zompist bboard

I have an idea for a sound change occuring in three alternative environments - that is, I'm going to pick only one of them, hence I don't write them as one sound change under three conditions.

n → ŋ → ŋk / _ʃ
n → ŋ → ŋk / _ʂ
n → ŋ → ŋk / _x

I wonder: was any of these changes attested?

Recently, I've been revisiting the idea again, so I'm bumping this thread to ask: does anyone know or recall any specific information on the topic?

There are (at leas) 23 languages with person inflection on adpositions used with nouns (according to this article on WALS ). Abhaz is an example of such a language, as shown in the article: a-jə̀yas a-q’nə̀ def-river 3sg-at ‘at the river’ It is a general rule that adpositions arise from nouns or ver...

@Thry: [ie] is a sequence of two vowels, resulting from disappearance of a consonant between them. My idea was to change it to a sequence of a glide and a vowel, with whole segment preserving length, or not. I think there is a difference between [ie] and [je], and if I remember correctly, I have als...

What would be a better (more likely) set of sound changes happening to diphtongs [ie] and [ue] in a language, that already has phonemic vowel length?

option #1:
ie → je
ue → we

option #2:
ie → jeː
ue → weː

Not sure why you're bringing size into this. Because, as I wrote, Tiwi uses category of shape and size. Some Papuan language(s) use(s) that, too. Also, in some languages, particular gender is associated with derivational morphemes (like diminutive and augmentive, both refering to size), that is: no...

Recently I've been thinking about gender system for one of my languages. Searching for inspiration, I found out about natural languages that have system of gender assignement basing on natural gender (sex), and shape and/or size of a noun. First, I found such a system in Tiwi language , spoken on Ti...

Thanks! But now I'm thinking that I could make it another way:

p > f
f > h

and then in one of decendants of my language:

kʷ > p

This would be probably more naturalistic, and the result would be the same.

Thanks for the answers! Another idea, and new questions: I'm going to create a language, that lacks bilabial consonants (like Iroquoian, or some other languages of Americas). First, I wanted to just make it by fiat, but then I had an idea of making it a result of a sound change, that will be one of ...

Are these sound changes: aa → aː ae → æː ai → ai ao → oː au → au ea → æ: ee → eː ei → ei eo → øː eu → eu ia → ja ie → je ii → iː io → jo iu → ju oa → wa oe → we oi → wi oo → oː ou → ou ua → wa ue → we ui → wi uo → wo uu → uː plausible in this set (as opposed to the same changes occuring with other v...

Well... is something going on about the project? A lot of time passed since the last news, and the version is still 0.1.6. I'm writing this, because I have a problem with using both [ː] and [:] as markers of vowel lenght. I want to turn [ I've tried these: i u > ɪ ʊ / _ UNLESS _ː then iː uː > i u an...

How can a syncope (loss of word-medial vowel) be conditioned? I thought of dropping an unstressed vowel before stressed syllable, or loss of supershort vowel, but I have no idea about other possible conditions.

While listening "Conlangery Podcast" (episode #14: Verb framing and postural verbs), I've heard something about verbs to come and to go to be "often the same" in other languages. While I know that in some languges motion verbs translated as one of these two can cover situations different from those ...

I'd say it's not very likely, especially as you use ponoun-based relative sentences - there's normally a lot of overlap in the construction principles of relative sentences and other subordinate sentences, and if your relative sentences use rel. pronoun plus finite verbs, I'd say it's very likely t...

As you may know, I did a good deal of research on numbers , though I won't say I'm an expert. To my knowledge, only two languages are reported to have no numbers: Yumbri (SE Asia) and Piraha (Amazon), and the latter has been disputed. You can't always trust reports of "restricted" numeral systems. ...

Recently, I've been reading some articles on origin of indo-european and uralic numerals, and also about numerals in other languages of the world. I won't wonder here how numerals in different languages evolve - from what I've read, they develop from body-part nouns and simple aritmethic operations,...

I'm reviving this old thread (at first, I didn't even realise, how old it is...) because perhaps now some more people will know how to help me, perhaps giving some radically different answers. And because now I'm dealing with the topic of complex sentences again... So, now I'm going to create a conl...

What do you think of this phonology? Does it look naturalistic? I'm especially afraid that the inventory of approximants and laterals doesn't...

A dictionary. Thank you, captain obvoius! The reason I'm asking for an online resource is that I want to avoid creating such a list of words manually, by using a book dictionary or internet one. I wanted to use my own python script to extract such data from wiktionary dump, but I gave up because my...

I'm planning an english-based conlanging project, for which I need a list of modern english words, with their pronounciations (preferably in received pronounciation). First, I wanted to use wiktionary dump, but I failed to import it to my local mysql database. I've searched for other possible resour...

What a great thread! It reminds me times, when I wanted to create a polysynthetic language myself... I hope it's not going to dissapear after some time (I remember that this was often the case with many threads before, at least while ZBB was on its former hosting).

Bob Johnson wrote:There are other particles of course but I took OP to be interested only in sentence-final ones.

That's not the case... Both polish examples that I gave are purely (as far as I know, and I'm polish) sentence-initial.

I'm creating this topic for inspiration (for me, but I'm sure others would make a use of it as well). So, what sentential and/or discourse particles that you know about are used in languages? It would be great to know phonological values of a particle, its uses, and name of language in which the par...

What are possible ways of a language with stress fixed on one syllable to develop lexical stress (the one with different positions in each word), or to shift fixed stress position to another one? I thought about stress being moved to syllables with a specific tone(s), or one preserved on its positio...

Do you know any natural grammaticalization paths of ordinal numeral form? Or do you have any idea what would be a possible scenario of it? I'm asking, because in my conlang ordinal numeral are marked by an affix, and I know it will be eventually lost in its daughter languages. PS: Please, specify if...