Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

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Porphyrogenitos
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Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

I had the amusing idea of creating a conlang (a "bogolang") in which I force Proto-Slavic to undergo the same sound changes (and to the extent possible and desirable, grammatical changes) of Modern French. So I wanted to share my notes.

I also wrote this silly little blurb:
In roughly 100 CE, a small band of destitute wanderers from far beyond the Rhine were given permission by the governor of Gallia to settle in the vicinity of Lutetia Parisiorum, where they established a village called Gorodum Novum. No further mention of these people is made in Roman sources, but apparently they remained, since well into the modern era, the people of the village of Neugrot near Paris spoke a strange patois - familiar-sounding, yet totally indecipherable to the locals, they said the Neugrotiens spoke French backwards. They also had the strangest habit of calling God Boc instead of Dieu.
The goal is also to write this language in French orthography, as far as possible.

Also, notice how I said 100 CE? I decided that it was impossible to apply Romance sound changes to Proto-Slavic with all of its already-existing palatals. So I decided to back up to the stage before any of the Slavic palatalizations occurred, and apply Romance palatalizations. So really it's not Slavic, it's para-Slavic of some sort, a closely-related Balto-Slavic variety that started out with the same vowel system but never underwent the same palatalizations. (I don't know the timeline of Proto-Slavic, I was just guessing that maybe they hadn't occurred by 100 CE. Or maybe the group split off earlier and didn't settle in Gallia till then!)

I'm going to make an initial post with my existing morphological notes. However, everything will be subject to revision - I haven't yet formalized how the initial Slavic -> Proto-Romance sound changes are going to work, so some words will definitely look different in the final version.

Also, I know nothing about Slavic, and have a decent but not expert grip on Romance diachronics. I kind of struggle with some of the sound changes since there are some rather un-Romance consonant clusters involved, especially after reduction happens. Any feedback is welcome.
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

Initial attempt at a noun - PS *sъ̀nъ ‘dream’

Singular - Dual - Plural
Nom: son /sɔ̃/ - sonne /sɔn/ - son /sɔ̃/
Acc: son /sɔ̃/ - sonne /sɔn/ - son /sɔ̃/
Gen: sonne /sɔn/ - son /sɔ̃/ - son /sɔ̃/
Loc: son /sɔ̃/ - son /sɔ̃/ - sonec /sɔnɛ/
Dat: son /sɔ̃/ - sonome /sɔnom/ - sonon /sɔnɔ̃/
Instr: sonon /sɔnɔ̃/ - sonome /sɔnom/ - son /sɔ̃/
Voc: son /sɔ̃/ - sonne /sɔn/ - son /sɔ̃/

Obviously, the case system (at least like this) isn't going to last. The dual will also be lost. What I've decided is that a nominative-oblique or nominative-accusative-oblique system will survive.

Singular - Plural
Nom: son /sɔ̃/ - son /sɔ̃/
Acc: son /sɔ̃/ - son /sɔ̃/
Obl: sonne /sɔn/ - son /sɔ̃/

What will likely happen is that, since the inherited accusative and nominative are identical for many masculine nouns, they will borrow the genitive (the new oblique) to serve as the new accusative. Rather like what historically happened in Russian and other Slavic langs:

Singular - Plural
Nom: son /sɔ̃/ - son /sɔ̃/
Acc: sonne /sɔn/ - son /sɔ̃/
Obl: sonne /sɔn/ - son /sɔ̃/

If this doesn't result in the merger of the accusative and oblique, it will be because feminine nouns and certain masculine nouns maintain a distinction between the two - mainly, a combined nominative-accusative vs. an oblique.
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

Explanation of sound changes will becoming shortly.

Here's my first attempt at 'woman', starting from an unpalatalized pre-Slavic *gena:

Singular - Plural
Nom: genne /ʒɛn/ - gen /ʒɑ̃/
Acc: gen /ʒɑ̃/ - gen /ʒɑ̃/
Gen: gen /ʒɑ̃/ - gen /ʒɑ̃/

The orthographic double <nn> isn't etymological, but it didn't quite look right without it. Is <gene> an okay spelling for /ʒɛn/ in French?

Here's 'man', from unpalatalized pre-Slavic *mǫ̑gjь.

