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

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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by shimobaatar »

yangfiretiger121 wrote: 03 Sep 2018 19:35 Both answers are "no." Thus, it's allophony. However, would /h/ or /ʔ/ be the parent phoneme? Considering [ʔ]'s limited distribution, /h/ seems to be the parent phoneme. Yet, I'd like confirmation before outlining the subject's allophony rules.
Yeah, I'd represent the phoneme as /h/, since the allophone [h] can be described as occurring "everywhere else" in relation to the other allophone, [ʔ].
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Post by Odkidstr »

I'm confused about how to create my derivational morphology (is that the right word?). Basically how to make nouns into verbs, verbs into nouns, etc.

It seems like, generally, English just uses the word with no sort of inflection. Do a lot of languages do this? For instance, shine (n) vs shine (v). Or would it be more likely that they would use something like a suffix to indicate the change (such as -ly for adverbs)?

I assume that many languages might all do this by inflecting the word as it would be if it were that category (so shine-Nom vs shine-PFV).

Basically just wanting to know the more common ways this is done. If it helps, the conlang I'm working on has agreement in number and case between adjectives & nouns, while verbs have little to no marking (and adverbs have no marking).
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

Yes, a lot of languages do indeed use “zero-derivation”.
You can look it up and find some examples.
(Now that you know what “they” call it!)
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Post by Salmoneus »

One problem with zero-derivation is that it's paradoxically quite restrictive. It leaves ambiguous just how, semantically, the derivative is related to the source, which means that, while sometimes you get polysemous derivatives, often the derivative's meaning is fixed and has to be learnt word-by-word, with little room for easy further derivation from the same source.

So, for instance "to dog s.o." means "to act like a dog toward s.o.", and specifically in the sense of following them. Other forms of acting like a dog aren't covered. Likewise, it can't be used for "to treat s.o. like a dog", "to set a dog upon s.o.", "to gift a dog to s.o.", "to remove a dog from s.o.", "to send s.o. to live among dogs", etc. [it also leads to potential awkwardness with the entirely different meaning used in the intransitive...]

English often gets around this by resorting to its extensive synonyms and near-synonyms. So, for instance, "to roof" is "to put a sheltering roof over", whereas "to shelter" is "to act as a sheltering roof toward", and "to ceiling" is "to be obstructed in upward travel as though by a roof".

A language with more complex derivation, then, can often do without so many unanalysable roots, becaus they can be less ambiguously and more productive derived.

On the other hand, many affixes eventually wear away. And many languages will have derivativational affixes of relative vague meaning, which can then become default affixes, which can become sole affixes, so that the value of non-zero-derivation is lost, and those affixes can wear away or fuse into the root.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by lsd »

Salmoneus wrote: 04 Sep 2018 14:05 It leaves ambiguous just how, semantically, the derivative is related to the source, which means that, while sometimes you get polysemous derivatives, often the derivative's meaning is fixed and has to be learnt word-by-word, with little room for easy further derivation from the same source.
That's how languages do: any compound is more than the sum of the combined roots ...
the proper of languages is to baptize every occurrence of the world ...
Except, perhaps, a priori languages (in the classical sense ...) that are not baptist languages ...
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by yangfiretiger121 »

My conlang will reintroduce <l> via influence from a Greek-inspired Creole. Is cold insertion (Leonidas, for example), re-lateralization (Lizolda [ʎi.zo.ʎdɑ]→Jizojda [ʝi.zo.ʝdɑ]→Lizolda [li.zo.ldɑ]), or some combination of the two the best way of doing so considering <l> only survived to prevent exact pairing (ji [ʝi] (they (sg.)) and li [ʝi] (ten), for example)?
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Post by Reyzadren »

Odkidstr wrote: 04 Sep 2018 01:24I assume that many languages might all do this by inflecting the word as it would be if it were that category (so shine-Nom vs shine-PFV).
In the realm of conlangs, that isn't always true though. I've seen conlangs that have things like house-PST that result in a noun with tense, instead of a verb.

Also, in another natlang that I speak, there are things that apparently resemble "meaningless affixes" that can be applied to words from any category, so in these situations, one wouldn't know what the result is.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

wife-PST for exwife
wife-FUT for fiancée
wife-POTENTIAL for potential wife (duh!)
wife-MIRATIVE for “I shouldn’t have gotten drunk in Las Vegas!”
Etc. ... verbal inflections applied to nouns.
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Post by lsd »

that's what I do...
but in my defense, I do not have verbs ...
in truth I do not have names either ...
just roots...
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Ahzoh »

How do I turn /a ə ɨ/ into /a ɒ e ø i y ɤ o ɯ u/? I have tried many strategies but nothing seems to work to the intended effect and I am at a complete loss. Additionally the later inventory is supposed to have vowel harmony with all vowels having front harmony with the first vowel of a word.

