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

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

Post by Sequor »

Omzinesý wrote: 15 Apr 2023 09:15My understanding is though that it's somewhat 'unnatural'/rare that demonstratives and posessive/personal pronouns are somehow related.
It's common when it comes to 3rd person pronouns, in the direction of demonstratives becoming 3rd person pronouns (e.g. Latin ipse / ille and the descendants into Romance), but I imagine you're talking about 1st/2nd person pronouns here.

I notice that Mandarin, spoken Mandarin in particular, sometimes reinforces 我 wǒ '1SG' and 你 nǐ '2SG' with 这 zhè 'this' suffixed after, but I don't quite understand the nuance involved. A couple examples from an online corpus of sentences:

我这是开玩笑的。
wǒ-zhè shì kāi wánxiào de
1SG-this EMPH open joke EMPH
'I am just kidding.' (more literally, "I am opening a joke / jokes")

你这蠢蛋!
nǐ-zhè chǔndàn
2SG-this stupid-egg
'You idiot!'
hīc sunt linguificēs. hēr bēoþ tungemakeras.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Pāṇini »

Sequor wrote: 15 Apr 2023 14:22
I notice that Mandarin, spoken Mandarin in particular, sometimes reinforces 我 wǒ '1SG' and 你 nǐ '2SG' with 这 zhè 'this' suffixed after, but I don't quite understand the nuance involved. A couple examples from an online corpus of sentences:

我这是开玩笑的。
wǒ-zhè shì kāi wánxiào de
1SG-this EMPH open joke EMPH
'I am just kidding.' (more literally, "I am opening a joke / jokes")

你这蠢蛋!
nǐ-zhè chǔndàn
2SG-this stupid-egg
'You idiot!'
I wonder if this might instead be related to the Literary Sinitic construction where topicalized subjects are marked with 者 taʔ/zhě 'agent noun suffix'.

天地者,萬物之父母也。
thîn r-laih taʔ, mâns mut tə baʔ məʔ laiʔ
tiān dì zhě, wàn wù zhī fù mǔ yě.
heaven earth AGN myriad thing POSS father mother indeed

Heaven and earth are the mother and father of all things.
天含青海道。城頭月千里。
/tʰiæn ɣɑm tsʰieŋ.hɑ́i dʱɑ́u ‖ ʑʱeŋ dʱəu ᵑgyæɾ tsʰiæn lí/
The sky swallows the road to Kokonor. On the Great Wall, a thousand miles of moonlight.
—/lí ɣɑ̀/ (李賀), tr. A. C. Graham
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Keenir »

Hugh_Capet wrote: 07 Feb 2023 05:05 This question ties into the languages of Tolkien—specifically that of Danian, or the language of the Green-elves of Ossiriand and the Greenwood in an earlier version of his legendarium. It's my desire to expand it a bit while endeavoring to maintain its Anglo-Saxon inspiration. Part of the trouble with maintaining this inspiration is that the Green-elves are said in the later legendarium to be part of the Teleri and therefore related to the Sindar. The language of the Sindar is largely inspired by the Celtic languages, which makes maintaining the Germanic elements of Danian/Nandorin difficult.

I especially wonder about how the labiovelar kw- might be handled, at least in initial position.
This is probably hopelessly belated, but even so...I want to try to help...

It sounds like you kinda have a relatively free hand with your take on Danian...you could have it look like a creole of Celtic & Germanic (Germanic syntax and Celtic lexicon? equal amounts of Celtic and Germanic all stirred together into a pidgin, then let them grow together as a creole?)....or just focus more on one side than the other of the heritage?

(maybe instead of looking at Celtic languages like Welsh and Irish, maybe look at the Celtic (sub)family that existed in France? would that be sufficiently influenced by Germanic?)

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

Post by WeepingElf »

For some time, Tolkien entertained the notion that Danian or Ilkorin was a language with a Germanic-like sound shift. Later, he mentioned Hwenti as the name of an Avari tribe, which seems to be from such a language.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by shimobaatar »

BarkMiner wrote: 15 Apr 2023 05:03 Quick question, if my speakers interpret a consonant cluster as a unique phoneme, does it make sense to Romanize it to the same characters as the consonants in the cluster, or use a modified character to match with how my speakers write and think about it. Specific example: the speakers of my language have separate characters for the consonants and consonant cluster /x/, /w/, /xw/. Would it make sense to write /xw/ simply as <xw>, or to mark it with a diacritic or something like <x́>?
Both ways make sense to me, so I'd recommend going with whichever option you like the most.