Singular - Plural
Nom: moi /mwa/ - moi /mwa/
Acc: moi /mwa/ - moi /mwa/
Obl: moie /mwa/ - moi /mwa/

As you can see, total collapse of case/number distinctions.

Here's my very tentative first try at deriving definite and indefinite articles - final consonants in parentheses indicate liaison consonants:

Definite:

Masculine:
Singular - Plural
Nom: te /tə/ - ti /ti/
Acc: te /tə/ - tu /ty/
Obl: tec /tə(k)/ - tec /tə(k)/

Neuter:
Singular - Plural
Nom: te /tə/ - ta /ta/
Acc: te /tə/ - ta /ta/
Obl: tec /tə(k)/ - tec /tə(k)/

Feminine:
Singular - Plural
Nom: ta /ta/ - tu /ty/
Acc: te /tə/ - tu /ty/
Obl: toi /twa/ - tec /tə(k)/

Indefinite

Masculine:
Singular - Plural
Nom: din /dɛ̃/ - din /dɛ̃/
Acc: din /dɛ̃/ - din /dɛ̃/
Obl: dinc /dɛ̃(k)/ - dinc /dɛ̃(k)/

Neuter:
Singular - Plural
Nom: din /dɛ̃/ - dine /din/
Acc: din /dɛ̃/ -dine /din/
Obl: dinc /dɛ̃(k)/ - dinc /dɛ̃(k)/

Feminine:
Singular - Plural
Nom: dine /din/ - din /dɛ̃/
Acc: din /dɛ̃/ - din /dɛ̃/
Obl: din /dɛ̃/ - dinc /dɛ̃(k)/
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

Alternative words for 'man' and 'woman', derived from the etyma of the modern Russian words. Again, starting from a pre-palatalized stage.

Singular - Plural
Nom: moiscine /mwasin/ - moiscin /mwasɛ̃/
Acc: moiscin /mwasɛ̃/ - moiscin /mwasɛ̃/
Obl: moiscin /mwasɛ̃/ - moiscin /mwasɛ̃/

(again, really no idea about the orthography of some of this)

Singular - Plural
Nom: geniscne /ʒɛnisn/ - geniz /ʒɛni/
Acc: geniz /ʒɛni/ - geniz /ʒɛni/
Obl: geniz /ʒɛni/ - geniz /ʒɛni/

'brother' - bratre in all forms.
'sister' - sêtre in all forms.

'father' - from *otĭkĭ:

Singular - Plural
Nom: otez /ɔtɛ/ - otez /ɔtɛ/
Acc: otez /ɔtɛ/ - otez /ɔtɛ/
Obl: otece /ɔtɛs/ - otez /ɔtɛ/

Not even gonna include my first attempt at a verb. Anyways, many of these words will have to be changed, since I will be reworking the sound changes.
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

Okay, sound changes!

So a couple basic principles. As mentioned, I am attempting to back up to a time before the Slavic palatalizations. So that means instead of working with *mǫžьščina 'man' (or 'manishness') I am working with *mǫgjьskina - I don't know if that's a form that ever actually occurred in history, but I am assuming this proto-variety went through all of the vowel changes and all of the other consonant changes leading to Proto-Slavic. Just not the palatalizations.

Secondly, for stress - I am simply restressing every word according to the Latin stress rule and letting it evolve from there. Sometimes this means the stress stays where it is. In the case of *mǫgjьskina, the stress goes on the penult.

Vowels - I need to figure out a way to force the PS vowels into the seven-vowel system of Proto-Western-Romance.

Okay, I'm going to just explain it with a chart.

Image

Instead of having PS *y become French /y/, I'm going to have it merge with Proto-WR *i. However, it will not trigger palatalization of preceding /k/ or /g/, nor even /t/ if it forms a semivowel. But after that, it will behave exactly as /i/.

As for the yers, I assume they are going to act like Proto-Romance /ɪ ʊ/ and merge with mid-high /e o/. Nasal vowels will also be eliminated and merge into oral vowels.

Another thing with the consonants - I think I'm going to keep it slightly conservative in the final stages, with words in isolation keeping their final consonants. I.e. keeping the three-way liaison system with word-final consonants before pausa, voiced consonants (if applicable) before vowel, and final consonant dropping before another consonant.
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by Pabappa »

i like it. all i have to say is that the first time I heard spoken Polish, it sounded a lot like French to me. I dont really get that impression anymore and I havent heard other people saying it either but there's got to be more to it than them both just having nasal vowels, or i would have said the same of Portuguese.

