zompist bboard

Since all the cool kids seem to be doing a scratchpad, I'm at the point where I feel like this needs some more sets of eyes, and I'm out of ideas for words/concepts to add. FIRST, A BIT OF THE CONWORLD AND CONCULTURE THAT I THINK YOU NEED TO KNOW The conworld, to which I have yet to give a name, is ...

Possible idea.

Another question: Is /ŋk/ → /ŋɡ/ → /ɲɟ/ → /ndʒ/ plausible in the environment F_V (F being a front vowel, V being any vowel at all)?

What can I do with /tʃʰ/ that's consistent with /pʰ tʰ kʰ/ → /ɸ θ x/?

OK, false alarm—apparently I still have it. Would like some help with the homonyms mentioned, though.

I had been keeping separate text files for my Wideriver language family and I accidentally overwrote the Proto-Western Wideriver to Proto-Southwoods .sc file, which I still need, with the changes for the stage after that (to Ancient Southwoods). I put the starting word list and ending word list in ...

I have a few issues with the transcription: I'm not a big fan of <ii> for /i/ or <uu> for /u/, but the only alternative coming to mind essentially uses English spelling rules instead (<ee> for /i/ and <oo> for /u/), and I'm not sure that makes the transcription all that interesting. MAYBE you can ju...

Now that I think of it, where is the line between a separate case and just something with a marker stuck to it? Could you clarify what you mean by "something with a marker stuck to it"? For example, Japanese uses markers for what seems like a lot of things, yet I come across very few people talking...

Would it be more plausible to just limit some of the location/direction "cases" for derivational morphology, then, along the lines of the "super-" and "sub-" prefixes we got from Latin? (I like your idea; I'm just seeing what I can work with.) Edited to add: Now that I think of it, where is the line...

What are some ways within the scope of this thread to get rid of cases you don't want anymore? I have a protolanguage with 18 cases, and in my notes many of them are supposed to be re-adapted, merged, vestigal, or even gone entirely in daughter languages, in some cases depending on the register. If ...

Also, I collapsed the Hodiernal past and future tenses into the present tense. Now it it just hodiernal and present tense. Or would it just be considered Hodiernal? Your phrasing implies just hodiernal, and that seems to be the more plausible solution to me anyway. When linguists speak of categorie...

I don't think so. Normally that happens regardless of the place of articulation of the nasal consonant.

The tenses for actions earlier today and actions later today have the same name—did you mean that? I don't find having both a non-past and different kinds of future tenses plausible because of the overlap. I'd rework the non-past into the present, and then you'd have a (nearly) symmetrical system. I...

What are some plausible ways, preferably conditional, to have codas of /k kʰ ɡ ŋ t tʰ d n p pʰ b m s r/ alter the vowel height or backness of /a aː i iː u uː/? The vowels /i iː/ are occuring after /tʃ tʃʰ dʒ nʒ̃/ with too high a frequency to my liking and I want to decrease the relative frequency of...

Is (C)VʔC > (C)ʔVC plausible, possibly with some middle step? It is to me. It's a simple metathesis, and some languages don't allow vowel-initial syllables, using an epenthetic glottal stop for the required initial consonant. I think Arabic has this rule, but anybody is free to correct me if I'm wr...

I like that idea.

What do you guys think about some of these: Based on an answer I got here , don't do affrication just yet—change these two lines: Tj/Q/_ T/Q/_Y to these two lines: Tj/Ḱ/_ T/Ḱ/_Y and then delete the last five lines and the line defining the affricates. The palatal stops can then become affricates qui...

OK, another one: Is it plausible for the distinction between /nʲ/ and /ɲ/ to collapse? If so, which is the more plausible sound to keep (and if it depends, on what)?

I have a few questions. One of my questions is described in detail here , I made that thread before noticing this one existed and would like to apologize. What are some plausible ways to change /ʔ/ besides elision? Suppose language A has an ejective series of consonants but no aspirated series, whil...

I'm working on several language families for a conworld I'm developing. Proto-Western Wideriver (yeah, I know, all my languages need non-English names; these are placeholders until the conworld is better-developed) has an unusual nasal affricate /nʒ̃/ that developed when the coronals affricated befo...