For whatever it's worth, though, your example reminds me of the Gothic alphabet using <𐌷> for /h/, <𐍅> for /w/, and <𐍈> for /hʷ~ʍ/. These letters are often romanized/transliterated as <h>, <w>, and <ƕ>, respectively. Although, while it's hard to know for certain, the assumption generally seems to be that Gothic /hʷ~ʍ/ was a single phoneme, as opposed to a cluster like /xw/ as in the example you gave.

Also, I've never heard/read anything about speakers perceiving these clusters as single phonemes, but the Greek alphabet uses <ξ> for /ks/ and <ψ> for /ps/. <ξ> is commonly romanized/transliterated as <x>, given how <x> is also used for /ks/ in some languages written in the Latin alphabet, but <ψ> is commonly romanized/transliterated as <ps>, which is generally easier to type and probably more "intuitive" for /ps/ than a single character like <ṕ> would be.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

Sequor wrote: 15 Apr 2023 14:22
Omzinesý wrote: 15 Apr 2023 09:15My understanding is though that it's somewhat 'unnatural'/rare that demonstratives and posessive/personal pronouns are somehow related.
It's common when it comes to 3rd person pronouns, in the direction of demonstratives becoming 3rd person pronouns (e.g. Latin ipse / ille and the descendants into Romance), but I imagine you're talking about 1st/2nd person pronouns here.

I notice that Mandarin, spoken Mandarin in particular, sometimes reinforces 我 wǒ '1SG' and 你 nǐ '2SG' with 这 zhè 'this' suffixed after, but I don't quite understand the nuance involved. A couple examples from an online corpus of sentences:

我这是开玩笑的。
wǒ-zhè shì kāi wánxiào de
1SG-this EMPH open joke EMPH
'I am just kidding.' (more literally, "I am opening a joke / jokes")

你这蠢蛋!
nǐ-zhè chǔndàn
2SG-this stupid-egg
'You idiot!'
Interesting
Not what I was looking for maybe useful somewhere else
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by BarkMiner »

shimobaatar wrote: 16 Apr 2023 16:06 Also, I've never heard/read anything about speakers perceiving these clusters as single phonemes, but the Greek alphabet uses <ξ> for /ks/ and <ψ> for /ps/. <ξ> is commonly romanized/transliterated as <x>, given how <x> is also used for /ks/ in some languages written in the Latin alphabet, but <ψ> is commonly romanized/transliterated as <ps>, which is generally easier to type and probably more "intuitive" for /ps/ than a single character like <ṕ> would be.
I think it might be a single phoneme, I'm a relatively new conlang so I'm not sure about all the nomenclature/what is possible. It comes from a consonant cluster that's used together so frequently it comes to be understood as its own separate thing, and usually runs together in speech. I haven't really found anything in the ipa that describes exactly the sound I'm making when I try to pronounce these words.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

BarkMiner wrote: 15 Apr 2023 05:03 Quick question, if my speakers interpret a consonant cluster as a unique phoneme, does it make sense to Romanize it to the same characters as the consonants in the cluster, or use a modified character to match with how my speakers write and think about it. Specific example: the speakers of my language have separate characters for the consonants and consonant cluster /x/, /w/, /xw/. Would it make sense to write /xw/ simply as <xw>, or to mark it with a diacritic or something like <x́>?
We come to the philosophical question what a phoneme is.
Some grammars analyze consonant clusters as if they were phonemes because it makes phonotactic analysis easier. But I think the realizations of a phoneme in the strict sense must be single sounds.
What is a single sound is the second question. In practice, you can well analyze the same thing either as the cluster /xw/ or a coarticulated sound /xw/. The latter one is a single sound. Yes, coarticulations should in principle be simultaneous but in practice the coarticulated feature can well partially precede or follow the main feature. Similarly two adjacent sounds can well realize partially simultaneously.