Im not sure you can ignore the palatalizations fully if you want this to be a true Slavic language ... you might have to move further back, and that's going to be difficult, because most of the attention is focused on the stage immediately before the languages broke up, not on steps further back in history. Is there a particular reason why you want to do it this way?
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

Pabappa wrote: 03 Aug 2020 19:58 i like it. all i have to say is that the first time I heard spoken Polish, it sounded a lot like French to me. I dont really get that impression anymore and I havent heard other people saying it either but there's got to be more to it than them both just having nasal vowels, or i would have said the same of Portuguese.

Im not sure you can ignore the palatalizations fully if you want this to be a true Slavic language ... you might have to move further back, and that's going to be difficult, because most of the attention is focused on the stage immediately before the languages broke up, not on steps further back in history. Is there a particular reason why you want to do it this way?
Well, like it says in the title, it isn't really a Slavic language - it's para-Slavic, a close relative of Slavic but not actually Slavic.

I want to do it this way since if I start out with the post-palatalized Slavic consonant system, then I have to work with /tʲ dʲ ts dz tʃ (dʒ) ʃ sʲ ʒ ř rʲ lʲ nʲ/. Either I apply a bunch of sound changes to iron all these out into the mold of Latin, or I apply original sound changes to them that have nothing to do with the historical phonology of French. I think both of those will actually make the language look even more unrecognizably Slavic.

(There's another solution - apply sound changes not starting from Latin, but from a particular stage of early Gallo-Romance, which did feature palatalized consonants like these. But then I wouldn't get the full effect of all the consonant lenitions and other changes that came earlier.)

But, if I back up just a little bit, I barely have to apply any work at all to make the phoneme inventory match that of Latin. And by doing that, I'm basically answering "What if the Slavic palatalizations has proceeded in the manner of the Romance palatalizations?" which I think is interesting, and still produces something that looks like a Frenchified Slavic language, even if it's technically not Slavic.
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by Khemehekis »

At first I thought the word in the title read "Neutrogena".
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by DV82LECM »

Khemehekis wrote: 04 Aug 2020 17:55 At first I thought the word in the title read "Neutrogena".
Neugrotien: smoothing out Polish's jagged and wrinkly phonetics.
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by dva_arla »

Porphyrogenitos wrote: 03 Aug 2020 20:28
I want to do it this way since if I start out with the post-palatalized Slavic consonant system, then I have to work with /tʲ dʲ ts dz tʃ (dʒ) ʃ sʲ ʒ ř rʲ lʲ nʲ/. Either I apply a bunch of sound changes to iron all these out into the mold of Latin, or I apply original sound changes to them that have nothing to do with the historical phonology of French. I think both of those will actually make the language look even more unrecognizably Slavic.
Maybe start from an earlier, unpalatalised from of Proto-Slavic? It had a consonant inventory comparable to Latin (/k g x t d n p b m s z r l j w/). It was only during the 6~8 c.s AD that the Slavs experienced their first (and second) velar palatalisations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_fi ... talization

so that Neugrotien must've evaded these palatalisations if they did manage to migrate to Gallia all the way back in 100 AD as per your scenario.

Also, maybe z > r? This happened just before Old Latin (~ 3c. BC?) and in the Northern and Western branches of Germanic.
Also, I know nothing about Slavic, and have a decent but not expert grip on Romance diachronics. I kind of struggle with some of the sound changes since there are some rather un-Romance consonant clusters involved, especially after reduction happens. Any feedback is welcome.
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by Omzinesý »

In your table, it seems that the lang preserves the yers. I think they somewhat resemble French dummy e.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History ... and_%D1%8A
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by All4Ɇn »

I like where this is going. The noun cases in particular are turning out in really interesting ways that remind me a lot in some ways of all the confusing and counterintuitive cases in Icelandic. Which is definitely a compliment from someone studying languages! Here are a few comments on some of this [:D]
Porphyrogenitos wrote: 03 Aug 2020 18:51 The orthographic double <nn> isn't etymological, but it didn't quite look right without it. Is <gene> an okay spelling for /ʒɛn/ in French?
Before a single consonant + e, you never write <e> but <è>. <gène> is actually probably the best choice to go with if trying to approximate French given that you often see words alternate between between <e/é> and <è>.
Porphyrogenitos wrote: 03 Aug 2020 18:56 (again, really no idea about the orthography of some of this)

