phones, phonemes, etc. However, this description would probably differ from the traditional table of places and manners of articulation.

Besides your approach, I additonally would provide the ''traditional'' version.

Phonemes are not the same as phones; while phones are raw vocal sounds, phonemes are more like groups of mental distinctions between speech sounds of different kinds.

I wouldn't use the bold term in an intorductory text for similar reasons I rejected the term ''set of mental rules'' in a text for conlanging novices. And what exactly are ''raw vocal sounds? This might not be clear to a beginner.

This paragraph from "How to create a language" by Pablo David Flores is what I wanted to emphasis in phonetics/phonology.

The immense (actually infinitely dense) range of possible sounds that a human being can produce are called phones. Each particular position of the lips, tongue, and other features in our organs of speech can be thought of a point in a multidimensional continuum. Given two positions of the tongue with respect to the interior of the mouth, there is always a position in the middle, and so on. Remember the real numbers from school?

In an introductory text, to my mind, you should give an overview of the topic, not going too much into depth. How would your emphasis in that would look like?

A beginner needs not to know every detail. This is boring, because it makes you think that that details are important, which they aren't. Remember, it's just a hobby, and many of your readers will be pupils most likely. (If somebody really needs a conlang, e.g. for a movie, he most likely would ask professionals to do the job.)

In the story framework I provided, you could go in depth on every topic in steps. This would be way better for learning than giving it all in one chunk in one chapter. Generally, there could be summaries, of course. Or Sandy tries to make such summaries for learning. (I recommend you to google for 'Ranschburg inhibition'. Roughly said, it meens that being exposed to many things differing only in minor details, i.e. things which are similar, will actually keep you from really learning them.)

I would have focused on distinctive features and their use as the basis of contrasts between different phonemes. Here I could have brought up how different languages make use of different distinctive features, e.g. some (like French) distinguish vowel nasalization while others do not.

Ok, but see above.

All in all, I wanted to portray phonology as a space that the conlanger can fill in. The phonetic space has different dimensions and the conlanger can choose which points along those dimensions will be significant, defining phonological spaces that are language specific.

Totally agreed!

Every language has its own sets of distinctions, and no language can be judged by the distinctions or contrasts of another language. Many people forget this, or don't understand it, and their ignorance and misunderstanding gives rise to what is called linguistic prescriptivism, ...

Agreed!

... the idea that there is one right way to talk or write, and it must be enforced.

Ok, you could talk and write the way you like, but if you wanna be understood by others, you need at least a certain amount of what you here call ''prescriptivism''. And as it is very annoying to be constantly forced to figure out what the other means because of using unusual orthography, you will appreciate having a well developed set of orthographical rules enforced. And remember, it can be very interesting to be able to read texts form hunderts of years ago because of a conservative orthography.

The basic theme of this resource would be that all languages use (or are composed of) "rules" to produce utterances. These rules can be used to describe any level of language structure, from phonology to syntax to lexicon.

Again, I wouldn't emphasis so much on ''rules that languages use'' in an introductory text. A language cannot ''use'' a rule, it can be described by rules, or utterances can be produced by ''rules''. Thing is, that it is quite convenient to look at a language as some kind of person, but this can be confusing to beginners. If you want rules for describing language or generating utterances, then it's ok!

I already mentioned the different kinds of rules I was going to cover:

1. Contrasts, e.g. vowel roundedness vs lack of roundedness. These kinds of rules would be based on features and their presence or absence.
2. Constitutions, e.g. "S -> NP VP". These kinds of rules would define one thing as the some other things arranged a certain way.
3. Transformations, e.g. "s > z /[+voiced]_#". These rules would cover sound changes, morphophonemic alternations, etc.
4. Paradigms, e.g. verb paradigms in Latin. Pretty self explanatory.

Would be great if that could be incorporated in my story!

Language description is commonly divided into subfields along a structural axis, from the smallest structural elements to the largest. We start at the "bottom" with phonology, and move up in scale to morphology, syntax, lexis, and pragmatics. Each field has its own terminology, its own problems to be solved and methods for solving them.

Nothing wrong with that, but more appropriate to a linguistics university student than a pupil starting with conlanging.

But the divisions between the terminology and methods of description used in each field were daunting for me as a novice conlanger and student of language. If I could unite the description used phonology (for example) with that used in morphology, I think I would be doing other novice conlangers a service.

Can you explain more on that?