Back to the original question if you should Romanize them as one-to-one match with the native script (transliteration) or more phonemically (transcription). It depends on if you want to show us something about the script or just about the language's phonemic structure. Usually imitating the native script is found more artistic by conlangers.

I personally doubt if people really perceive any sounds as single entities before formal training, i.e. learning to write. IMO, phonome analysis is always just analysis, for describing the language, not to find any mental reality.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by LinguoFranco »

If I want to make a conlang that is characterized by palatal sounds, would it be better to make palatals a part of the syllable structure (CGV, with G= glide), or make palatalized consonants phonemic?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Knox Adjacent »

I'd say both, but if you do just one, do clusters. Gets ya (in effect) 2 palatal POAs.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

LinguoFranco wrote: 21 Apr 2023 18:08 If I want to make a conlang that is characterized by palatal sounds, would it be better to make palatals a part of the syllable structure (CGV, with G= glide), or make palatalized consonants phonemic?
It fully depends on your phoneme analyses.
If your syllable structure is simple, say CVC, if palatals are phonemes, I recommend doing that.
If palatals are sporadic, say pj is clearly pronounced as two sounds but tj is more like a coarticulation, it might be a good idea to analyse both as Cj sequences.

But basically the answer is just: choose the one that looks better.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

I'm planning a language with five cases, two numbers, and two degrees of definiteness. The idea is that it is an IE-style lang with portmanteau suffixes and many declensions. That is, it has 20 suffixes per declension.
If take the suffixes from Awkward, the paradigm is too irregular. And if I just find them up, the paradigm is too regular. How should I start? Probaly, somehow diachronically but how?
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

There's no such thing as 'too regular', or 'too irregular'. Languages vary from the completely predictable to the seemingly completely random.

The obvious approach would just to... do it diachronically. Almost the same as for any other diachronics. Have your words, apply sound changes. I say 'almost', because there is a bit more scope for analogical levelling, in which rare or awkward outcomes can be replaced by more mainstream ones.

Things can further be spiced up by having multiple classes using affixes from different sources, and elements of suppletion. And remembering that affixation doesn't all have to happen at once.

For instance, if we have the proto-root kap (inglenook) we could have a paradigm like:

kap = kap, nom.sg.
kap + oy = kope, acc.sg
kap + iga = kepya, gen.sg
kap + ru = kopru, dat.sg
kap + at = kapa, nom.pl
kap + at + oy = (kaptoy=) kapoy, acc.pl
kap + at + iga = kapiga, gen.pl
kap + at + ru = kapru, dat.pl
kap + kig = kepi, nom.sg.DEF
kap + kibay = kepwe, acc.sg.DEF (irregular declension of old pronoun, kig/kibay)
kap + kig + iga = kepiga, gen.sg.DEF (haplogy of igiga>igga>iga prior to medial syllable loss)
kap + kig + ru = kepru, dat.sg.DEF
kap + tan = kapan, nom.pl.DEF (suppletive plural of old pronoun)
kap + tan +oy = kaboy , acc.pl.DEF
kap + tan + iga = kapinga, gen.pl.DEF (metathesis)
kap + tan + ru = kabru, dat.pl.DEF
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

Salmoneus wrote: 25 Apr 2023 19:20 There's no such thing as 'too regular', or 'too irregular'. Languages vary from the completely predictable to the seemingly completely random.

The obvious approach would just to... do it diachronically. Almost the same as for any other diachronics. Have your words, apply sound changes. I say 'almost', because there is a bit more scope for analogical levelling, in which rare or awkward outcomes can be replaced by more mainstream ones.

Things can further be spiced up by having multiple classes using affixes from different sources, and elements of suppletion. And remembering that affixation doesn't all have to happen at once.

