zompist bboard

So...I'm wondering what you guys use as a resource for justifying sound changes, for a naturalistic conlang of course. I'm interested in things regarding common sound changes and the average length of time a sound change may take. Any resources I have attempted to search for don't bring up very exci...

well... the thing is... people don't write "/ɯᵝ/". they write "/u/". this is how the IPA is supposed to be used. if you are being pedantic about the sound of something you might put it in square brackets (a phonetic transcription, not phonemic). you even noted that it's not phonemic, it's just the ...

So, any comments on the interesting thing japanese has going on with its "u" /ɯᵝ/ and its "r" /ɽ/, I know these are really unique and so transcribing them is a little painful from what I see. Anybody have info on these guys, or for that matter, any other interesting phonemes that strain transcriptio...

4. Fillers (equivalents to "uhhhh", "y'know", "like", etc.). Textbooks sadly almost never include these, in spite of how useful they could be to any learner! English textbook: Not discussed. But nevermind, English speakers go "uuuuuh" just as well. French textbook: Not discussed. But nevermind, Fre...

OSTR- Na Raz
Maxime LeForestier- Comme in arbre dans la ville
Maximum the Hormone- Houcho hasami cutter knife dosu kiri
Rammstein- Rammlied
Hatsune Miku- Neko no naritai
Prabhu Deva- Kalluri Vaanil
Red Army Choir- Soviet Anthem

Theweevil, I'd like to ask a question about the motivation behind your design choices. If you are so unsure and lost as to how to handle word order in a case-marking language....why are you using case-marking and free word order in the first place? In general one ought to first decide what one want...

Vuvuzela wrote:I don't like ↗ languages, especially ↗dialects of ↗English with rising intonation at the ends of ↗statements. (Like some younger female speakers from southern California or, more egregiously, imitations thereof.)

I'm in the middle of that I feel your pain

Can you elaborate at all on what it is you find weird about topicalization? I guess what I meant by that was: I don't like using word order to topicalize or change a sentence's focus. In my experience, when I see topicalization examples the most common method employed is word order. For example: I ...

The tenses idea I like. I would also agree that Englush does have for freedom of word order than most people accredit to it. I think the thing that I have the hardest time getting my head wrapped around is the whole topicalization and focus shift deal; I mean, I understand it you could say, but it j...

So, I'm curious as to what interesting things I can use word order for if its been freed up by cases and such. Anybody have some good resources concerning this?

1.I don't hate pharyngeals and Epiglottals, but when a language contrasts them.....it kinda makes me wanna /ʕħħʕʕʕħħʜʜʜ/ 2. I don't particularly care for the Bostonian, New York, (New)Jersey accents 3. /ɻ/ i still have some issues producing...so that's really the only reason I currently dislike it 4...

So, I am looking for some resources on sounds changes and plenty of examples of actual changes and how long they take to occur. Also something that gives examples of common sound changes and how tones can develop/disappear would be appreciated highly.