(Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
What might be a clean way to develop a form of pitch accent in a Romance language?
I was thinking at first to derive a pitch accent from the loss of Latin final consonants, such as -s and -m, leading to a simple tonal system perhaps marked on the stressed syllable.
example:
trēs > trì (falling accent)
hic > í (rising accent)
I am wondering if this is a realistic way to go about it, or if this would be too "out there." A less conservative option would be instead to derive tone from a later loss of final vowels, like -u
Another side effect is that case would be preserved:
ex:
MULTUS > mùot
MULTUM > múot
The background of this language is it is a romance conlang spoken in Croatia, so the development of pitch accent and the preservation of cases at least are areal features. Though I am aware of the overdoneness of the whole case preserving romlang (and indeed it wasnt even my intention at first, just a side effect of my desire to develop a pitch accent!)
I was thinking at first to derive a pitch accent from the loss of Latin final consonants, such as -s and -m, leading to a simple tonal system perhaps marked on the stressed syllable.
example:
trēs > trì (falling accent)
hic > í (rising accent)
I am wondering if this is a realistic way to go about it, or if this would be too "out there." A less conservative option would be instead to derive tone from a later loss of final vowels, like -u
Another side effect is that case would be preserved:
ex:
MULTUS > mùot
MULTUM > múot
The background of this language is it is a romance conlang spoken in Croatia, so the development of pitch accent and the preservation of cases at least are areal features. Though I am aware of the overdoneness of the whole case preserving romlang (and indeed it wasnt even my intention at first, just a side effect of my desire to develop a pitch accent!)
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
I generally have four go-to paths if I'm thinking about tone:
a) from the loss of codas
b) from neutralisation of onsets
c) from vowel length
d) from changes in word shape
I don't think neutralisation is a great answer for a romlang spoken in Europe, because voiced/voiceless contrasts (or equivalent) are virtually ubiquitous in the SAE area.
The other three options all seem plausible, however.
The most obvious route is from the loss of -m. This is 'obvious' because we know that -m was weird. It probably wasn't pronounced as a consonant even in the late Republic, and certainly wasn't in vulgar latin a century later, but we also know it was doing SOMETHING. Both because Latin speakers said it did, and because -um and -us have different outcomes in many daughter languages. [mostly, -um acts like it had a long vowel, or a half-long vowel, or something, so that at least temporarily it was't lowered, so it triggered metaphony]. It's likely that the consonant dropped with compensatory nasalisation; this might also explain the loss of nasals before fricatives in daughter languages (if we assume that nasalisation itself left no trace in non-final position). But nasalisation could very easily transform into a tone contrast.
That by itself wouldn't give a lot of tone in the daughter language, unfortunately. But it's a start, and once there's some tone other tone can join it. You're right that other coda consonants could - less probably but still not implausibly - yield tone. Given the widespread loss of final consonants, a change of, for instance, final stops > glottal stop > tone seems quite plausible to me.
Word shape (i.e. maintaining tonal contour in the face of syllabic loss) is always a good option, even in languages with no other tonal influence (eg Scandinavian, Limburgish). In a language that already has tone and that's surrounded by other languages with tone, it seems very plausible indeed.
Long vowels can easily turn into tone - either by loss of length, or by the creation of new long vowels distinguished from the old by tone (eg original a: vs ada > a:). This is less likely in Latin because of the universal loss of length without trace in daughter languages, but it's it's conceivable to imagine a distant elative that keeps length longer. Or, indeed, to say unfalsifiably "the loss of length in Southern Romance was actually just the replacement of length with tone, which was later neutralised in Sardinian").
a) from the loss of codas
b) from neutralisation of onsets
c) from vowel length
d) from changes in word shape
I don't think neutralisation is a great answer for a romlang spoken in Europe, because voiced/voiceless contrasts (or equivalent) are virtually ubiquitous in the SAE area.
The other three options all seem plausible, however.