The language starts with this consonant inventory:
/m mˠ/
/b bˠ t̪ t̪ˠ d̪ d̪ˠ t tˠ d dˠ ʈ ʈˠ ɖ ɖˠ k kˠ g gˠ/
/t̪͡s̪ t̪͡s̪ˠ d̪͡z̪ d̪͡z̪ˠ t͡s t͡sˠ d͡z d͡zˠ ʈ͡ʂ ʈ͡ʂˠ ɖ͡ʐ ɖ͡ʐˠ/
/f fˠ s̪ s̪ˠ z̪ z̪ˠ s sˠ z zˠ ʂ ʂˠ ʐ ʐˠ ħ ʕ/
And these allophonic rules:
/ɨ/:
[e] after laryngeal consonants
[ i] after plain coronal consonants
[ɨ] after velarized coronal consonants
[ɯ] after velar consonants
[ u] after labial consonants
/ə/:
[æ] after laryngeal consonants
[e] after plain coronal consonants
[ə] after velarized coronal consonants
[ɤ] after velar consonants
[o] after labial consonants
/a/:
[æ] after laryngeal consonants
[æ] after plain coronal consonants
[ä] after velarized coronal consonants
[ɑ] after velar consonants
[ɒ] after labial consonants
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by this_is_an_account »

I've got an idea for a vowel system, but I'm not sure it's naturalistic. Basically, each vowel can be either heavy or light. The first heavy syllable (or first light syllable if their aren't any heavy ones) gets stressed. For example, take these made up words (in which heavy vowels are marked with acute accents) and them again with a suffix:
ant [ˈant], ant-á [an.ˈta]
ánt [ˈant], ánt-á [ˈan.ta]
Do any natlangs do something like this?
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Post by All4Ɇn »

this_is_an_account wrote: 06 Sep 2018 06:05 I've got an idea for a vowel system, but I'm not sure it's naturalistic. Basically, each vowel can be either heavy or light. The first heavy syllable (or first light syllable if their aren't any heavy ones) gets stressed. For example, take these made up words (in which heavy vowels are marked with acute accents) and them again with a suffix:
ant [ˈant], ant-á [an.ˈta]
ánt [ˈant], ánt-á [ˈan.ta]
Do any natlangs do something like this?
Are there any sound changes that created this heavy-light distinction? If so then there are certainly languages with similar situations. In Yaqui some words starting with a long vowel move the stress over to the second syllable when grammatical suffixes are added. When the stress is moved, the first vowel of the word (even if it's the one that was once long) is then is shortened. I could easily a system similar to this being extrapolated to your language [:)]
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Zekoslav »

this_is_an_account wrote: 06 Sep 2018 06:05 I've got an idea for a vowel system, but I'm not sure it's naturalistic. Basically, each vowel can be either heavy or light. The first heavy syllable (or first light syllable if their aren't any heavy ones) gets stressed. For example, take these made up words (in which heavy vowels are marked with acute accents) and them again with a suffix:
ant [ˈant], ant-á [an.ˈta]
ánt [ˈant], ánt-á [ˈan.ta]
Do any natlangs do something like this?
This is exactly how Proto-Balto-Slavic is thought to have worked (In fact I'm about to write a thread about it), and is completely naturalistic. From a phonetical perspective, "heavy" vowels could be long, or have a high tone, or the distinction could simply be underlying and surface only in the position of stress.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Pabappa »

Ahzoh wrote: 06 Sep 2018 04:31 How do I turn /a ə ɨ/ into /a ɒ e ø i y ɤ o ɯ u/? I have tried many strategies but nothing seems to work to the intended effect and I am at a complete loss. Additionally the later inventory is supposed to have vowel harmony with all vowels having front harmony with the first vowel of a word.
You may find some inspiration at http://www.frathwiki.com/Baeba_Swamp#Vowels , though I caution that I wrote this quite a long time ago, and except for one recent touchup, Ive abandoned the project and don't remember any of the sound changes I was intending to have.

Does your language have phonemic /j/ and /w/? What types of clusters are allowed? You could perhaps grow new /j/ and /w/ from consonant elision, and then make new vowels from these. If you can get to a state where you have contrasts like /ɨ/ vs /ɨw/ vs /ɨj/, you'd be in a good position to spread your vowels throughout the space.