For instance, if we have the proto-root kap (inglenook) we could have a paradigm like:

kap = kap, nom.sg.
kap + oy = kope, acc.sg
kap + iga = kepya, gen.sg
kap + ru = kopru, dat.sg
kap + at = kapa, nom.pl
kap + at + oy = (kaptoy=) kapoy, acc.pl
kap + at + iga = kapiga, gen.pl
kap + at + ru = kapru, dat.pl
kap + kig = kepi, nom.sg.DEF
kap + kibay = kepwe, acc.sg.DEF (irregular declension of old pronoun, kig/kibay)
kap + kig + iga = kepiga, gen.sg.DEF (haplogy of igiga>igga>iga prior to medial syllable loss)
kap + kig + ru = kepru, dat.sg.DEF
kap + tan = kapan, nom.pl.DEF (suppletive plural of old pronoun)
kap + tan +oy = kaboy , acc.pl.DEF
kap + tan + iga = kapinga, gen.pl.DEF (metathesis)
kap + tan + ru = kabru, dat.pl.DEF
Yes, something like that.
Your quick example looks better than what I have come up with thisfar. But we will see how my project goes.
Thank you again.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by thethief3 »

Where do negatives usually come from? I'm struggling to find the form of a negative auxillary since *-na the old negative also appears in the negative. copula. I have *san "to lack" as a source but it already became the standard way of negating a noun.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by sangi39 »

thethief3 wrote: 04 May 2023 09:18 Where do negatives usually come from? I'm struggling to find the form of a negative auxillary since *-na the old negative also appears in the negative. copula. I have *san "to lack" as a source but it already became the standard way of negating a noun.
A good place to look might be French, with the most notable example being "ne ... pas", where "ne" is the original negative, and "pas" coming from "step" (so something like "not one step", I think), becoming just "... pas". Similar process has happened with a few other adverbs, like "plus" and "rien" where the "ne" before the verb has just dropped out, leaving the negative indicated by words like "step", "more", and "anything/nothing"
You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Creyeditor »

More generally, indefinite pronouns might be a source. Jespersen's cycle is a good keyword for a google search. Some content words like 'lack', 'leave', 'stop', 'be absent' also have an inherent negative meaning and can become negative markers, even if they were complex constructions once that included a (former) negator.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by sangi39 »

Creyeditor wrote: 04 May 2023 15:42 ... Jespersen's cycle ...
That's the word for it! Thank you!
You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Hugh_Capet »

Keenir wrote: 16 Apr 2023 07:44 This is probably hopelessly belated, but even so...I want to try to help...

It sounds like you kinda have a relatively free hand with your take on Danian...you could have it look like a creole of Celtic & Germanic (Germanic syntax and Celtic lexicon? equal amounts of Celtic and Germanic all stirred together into a pidgin, then let them grow together as a creole?)....or just focus more on one side than the other of the heritage?

(maybe instead of looking at Celtic languages like Welsh and Irish, maybe look at the Celtic (sub)family that existed in France? would that be sufficiently influenced by Germanic?)

all the best
Belated indeed, but thank you for the help. I've since gotten my hands on Parma Eldalamberon #19, a linguistic journal which goes into detail on the developments of Danian (albeit with Quenya as the most major focus by far). It seems I was incorrect to think of it as being directly Telerin in inspiration. Rather, the language was simply that of the Nandor who were themselves part of the Telerin host. Thus, it seems reasonable that Danian as a language would have developed before the shift of labialized velars to labial consonants (e.g., kw > p). Thus solving the issue I had several months ago.

There are still other problems with the language, but I'm confident I can puzzle-out those difficulties in time. Thank you again for the suggestions, though. They might prove helpful in other languages I've been thinking about.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by thethief3 »

Creyeditor wrote: 04 May 2023 15:42 More generally, indefinite pronouns might be a source. Jespersen's cycle is a good keyword for a google search. Some content words like 'lack', 'leave', 'stop', 'be absent' also have an inherent negative meaning and can become negative markers, even if they were complex constructions once that included a (former) negator.
Proto Amaric
pai na nawo tuni
3.sg.m NEG talk often
"He doesn't talk much"

Old Amarin
mai na naao mauria tuni
3.sg.m NEG talk need often
"He doesn't talk much"

Current Amarin
mai lauja naau runi
3.sg.m NEG talk often
"He doesn't talk much"

*lauja is a contraction of *laweia "to leave (its got the same ending and *mauria) and *lawa is its imperfective form a contraction of *lawejala. The *w retention is irregular.
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