The most obvious route is from the loss of -m. This is 'obvious' because we know that -m was weird. It probably wasn't pronounced as a consonant even in the late Republic, and certainly wasn't in vulgar latin a century later, but we also know it was doing SOMETHING. Both because Latin speakers said it did, and because -um and -us have different outcomes in many daughter languages. [mostly, -um acts like it had a long vowel, or a half-long vowel, or something, so that at least temporarily it was't lowered, so it triggered metaphony]. It's likely that the consonant dropped with compensatory nasalisation; this might also explain the loss of nasals before fricatives in daughter languages (if we assume that nasalisation itself left no trace in non-final position). But nasalisation could very easily transform into a tone contrast.
That by itself wouldn't give a lot of tone in the daughter language, unfortunately. But it's a start, and once there's some tone other tone can join it. You're right that other coda consonants could - less probably but still not implausibly - yield tone. Given the widespread loss of final consonants, a change of, for instance, final stops > glottal stop > tone seems quite plausible to me.
Word shape (i.e. maintaining tonal contour in the face of syllabic loss) is always a good option, even in languages with no other tonal influence (eg Scandinavian, Limburgish). In a language that already has tone and that's surrounded by other languages with tone, it seems very plausible indeed.
Long vowels can easily turn into tone - either by loss of length, or by the creation of new long vowels distinguished from the old by tone (eg original a: vs ada > a:). This is less likely in Latin because of the universal loss of length without trace in daughter languages, but it's it's conceivable to imagine a distant elative that keeps length longer. Or, indeed, to say unfalsifiably "the loss of length in Southern Romance was actually just the replacement of length with tone, which was later neutralised in Sardinian").
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
I was thinking of the word shape route. Romance languages altered word shapes in various ways (prothesis, syncope, etc). If the pitch contour remained constant, this could yield pitch accent contrasts between derived and inherited word shapes. Of course this could be combined with any of the other options Sal mentioned.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
I think loss of coda s is the most areally believable one. I could even see coda /s/ triggering falling pitch accent from a distance, e.g.
LŪNAM → /lúna/
LŪNĀS → /lûna/
Like how Andalusian Spanish spreads [–ATR] (or something accoustically similar) from final syllables throughout the word e.g. come /kome/ vs. comes /kɔmɛ/.
Alternatively, you could have metaphony (PORCUM PORCĪ > /pɔrk pwɔrk/) then allophonic prenuclear accent > rising pitch (as in Spanish again) followed by remonophthongisation (/pɔrk pwɔrk/ > [pɔrk˥ pwɔrk˩˥] > /pórk pǒrk/). You could also keep case that way with a bit of fiddling, although it might not be ideal as it only really gives a phonemic contrast on mid vowels.
LŪNAM → /lúna/
LŪNĀS → /lûna/
Like how Andalusian Spanish spreads [–ATR] (or something accoustically similar) from final syllables throughout the word e.g. come /kome/ vs. comes /kɔmɛ/.
Alternatively, you could have metaphony (PORCUM PORCĪ > /pɔrk pwɔrk/) then allophonic prenuclear accent > rising pitch (as in Spanish again) followed by remonophthongisation (/pɔrk pwɔrk/ > [pɔrk˥ pwɔrk˩˥] > /pórk pǒrk/). You could also keep case that way with a bit of fiddling, although it might not be ideal as it only really gives a phonemic contrast on mid vowels.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Now this is an interesting variation of the otherwise overdone Romance conlang theme, I must say.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
How does topic-prominence work? Does the topic marker work like a pronoun or a case?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Just interested, in which modern language the difference is visible and how?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Topic-prominent languages do not need a topic marker. Being the topic is more like a syntactic position or role. In general, a topic marker is neither a case nor a pronoun, but if it helps you to picture it -- it is a bit like a case marker in the same way the notion of subject is case-like. Diachronically, it can stem from a pronoun in the same way that definite articles can derive from pronouns. Topics, definite nouns, and pronouns all have in common that they usually mark 'given' or 'old' information.GoshDiggityDangit wrote: ↑22 May 2023 19:34 How does topic-prominence work? Does the topic marker work like a pronoun or a case?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
It's visible in central and southern Italian languages, Sardinian, Asturian, and Portuguese, although it's only sporadic in Portuguese.