I would consider reworking your allophony from scratch. If contrasts like [e]~[ i]~[ɯ] are dependent on the place of articulation of the preceding consonant, these vowels are very unlikely to be phonemicized, since to do so you would need to merge /b d g/ all into one sound. Also, to add [ u], you would need to lose the laryngeals by either shifting them to silence or merging with other consonants. Sorry, but I just dont think those rules can be saved. They may be stable for the protolanguage, but for a daughter language to undergo shifts that would introduce all those new vowels, the allophony would need to change to something not based on the primary PoA.

If this language allows robust codas, i would suggest deriving new diphthongs from the coda consonants, and then shifting these into new monophthongs. alternatively, delete weak medial consonants instead and reduce the number of syllables in such words by one. i know I was planning to have Baeba get its vowels mostly from diphthongs .... e.g. /əi ə əu/ > /e ə o/, and /ai a au/ > /æ a ɒ/. These would arise after the deletion of voiced medial consonants and perhaps some voiceless ones. If you did something similar, you could have a nine-vowel square of /æ a ɒ/ + /e ɤ o/ + /i ɯ u/, an d then pull the two front rounded vowels /ø y/ from some other process.
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Post by this_is_an_account »

All4Ɇn wrote: 06 Sep 2018 09:57 Are there any sound changes that created this heavy-light distinction? If so then there are certainly languages with similar situations. In Yaqui some words starting with a long vowel move the stress over to the second syllable when grammatical suffixes are added. When the stress is moved, the first vowel of the word (even if it's the one that was once long) is then is shortened. I could easily a system similar to this being extrapolated to your language [:)]
That makes sense. I'll probably have these heavy vowels come from long vowels that were shortened, but left the stress where it was.
Zekoslav wrote: 06 Sep 2018 11:28 This is exactly how Proto-Balto-Slavic is thought to have worked (In fact I'm about to write a thread about it), and is completely naturalistic. From a phonetical perspective, "heavy" vowels could be long, or have a high tone, or the distinction could simply be underlying and surface only in the position of stress.
Good to know there is a language that (theoretically) did this already [:)]



New question: Imagine a conlang that allows clusters of any two consonants for the coda of a syllable, including two of the same consonant. This conlang also has geminate consonants. This creates pairs of words like, for example, /amm/ and /amː/. These are both pronounced [amː]. The only way these are distinguished is when you add infixes, which are inserted before the final consonant of the coda. With the infix </ja/>, the two words above become /amjam/ and /ajamː/ respectively. Is this naturalistic?
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Post by cedh »

this_is_an_account wrote: 07 Sep 2018 06:33 New question: Imagine a conlang that allows clusters of any two consonants for the coda of a syllable, including two of the same consonant. This conlang also has geminate consonants. This creates pairs of words like, for example, /amm/ and /amː/. These are both pronounced [amː]. The only way these are distinguished is when you add infixes, which are inserted before the final consonant of the coda. With the infix </ja/>, the two words above become /amjam/ and /ajamː/ respectively. Is this naturalistic?
I think it'd be likely to collapse at some point, but it can definitely be derived in a naturalistic way. Suppose an earlier stage of the language had */aməm/ and */aᵐb/, with the infixed forms */aməjam/ and */ajaᵐb/. Then you need only two sound changes to happen: Prenasalised stops become geminate nasals, and *ə is deleted in all positions.
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Post by Shemtov »

Can a Measure word system be started by requiring that the appropriate demonstratives be put between the number and noun? Is the second construction even attested? If not, what would be needed in a protolang for a MW system to develop?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

Shemtov wrote: 07 Sep 2018 21:04 Can a Measure word system be started by requiring that the appropriate demonstratives be put between the number and noun? Is the second construction even attested? If not, what would be needed in a protolang for a MW system to develop?
I am GUESSING that the answers are:
1. Yes
2. IDK
3. Up to you — you’re the ‘lang’s creator.
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Post by elemtilas »

Shemtov wrote: 07 Sep 2018 21:04 Can a Measure word system be started by requiring that the appropriate demonstratives be put between the number and noun? Is the second construction even attested? If not, what would be needed in a protolang for a MW system to develop?
Perhaps if the demonstrative is, in some way, governed by the law of unattachability, they'd have to place the measure word(s) before the inviolable DEMONST+NOUN unit.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by yangfiretiger121 »

How should the portion of my language's allophony rules for [ʔ] of [h] below be formatted? The brackets around "[ʔ] of [h]" are for understanding. There've been [t→θ] and [d→ð] sound changes as well.

[[ʔ] of [h]] adjacent to [θ(ː)ʝ ð(ː)ʝ s z p͡ç b͡ʝ ʑ ç h i y]
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