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

[Salmoneus]

The trouble is, I really like -g, especially how weird and cludgy it is after stops or consonant clusters. So I'm thinking of reintroducing it in these environments via analogy. Which option sounds best?
1. Have it be reintroduced by analogy, regardless of the new consonant cluster rules.
2. Have it be reintroduced by analogy, with an epenthetic vowel [ə]. However, /ə/ is a pretty marginal phoneme elsewhere in the language, only appearing in loanwords and as an underspecified offglide in diphthongs (and not for all speakers), so this might be implausible.
3. Let it stay deleted.

Personally I'm in favour of deleting them, because "I'll randomly let this one morpheme ignore both the normal sound changes and the normal phonotactics" feels sloppy to me, but it's up to you, of course (and I'm not saying I've never done that myself!).

But I will say, mind your slashes/brackets there. The epenthetic vowel [@] does not require the phoneme /@/, and may not be an instance of it even if they both exist. You could just say it's phonemically -/g/, with an epenthetic vowel in pronunciation.

A real-world example of this is Irish, where certain word-final clusters are phonetically broken up with schwa, but this isn't considered phonemic (and disappears if a subsequent affix renders the cluster no longer final). Think of the stereotypical Irish accent pronunciation of a word like "film" (as "fillum").

[Dormouse559]

Personally I'm in favour of deleting them, because "I'll randomly let this one morpheme ignore both the normal sound changes and the normal phonotactics" feels sloppy to me, but it's up to you, of course (and I'm not saying I've never done that myself!).

A way to avoid an arbitrary exception would be to have a general tendency for word-final elision to operate differently when the consonant cluster is perceived to cross a morpheme boundary.

[LinguoFranco]

So, if a language has a simple tone system (let's say just high and low), would there be a difference between a low tone melody and a toneless melody?

Like, the word /ka.na/ has a Low tone melody, but /ka.na/ is atonal, but takes the tone of whatever word it attaches to?

[Ahzoh]

Does the following make sense?

Code: Select all

H R > M R       = á ǎ > ā ǎ
M R > L R       = ā ǎ > à ǎ
L R > no change = à ǎ > à ǎ

Code: Select all

H F > no change = á â > á â
M F > H F       = ā â > á â
L F > M F       = à â > ā â

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R H > no change = ǎ á > ǎ á
R M > R H       = ǎ ā > ǎ á
R L > R M       = ǎ à > ǎ ā

Code: Select all

F H > F M       = â á > â ā
F M > F L       = â ā > â à
F L > no change = â à > â à

Code: Select all

R R > R H       = ǎ ǎ > ǎ á 
F R > no change = â ǎ > â ǎ or â ā
R F > no change = ǎ â > ǎ â or ǎ ā
F F > F L       = â â > â à

[VaptuantaDoi]

So, if a language has a simple tone system (let's say just high and low), would there be a difference between a low tone melody and a toneless melody?

Well, it depends on the language. Usually speaking, if a language has a fairly uncomplicated binary low/high tone distinction, low tone is unmarked. However, there is occasionally a situation where high tone is the unmarked one, and there are even instances of languages having had historically an unconditional [+high] → [+low] shift (don't ask me how). In the latter case the "high" tone will be at normal speech pitch while "low" will be markedly lowered.
The third option is that there are two marked tones, "high" and "low", and then an unmarked tone, which may be restricted to certain parts of speech, in which case neither high nor low is "toneless".

Basically, a toneless melody can be the low one (most likely), or neither low nor high (also pretty common), or the high one (rare but possible).

Like, the word /ka.na/ has a Low tone melody, but /ka.na/ is atonal, but takes the tone of whatever word it attaches to?

That is absolutely possible. Languages often have rules of varying complexity which determine the assignment of tones to unmarked syllables/moras which you may or may not wish to explore.

---

Does the following make sense?

[...]