The difference shows up either in raising or in diphthongisation of the preceding vowel.
Eg in Asturian pilu, 'hair', pelos, 'hairs' (and I gather from wikipedia also pelo, 'hair' (mass noun). In Western Asturian final -u and -o merge, so that would be pilu (count) vs pelu (mass).
Note that I'm not aware of this ever leading to case retention, and in some dialects it's also neutralised by analogy in plural forms, so there often aren't any direct -u/-o contrasts left. However, the effect of -u is still widely seen in, for instance, adjective gender contrasts (vs -a). The same processes also occur with final -i: (eg Portuguese fiz, I did, vs fez, he did, < feci: vs fecit).
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Thank you for the detailed responses, everyone!
My thinking now is that I develop tone as a byproduct of language contact with Serbo-Croatian, instead of a natural development from VL. And there seems to be precedent, Wikipedia states this under "Origin and Development" of its article about linguistic Tone: Tone is sometimes an areal rather than a phylogenetic feature. That is to say, a language may acquire tones through bilingualism if influential neighbouring languages are tonal or if speakers of a tonal language shift to the language in question and bring their tones with them. The process is referred to as contact-induced tonogenesis by linguists.[44] In other cases, tone may arise spontaneously and surprisingly fast: the dialect of Cherokee in Oklahoma has tone, but the dialect in North Carolina does not although they were separated only in 1838.
Perhaps tones could arise during the redevelopment of Early Romance vowel length. From Wikipedia's article on Romance Language, under "Loss of vowel length, reorientation:" The Proto-Romance allophonic vowel-length system was rephonemicized in the Gallo-Romance languages as a result of the loss of many final vowels. Some northern Italian languages (e.g. Friulian) still maintain this secondary phonemic length, but most languages dropped it by either diphthongizing or shortening the new long vowels.
My thinking now is that I develop tone as a byproduct of language contact with Serbo-Croatian, instead of a natural development from VL. And there seems to be precedent, Wikipedia states this under "Origin and Development" of its article about linguistic Tone: Tone is sometimes an areal rather than a phylogenetic feature. That is to say, a language may acquire tones through bilingualism if influential neighbouring languages are tonal or if speakers of a tonal language shift to the language in question and bring their tones with them. The process is referred to as contact-induced tonogenesis by linguists.[44] In other cases, tone may arise spontaneously and surprisingly fast: the dialect of Cherokee in Oklahoma has tone, but the dialect in North Carolina does not although they were separated only in 1838.
Perhaps tones could arise during the redevelopment of Early Romance vowel length. From Wikipedia's article on Romance Language, under "Loss of vowel length, reorientation:" The Proto-Romance allophonic vowel-length system was rephonemicized in the Gallo-Romance languages as a result of the loss of many final vowels. Some northern Italian languages (e.g. Friulian) still maintain this secondary phonemic length, but most languages dropped it by either diphthongizing or shortening the new long vowels.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
One way to go for contact-induced tonogenesis is to look for other phonetic cues for pitch accent. IIRC, in many varieties of BCMS, pitch accent interacts in complex ways with both phonological length and phonetic duration. (I think there is work by Draga Zec on this.) So, this could be an argument for this route. Bilingual speakers of your conlang could transfer the phonetic pitch changes onto their own length distinction, at first merely as additional phonetic cues. Lateron, the pitch changes could become the main phonetic cue and be reinterpreted as part of the underlying phonological form.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Yes this was my thinking. I was think that vowel length would be lost (the second time) like many romance languages but the pitch accent would remain as a phonetic quality. I have to refigure out what Serbocroatian does. I remember vaguely there was some relation in many dialects between tone and vowel length, where in dialects that lost the former still kept a distinction in the later.