Singular - Plural
Nom: geniscne /ʒɛnisn/ - geniz /ʒɛni/
Acc: geniz /ʒɛni/ - geniz /ʒɛni/
Obl: geniz /ʒɛni/ - geniz /ʒɛni/
Now here things get more complicated as French wouldn't really use <èn> or <enn> here but rather <ein>, <ain>, or <ên> all of which I believe come from different sound changes.
Porphyrogenitos wrote: 03 Aug 2020 18:56'brother' - bratre in all forms.
Not 100% sure as the sound changes from Latin to French are quite confusing, but shouldn't the expected form be brère given that frère comes from fratrem?
Porphyrogenitos wrote: 03 Aug 2020 18:56otez /ɔtɛ/
Before a silent <z>, <e> is always pronounced as /e/ in French [:)]




Pabappa wrote: 03 Aug 2020 19:58 i like it. all i have to say is that the first time I heard spoken Polish, it sounded a lot like French to me. I dont really get that impression anymore and I havent heard other people saying it either but there's got to be more to it than them both just having nasal vowels, or i would have said the same of Portuguese.
As someone who speaks French I'm surprised by this actually. To me European Portuguese sounds almost exactly like a Slavic language. Something between Polish, Czech, and Russian but especially Polish. Even when many Portuguese speak English they sound Slavic to my ear.
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by Dormouse559 »

All4Ɇn wrote: 08 Aug 2020 14:01
Porphyrogenitos wrote: 03 Aug 2020 18:56 (again, really no idea about the orthography of some of this)

Singular - Plural
Nom: geniscne /ʒɛnisn/ - geniz /ʒɛni/
Acc: geniz /ʒɛni/ - geniz /ʒɛni/
Obl: geniz /ʒɛni/ - geniz /ʒɛni/
Now here things get more complicated as French wouldn't really use <èn> or <enn> here but rather <ein>, <ain>, or <ên> all of which I believe come from different sound changes.
To be more precise, French wouldn't normally get /ɛ/ from a plain vowel in this position. A schwa is more likely. There'd have to be other sound changes at work, like the ones represented by <ei>, <ai> and <ê>. But it wouldn't be out of place for a French-based orthography to use <è> for /ɛ/ in this position.

The choice to me depends on the circumstances the orthography was developed under. Most French-based orthographies (Breton, Norman, Arpitan, etc.) are shallower than actual French spelling. The deepest orthographies are usually intended to highlight similarities among dialects or (in the case of Romance languages) with French. It'd be relevant to know about the literary tradition of Neugrotien, how it was affected by the dominance of French … a lot of things [xP]

The thing that strikes me as most unusual about /ʒɛnisn/ is that coda /s/. Under French sound changes, it would drop and lengthen the preceding vowel. If there were any palatalization, it would have already ejected a yod, which would undergo more changes with the vowel.
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by All4Ɇn »

Dormouse559 wrote: 09 Aug 2020 23:47The thing that strikes me as most unusual about /ʒɛnisn/ is that coda /s/. Under French sound changes, it would drop and lengthen the preceding vowel. If there were any palatalization, it would have already ejected a yod, which would undergo more changes with the vowel.
Given that it comes from *ženьščina with a final -ina, isn't also possible for it to become geniscine /ʒɛnisin/ considering that's how Latina -ina ended up?
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by Dormouse559 »

All4Ɇn wrote: 10 Aug 2020 00:09 Given that it comes from *ženьščina with a final -ina, isn't also possible for it to become geniscine /ʒɛnisin/ considering that's how Latina -ina ended up?
Regarding -ina -> -ine, sure, depending on how one adapts the phonology. Porphyrogenitos said earlier that Proto-Slavic *i will equate to Vulgar Latin [ɪ], while VL -ina would have [i]. But maybe analogy could change the vowel. In that case, and noting that yer = [ɪ], I think the overall word might turn out as /ʒenwasin/, which I'd spell in French as <génoissine>; <sc> is mostly for Latin borrowings.