Yes, it makes sense, it's just consistent (partial) tone assimilation, except for RR→RH and FF→FL which are just a bit of smoothing. You could equally have tone dissimilation (like L.L → H.L) which is sometimes more fun, but not required.

[LinguoFranco]

So, if a language has a simple tone system (let's say just high and low), would there be a difference between a low tone melody and a toneless melody?

Well, it depends on the language. Usually speaking, if a language has a fairly uncomplicated binary low/high tone distinction, low tone is unmarked. However, there is occasionally a situation where high tone is the unmarked one, and there are even instances of languages having had historically an unconditional [+high] → [+low] shift (don't ask me how). In the latter case the "high" tone will be at normal speech pitch while "low" will be markedly lowered.
The third option is that there are two marked tones, "high" and "low", and then an unmarked tone, which may be restricted to certain parts of speech, in which case neither high nor low is "toneless".

Basically, a toneless melody can be the low one (most likely), or neither low nor high (also pretty common), or the high one (rare but possible).

Like, the word /ka.na/ has a Low tone melody, but /ka.na/ is atonal, but takes the tone of whatever word it attaches to?

That is absolutely possible. Languages often have rules of varying complexity which determine the assignment of tones to unmarked syllables/moras which you may or may not wish to explore.

Well, in the case of my conlang, toneless words are realized as low toned in isolation, but only words with a low tone melody, toneless words have different realizations depending on the adjacent tones of other words. In this case, would the low tone still be considered unmarked?

[VaptuantaDoi]

Well, in the case of my conlang, toneless words are realized as low toned in isolation, but only words with a low tone melody, toneless words have different realizations depending on the adjacent tones of other words. In this case, would the low tone still be considered unmarked?

I have been pondering this question since this morning and I'm afraid I have absolutely no idea what you are asking. Could you perhaps give me some examples of it in action?

[LinguoFranco]

Well, in the case of my conlang, toneless words are realized as low toned in isolation, but only words with a low tone melody, toneless words have different realizations depending on the adjacent tones of other words. In this case, would the low tone still be considered unmarked?

I have been pondering this question since this morning and I'm afraid I have absolutely no idea what you are asking. Could you perhaps give me some examples of it in action?

Well, let's say there are three words: /ka.na/ with a H tone melody, /ka.na/ with a L tone melody, and /ka.na/ with no melody.

The suffix -ta can attach to any of them, and it has a H tone. So, if attaches to toneless /ka.na/, the melody of the word becomes L.L.H.

[Salmoneus]

And the question is?

[you also haven't given much information, have you? Try writing out the tones for all three "kana" words, with and without the suffix - rather than insisting that we just guess!]

[LinguoFranco]

[ka˥.na˥]

[ka˩.na˩]

[ka.na]

Those are the underlying tone melodies for each of them. The third one, however, can be rising, falling or low depending on the adjacent morphemes.

[VaptuantaDoi]

[ka˥.na˥]

[ka˩.na˩]

[ka.na]

Those are the underlying tone melodies for each of them. The third one, however, can be rising, falling or low depending on the adjacent morphemes.

That suggests that you have marked H and L tones, and then a separate unmarked tone. Which is perfectly naturalistic.

[LinguoFranco]

[ka˥.na˥]

[ka˩.na˩]

[ka.na]

Those are the underlying tone melodies for each of them. The third one, however, can be rising, falling or low depending on the adjacent morphemes.

That suggests that you have marked H and L tones, and then a separate unmarked tone. Which is perfectly naturalistic.

I see. I was going for a pitch accent system, where there is only one marked tone per word.

The basic tones are high, low, and toneless, but rising and falling are also allowed as tonal melodies. I was just doing basic level tones for the examples.

[Omzinesý]

There was a conlang genarator that was able to generate relatively nice sketches.
What was its adress?

[Ahzoh]

There was a conlang genarator that was able to generate relatively nice sketches.
What was its adress?

Gleb?