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
InterestingSalmoneus wrote: ↑23 May 2023 01:19It's visible in central and southern Italian languages, Sardinian, Asturian, and Portuguese, although it's only sporadic in Portuguese.
The difference shows up either in raising or in diphthongisation of the preceding vowel.
Eg in Asturian pilu, 'hair', pelos, 'hairs' (and I gather from wikipedia also pelo, 'hair' (mass noun). In Western Asturian final -u and -o merge, so that would be pilu (count) vs pelu (mass).
Note that I'm not aware of this ever leading to case retention, and in some dialects it's also neutralised by analogy in plural forms, so there often aren't any direct -u/-o contrasts left. However, the effect of -u is still widely seen in, for instance, adjective gender contrasts (vs -a). The same processes also occur with final -i: (eg Portuguese fiz, I did, vs fez, he did, < feci: vs fecit).
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
I'm working on fully fleshing out the second of my three Isanyá languages: Anopí, and the romanization is being messed up by the fact that the two registers (High and Low) each have their own allophonic quirks and, unfortunately, mergers.
Low Anopí, the one spoken in colloquial contexts (and thus by the vast majority of people), has reduced /k/ to /h/. In addition, it merged Early Modern Anopí's palatal series with the velars, with the exception of ʃ (which became ç). I've romanized it as though it were Low Anopí always, with two exceptions: 1) LA /ŋ/ can be spelled ng or ṅ, depending on whether its HA equivalent is /ŋ/ or /ɲ/, and 2) LA /j/ is y or ẏ depending on whether it is /j/ or /ʎ/ in HA.
However, the overdots are annoying, since Anopí is already peppered with acute and grave accents due to tone. As a (nonsense) example:
Ása hahya hyuṅá iríṅì nkihù nsaí nsàmya opí yau ẏò
So what should I do?
Low Anopí, the one spoken in colloquial contexts (and thus by the vast majority of people), has reduced /k/ to /h/. In addition, it merged Early Modern Anopí's palatal series with the velars, with the exception of ʃ (which became ç). I've romanized it as though it were Low Anopí always, with two exceptions: 1) LA /ŋ/ can be spelled ng or ṅ, depending on whether its HA equivalent is /ŋ/ or /ɲ/, and 2) LA /j/ is y or ẏ depending on whether it is /j/ or /ʎ/ in HA.
However, the overdots are annoying, since Anopí is already peppered with acute and grave accents due to tone. As a (nonsense) example:
Ása hahya hyuṅá iríṅì nkihù nsaí nsàmya opí yau ẏò
So what should I do?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
I personally like the dots, though that’s probably not the answer you were looking for.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Perhaps <ng> LA & HA /ŋ/ vs. <gn> LA /ŋ/ but HA /ɲ/, and <y> LA & HA /j/ vs. <ly> LA /j/ but HA /ʎ/?Üdj wrote: ↑03 Jun 2023 03:59 I'm working on fully fleshing out the second of my three Isanyá languages: Anopí, and the romanization is being messed up by the fact that the two registers (High and Low) each have their own allophonic quirks and, unfortunately, mergers.
Low Anopí, the one spoken in colloquial contexts (and thus by the vast majority of people), has reduced /k/ to /h/. In addition, it merged Early Modern Anopí's palatal series with the velars, with the exception of ʃ (which became ç). I've romanized it as though it were Low Anopí always, with two exceptions: 1) LA /ŋ/ can be spelled ng or ṅ, depending on whether its HA equivalent is /ŋ/ or /ɲ/, and 2) LA /j/ is y or ẏ depending on whether it is /j/ or /ʎ/ in HA.
However, the overdots are annoying, since Anopí is already peppered with acute and grave accents due to tone. As a (nonsense) example:
Ása hahya hyuṅá iríṅì nkihù nsaí nsàmya opí yau ẏò
So what should I do?