EDIT: Actually, /ʒwasin/ (<joissine>) might be more likely. I hadn't thought about the possibility of the second syllable reducing. I haven't found any exactly comparable wordforms, but we do have Lt. monasterium -> *monsterium -> Moûtiers, where the pretonic vowel is elided and /n/ drops before /s/. In *ženьščina, the palatal can then eject a yod into the first syllable.
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by Man in Space »

I absolutely love this. Nothing constructive to add, but I love this.
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

Thanks so much for the feedback, everyone! I really appreciate the enthusiasm for this idea.
dva_arla wrote: 04 Aug 2020 18:48
Maybe start from an earlier, unpalatalised from of Proto-Slavic? It had a consonant inventory comparable to Latin (/k g x t d n p b m s z r l j w/). It was only during the 6~8 c.s AD that the Slavs experienced their first (and second) velar palatalisations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_fi ... talization

so that Neugrotien must've evaded these palatalisations if they did manage to migrate to Gallia all the way back in 100 AD as per your scenario.
Yes, this was what I was intending.
dva_arla wrote: 04 Aug 2020 18:48 Also, maybe z > r? This happened just before Old Latin (~ 3c. BC?) and in the Northern and Western branches of Germanic.
That's a great idea, thanks - I'll apply that change right before the Vulgar Latin changes.
Omzinesý wrote: 08 Aug 2020 11:46 In your table, it seems that the lang preserves the yers. I think they somewhat resemble French dummy e.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History ... and_%D1%8A
Yes, my intent is for them to behave like Proto-Romance /ɪ ʊ/, i.e. merging with Western Romance /e o/. Though perhaps I should preserve the ultra-short character of the yers by having unstressed yers be highly prone to deletion, before their eventual merger with /e o/.
All4Ɇn wrote: 08 Aug 2020 14:01 I like where this is going. The noun cases in particular are turning out in really interesting ways that remind me a lot in some ways of all the confusing and counterintuitive cases in Icelandic. Which is definitely a compliment from someone studying languages! Here are a few comments on some of this [:D]
Thanks, and thanks for the advice on the orthography.
All4Ɇn wrote: 08 Aug 2020 14:01 Not 100% sure as the sound changes from Latin to French are quite confusing, but shouldn't the expected form be brère given that frère comes from fratrem?
You're right, that's very silly of me. It would be brère.
Dormouse559 wrote: 09 Aug 2020 23:47
To be more precise, French wouldn't normally get /ɛ/ from a plain vowel in this position. A schwa is more likely. There'd have to be other sound changes at work, like the ones represented by <ei>, <ai> and <ê>. But it wouldn't be out of place for a French-based orthography to use <è> for /ɛ/ in this position.
Thanks for pointing that out. I guess I didn't include reduction to schwa since the Wiki page "Phonological history of French" doesn't describe how it happened and I didn't really know the rules.
Dormouse559 wrote: 09 Aug 2020 23:47 The choice to me depends on the circumstances the orthography was developed under. Most French-based orthographies (Breton, Norman, Arpitan, etc.) are shallower than actual French spelling. The deepest orthographies are usually intended to highlight similarities among dialects or (in the case of Romance languages) with French. It'd be relevant to know about the literary tradition of Neugrotien, how it was affected by the dominance of French … a lot of things [xP]
This is a good point. I've decided I won't try to make the orthography slavishly etymological in an exact parallel with French - partially because some of the combinations of segments simply won't have occurred in French, and it'll be a fruitless speculation about "How might have French represented this?" but also because, if this really was spoken in a single village in northern France, it probably wouldn't have a long, well-established literary tradition, not would its speakers have preserved detailed knowledge of etymologies - it probably wouldn't have been written until the dialectological efforts of the 19th century. So I'll use a relatively shallow French-based orthography, though not so shallow that it leaves off liaison consonants and so on.
All4Ɇn wrote: 10 Aug 2020 00:09
Dormouse559 wrote: 09 Aug 2020 23:47The thing that strikes me as most unusual about /ʒɛnisn/ is that coda /s/. Under French sound changes, it would drop and lengthen the preceding vowel. If there were any palatalization, it would have already ejected a yod, which would undergo more changes with the vowel.
Given that it comes from *ženьščina with a final -ina, isn't also possible for it to become geniscine /ʒɛnisin/ considering that's how Latina -ina ended up?
My form was based on the idea that a Latin-type stress rule would assign stress to the yer, but I now realize that's wrong. It would be *genɪˈskina.
Dormouse559 wrote: 10 Aug 2020 01:52 Regarding -ina -> -ine, sure, depending on how one adapts the phonology. Porphyrogenitos said earlier that Proto-Slavic *i will equate to Vulgar Latin [ɪ], while VL -ina would have [i]. But maybe analogy could change the vowel. In that case, and noting that yer = [ɪ], I think the overall word might turn out as /ʒenwasin/, which I'd spell in French as <génoissine>; <sc> is mostly for Latin borrowings.