[VaptuantaDoi]

There's also the Vulgarlang conlang generator which is alright although a bit Standard Fantasy Language-ey.

[Creyeditor]

[ka˥.na˥]

[ka˩.na˩]

[ka.na]

Those are the underlying tone melodies for each of them. The third one, however, can be rising, falling or low depending on the adjacent morphemes.

That suggests that you have marked H and L tones, and then a separate unmarked tone. Which is perfectly naturalistic.

I see. I was going for a pitch accent system, where there is only one marked tone per word.

The basic tones are high, low, and toneless, but rising and falling are also allowed as tonal melodies. I was just doing basic level tones for the examples.

Edit: Sorry, it seems there was a problem with my post. I just wanted to recommend Larry Hyman's paper on pitch accent again. Also, (language-specific) markedness can be gradual. Toneless can be less marked than low-toned and low-toned can be less marked than high-toned.

[Arayaz]

There's also the Vulgarlang conlang generator which is alright although a bit Standard Fantasy Language-ey.

I don't think it is very good at naturalism. And way too European. (Of course, its creator is on this forum and I've already insulted them enough in the thread they made for feedback, so I'll stop talking now.)

[VaptuantaDoi]

There's also the Vulgarlang conlang generator which is alright although a bit Standard Fantasy Language-ey.

I don't think it is very good at naturalism. And way too European. (Of course, its creator is on this forum and I've already insulted them enough in the thread they made for feedback, so I'll stop talking now.)

True enough. I guess if you just wanted a naming language you could chuck your own phonology in there and it would work alright. Gleb has the advantage of regularly producing absolutely batshit things like a stop-only consonant inventory or a language with 112 vowels.

[Ahzoh]

So my language primarily develops tone through merging of voiced and voiceless obstruents in simple onsets and the simplification of complex onsets.

This results in an ultimate manifestation of high, low, falling, and rising in open syllables, with the latter two coming from diphthongs. However I can't decide what to do about closed syllables because of a few factors:

I have decided that fricatives /s x/ and voiced stops /b d g/ have a lowering effect on the tone while voiceless stops /p t k/ and sonorants /m n ŋ l r/ have a raising effect on the tone. Glides don't effect the tone or they have a middling effect.

However, linguistic tendencies compound the issue and make it difficult to decide. The first issue is that there is a tendency for a language to have equal or more amounts of falling contours than rising ones. I can suspect that it has to do with the same underlying motivations that lead to tone terracing and downstep.

The other issue is that apparently, from a phonetic point of view, obstruents aren't tone-bearing units. That is, they aren't actually capable of bearing tone. Yet this doesn't stop obstruents from causing tone contours. The possible explanations for why some languages allow contouring syllables with coda obstruents and why some others do not have to do with gemination, vowel length, and stress placement. I can't find any scholarly information on the matter, except one which is paywalled.

I've looked at least how Middle Chinese did things but the reflexes in the many modern descendant are all over the place, so it's hard to tell what's actually going on. Also these languages don't have or retain coda fricatives while my language does, they also didn't start with voiced stops while my language did.

There's also the fact that many languages have "checked syllables" where the closed syllable is limited in what tones can be manifested.

In the end I don't really know which direction I want to tones to go in closed syllables. There's too many options and yet no clear direction becuase most of the languages I look to have phonotactics and diachronics that do not apply to my language. And maybe fricatives should behave like voiceless stops and have a raising effect. Or maybe they should be like glides. I don't know.

[Creyeditor]

Just concerning the "obstruent influence tone without bearing it"-question. Depressor consonant is a good key word. Onset obstruents can synchronically and phonetically influence tone because they require a certain state of the glottis for their voicing value which restricts the possible rate of glottis vibration on the following vowel. Coda obstruents often phonetically shorten preceding vowels and short vowels are less likely to bear high tones or contour tones in the languages of the world.
Btw, I also edited my post above.