Ása hahya hyugná irígnì nkihù nsaí nsàmya opí yau lyò
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Well, there's no accounting for taste, as they say.DesEsseintes wrote: ↑03 Jun 2023 09:46I personally like the dots, though that’s probably not the answer you were looking for.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
I do like this, though I've never understood <gn> for /ɲ/. It's from Italian, right?shimobaatar wrote: ↑03 Jun 2023 12:54Perhaps <ng> LA & HA /ŋ/ vs. <gn> LA /ŋ/ but HA /ɲ/, and <y> LA & HA /j/ vs. <ly> LA /j/ but HA /ʎ/?Üdj wrote: ↑03 Jun 2023 03:59 I'm working on fully fleshing out the second of my three Isanyá languages: Anopí, and the romanization is being messed up by the fact that the two registers (High and Low) each have their own allophonic quirks and, unfortunately, mergers.
Low Anopí, the one spoken in colloquial contexts (and thus by the vast majority of people), has reduced /k/ to /h/. In addition, it merged Early Modern Anopí's palatal series with the velars, with the exception of ʃ (which became ç). I've romanized it as though it were Low Anopí always, with two exceptions: 1) LA /ŋ/ can be spelled ng or ṅ, depending on whether its HA equivalent is /ŋ/ or /ɲ/, and 2) LA /j/ is y or ẏ depending on whether it is /j/ or /ʎ/ in HA.
However, the overdots are annoying, since Anopí is already peppered with acute and grave accents due to tone. As a (nonsense) example:
Ása hahya hyuṅá iríṅì nkihù nsaí nsàmya opí yau ẏò
So what should I do?
Ása hahya hyugná irígnì nkihù nsaí nsàmya opí yau lyò
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Indeed, some Romance languages, including Italian and French, use <gn> for /ɲ/ because one possible source of /ɲ/ in these languages is Latin <gn> /gn/ [ŋn]. For instance, Latin agnellus > Italian agnello & French agneau.Üdj wrote: ↑03 Jun 2023 15:02I do like this, though I've never understood <gn> for /ɲ/. It's from Italian, right?shimobaatar wrote: ↑03 Jun 2023 12:54Perhaps <ng> LA & HA /ŋ/ vs. <gn> LA /ŋ/ but HA /ɲ/, and <y> LA & HA /j/ vs. <ly> LA /j/ but HA /ʎ/?Üdj wrote: ↑03 Jun 2023 03:59 I'm working on fully fleshing out the second of my three Isanyá languages: Anopí, and the romanization is being messed up by the fact that the two registers (High and Low) each have their own allophonic quirks and, unfortunately, mergers.
Low Anopí, the one spoken in colloquial contexts (and thus by the vast majority of people), has reduced /k/ to /h/. In addition, it merged Early Modern Anopí's palatal series with the velars, with the exception of ʃ (which became ç). I've romanized it as though it were Low Anopí always, with two exceptions: 1) LA /ŋ/ can be spelled ng or ṅ, depending on whether its HA equivalent is /ŋ/ or /ɲ/, and 2) LA /j/ is y or ẏ depending on whether it is /j/ or /ʎ/ in HA.
However, the overdots are annoying, since Anopí is already peppered with acute and grave accents due to tone. As a (nonsense) example:
Ása hahya hyuṅá iríṅì nkihù nsaí nsàmya opí yau ẏò
So what should I do?
Ása hahya hyugná irígnì nkihù nsaí nsàmya opí yau lyò
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
One of my conlangs has a phonemic distinction between short and long vowels. The thing that is unusual about it is that the language doesn't have any true long vowels at all. Rather, the "long vowels" are realized closer to half-long.
Thus, while native speakers can tell short and long vowels apart easily, foreigners have a much harder time.
What are your thoughts on this? Would this be something that could be phonemic, or would a short vs half long be more allophonic?
Thus, while native speakers can tell short and long vowels apart easily, foreigners have a much harder time.
What are your thoughts on this? Would this be something that could be phonemic, or would a short vs half long be more allophonic?