[Tanni]

Basic structure of a Collaborative Conlanging Introduction Modul

A module of the Collaborative Conlang Introduction Project could consist at least of the following sections:

1. Preparing the trip
   
   For the first few trips, Sandy will not need to do much preparations. The wizard gives her some basic conworlding information about the planet as is length of day and year, number of moons, wheather conditions, dangerous plants and animals etc. and about the conpeople itself.
   
   After the first few trips, the wizard will give her some books where she can get said informations. She needs that for knowing which things she must take with her to be able to survive at their destination. The wizard can check her being prepared by asking her something about the conworld. This could be in form of some examination at the beginning, but should better be done in form of taking about the next trip. Or Sandy can come up by herself with the informations to show that she is prepared and eager to go there. Later, he could add more mathematical information like its mass, the mass and distance of its moons, distance to sun, etc. and give some equations. During the course of the story, Sandy will get better in preparing a trip.
2. Going into the conworld
   
   The wizard won't accompany them every time, even if he wants to. This is for the bare fact that he has to correct French tests or needs to go shopping, visit relatives, friends, wizard's conventions etc., is ill or has to take care of some pet.
   
   If it's just Sandy and the spider, they can ride on the back of the demon, who, of course, has got wings to fly them into the conworld. The demon could also use a winged horse etc. to get them there.
   
   If the wizard does accompany them, they must enter a cage or similar and the demon carries it in his claws while flying. After arrival, they go out, and the demon will leave. The cage stays at the place. It is also possible that the demon retuns with the wizard, leaving Sandy and Yrrgamul in the conworld. In that case, the wizard will place his hat at the point where they will return.
3. Adventures in the conworld
   
   The demon asks them to get some weird artefact form every conworld, so that the story can revolve around getting it. (He collects this artefacts and shows them to other demons to proof how many conworlds he already has brought a conlanger to.) This requires Sandy to learn at least some basic sentences of the conlang belonging to that world, and in doing so, she discovers different linguistic features.
   
   Sandy and Yrrgamul are not allowed (and it is not convenient) to take the wizard's hat with them on their explorations into the conworld. (The wizard explains, that, as it is a magical procedure, you can only leave where you have entered.) So, after finishing the trip, they must return to the point where they have left the hat. It could have been taken away by some con-being, so that Sandy and the spider need to first search for the hat and bring it back to the point where they arrived. This way, they can encounter other conpeople, learning their language to ask for the hat, in order to return.
   
   Sometimes, the demon will stay with them while exploring the conworld. This is especially when they visit a conworld inhabited by demons.
4. Returning from the conworld
   
   If they want to return, they need to go back to the cage or the hat and summon the demon again. On the hat may be a summoning horn (see the novel Bartimäus) to call the demon. He will then appear (maybe after some waiting because he also has to do other things) and brings them back. Strange things can happen while waiting for a demon ...
   
   After having returned, they talk about their adventures. Before leaving the wizards house, Sandy gets some material for the next trip.
5. Back at home
   
   At home form each trip, Sandy tries to write down and summarizes her experiences. (The wizard strongly recommends that to her after their first trip.)
   
   This is the place for comparing linguistc features, working out grammar, updating conlang lexica, reasoning about what words she needs for her own conlang, and learning on programs useful to conlanging and making documentations. Here, Sandy can learn some formalisms, i.e. the different kinds of rules jseamus wants to cover. (That means that Sandy reads explanations of that formalisms and tries to use it to describe the things she explored in the conworlds or the features of her own conlang. Yrrgamul will help her by pointing out her flaws and misunderstandings. So again, there is a dialog explaining complicated theoretical issues. This could be described from Sandys or Yrrgamuls perspective.)
6. Exercises
   
   Here there are some (interactive) exercises to pass on to the next module.

Going into and returning form the conworlds should be a little different every time. They must pass through some weird medium/aether. Possible names for that medium: aether of boredom, the boring void, ...

So, if you have a conworld and want to participate, this general module structure will help you to write your story to fit into the whole project.

Things they can do in the conworlds:

• Solving (linguistic) riddles.
  
  Linguistic topics covered: choose any topic you like
• Tracing back sound changes to decipher an ancient text.
  
  Linguistic topics covered: sound changes, diachronics.
• Searching for ingredients for coocking some wierd conworld dishes or preparing some medicine or a potion.
  
  Linguistic topics covered: numbers, number systems, classifiers.
• Reconstruct some old spells in a grimoire where there are holes in the pages made by insects or mice to help the conpeople fighting a danger.
  
  Linguistic topics covered: sound changes, morphology, inflection paradigms.
• Participate in a conworld's lyric competiton.
  
  Linguistic topics covered: Translating into a conlang.