EDIT: Actually, /ʒwasin/ (<joissine>) might be more likely. I hadn't thought about the possibility of the second syllable reducing. I haven't found any exactly comparable wordforms, but we do have Lt. monasterium -> *monsterium -> Moûtiers, where the pretonic vowel is elided and /n/ drops before /s/. In *ženьščina, the palatal can then eject a yod into the first syllable.
I think <joissine> makes the most sense, yes.

So I think the case-forms would be the following, since the other cases have vowels other than /a/, which would all be dropped:

sing - plu
Nom: joissine /ʒwasin/ - joissin /ʒwasɛ̃/
Acc: joissin /ʒwasɛ̃/ - joissin /ʒwasɛ̃/
Gen: joissin /ʒwasɛ̃/ - joissin /ʒwasɛ̃/

Whether the accusative and genitive, across all nouns, will remain distinct or merge into an oblique is something I will have to wait to figure out - for sure, masculine animates will appropriate the genitive for a new accusative, when not distinct from the nominative, but I will have to see what declension classes develop to make a final decision.
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Dormouse559
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by Dormouse559 »

Porphyrogenitos wrote: 13 Aug 2020 01:27 Thanks for pointing that out. I guess I didn't include reduction to schwa since the Wiki page "Phonological history of French" doesn't describe how it happened and I didn't really know the rules.
Yeah, I've found that learning French diachronics means taking bits and pieces from a few different sources. Besides the "phonological history" page, I also look through Grammaire élémentaire de l'ancien français by Joseph Anglade. Since analogy has obscured a lot of French's regular sound changes, it can be helpful to look to Old French, in which the regular reflexes are more intact, particularly the ones with stress-based alternations.

Anglade points out in Chapter 1 that when the part of a word preceding stress had two or more syllables, it was treated in some ways like a separate word. The pretonic vowel was more likely to reduce or elide, following the same rules as if it were word-final. Compare the Old French reflexes of amare and sacramentum. In the former word, there's only one syllable preceding stress, and the pretonic vowel, /a/, doesn't reduce, giving amer. (And while /e/ and /ɛ/ don't drop in that context, they do become schwa.) But in sacramentum, there are two syllables before the stress, so even though the pretonic vowel is /a/ like in amare, it reduces to schwa, giving sairement.

The upshot for regularly derived words is that schwa is restricted to stress-adjacent syllables. Other vowels can appear in the pretonic syllable under any of the following conditions:
1) The syllable is word-initial;
2) a following unstressed syllable has been deleted (e.g. claritatem > clarté);
3) the syllable is closed;
4) the vowel is a diphthong.

This is a good point. I've decided I won't try to make the orthography slavishly etymological in an exact parallel with French - partially because some of the combinations of segments simply won't have occurred in French, and it'll be a fruitless speculation about "How might have French represented this?" but also because, if this really was spoken in a single village in northern France, it probably wouldn't have a long, well-established literary tradition, not would its speakers have preserved detailed knowledge of etymologies - it probably wouldn't have been written until the dialectological efforts of the 19th century. So I'll use a relatively shallow French-based orthography, though not so shallow that it leaves off liaison consonants and so on.
Sounds good to me [:)] It makes sense for this language given you're going for a more productive, Middle French-style liaison.
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Vlürch
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by Vlürch »

This is really cool! [:D] One of the most interesting kinda-out-there-yet-still-realistic concepts for a conlang, I'd say.
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spanick
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Re: Neugrotien - Para-Slavic lang

Post by spanick »

Man, I really like this. I’m eager to see why the verbs looks like. Given that the nouns are almost no distinction between case and number, I could very easily see this becoming super analytical like Chinese. Have you given any thought to how to express plurality?
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