zompist bboard

At first I was skeptical, since this system is completely unreadable, but all my suspicions were put to rest when I noticed that there are a huge number of transcription mistakes just on this one page. I'm for this 100%!

I don't know what to say except that your understanding of the standard set of features is wrong. There just isn't such a thing. Features only exist to identify and collect natural classes of phonemes, and what members exist in a natural class is very dependent on particular languages, because langu...

I think the problem is that you think features are "real". They aren't. They're just a construct that's useful for explaining some linguistic phenomena. These contradictions arise from your idea that there is such a thing as "[+front]" that has an existence independent of a particular language or a ...

StrangerCoug wrote:Is there a semivowel counterpart to /ɨ/?

It occurs in the languages of Tanna (it's usually transcribed as <v>)

Wenn ich mich gut erinnere, ist thetha spanisch. Vielleicht sagt er 'escuela' auf spanisch. IIRC thetha's Spanish. Maybe he says 'escuela' in Spanish. J'ai fait la même conversation il y a pas très longtemps. Où j'habite, on peut appeler tout niveau d'enseignement 'school'. Mais, je suis pas espagn...

私は日本語を学んでいる
watashi wa nihongo o manande iru
I'm learning Japanese!

dans l'université, bien sûr.
In school, of course.

Proto New Caledonia to Pwapwâ V > 0/_# sometimes s ʈ k q > t̪ t̪ c k p: pw: t: t̪: c: k: > pʰ xʷ tʰ t̪ʰ s x t t̪ tʰ t̪ʰ > c t cʰ tʰ C: > Cʰ p pw t c k > v~0 w l 0 0/V_V y > z bw mw > gw ŋw (and further to g ŋ before rounded vowels) Proto New Caledonia to Pwaamei V > 0/_# sometimes s t k q > t c y k...

Proto New Caledonia to Nyelâyu 0 > n/#_V (only in nouns, probably fusion with Proto Oceanic article *na) V > 0/_# in disyllabic words C > 0/_# sometimes s t k > t̪ c y (k palatalization apparently only happened initially, and there's no evidence of it happening to the prenasalized stop) p pw t̪ ʈ c...

Okay Proto-Northern is too difficult to work with so I'll just be deriving the rest of the stuff straight from Proto-New Caledonia. Sorry for the mess that's occurred so far, but I'll try to clean things up after I've finished with all the Northern languages. Proto New Caledonia to Yuanga 1 and 2 s ...

One thing I forgot: most languages of the North got a y- on a-initial words. This changes further in several other languages, which I'll definitely describe in the relevant sections of the following posts. Also ŋ > n in every language except those of the Loyalty Islands (e.g. Iaai, Drehu, and Nengo...

This time I'll actually be using a variety of sources but they'll all be by the author Françoise Ozanne-Rivierre. I'll specify if any other authors are credited in the sources I use, and as before I'll mark any notational differences and such that I put in myself with some kind of footnote. First th...

Torco wrote:here it was cloudy :V

Same ): I couldn't see even a glimpse of it. But the sky did look kind of red which was neat.

Analogy is a very common mechanism of all kinds of linguistic change.

I think what kind of throws it for a loop in the case of Anejom is that there was already a /j/ phoneme at any possible time when the l palatalization could have occurred, so it would have had to go directly from [l~ʎ] to something along the lines of [dʒ] or else it would have dragged the /j/ with i...

- if you're positing *j > *R > *g, you'ld expect *j>*g only in languages where *R > *g, yes? So how come in Toba Batak *R > *r, but *j > *g? More generally, I don't see the reflexes of *j and *R tending to be the same in that many languages? Good point with Toba Batak, but let me clarify: I'm not s...

After a small discussion in the Bizarre Sound Changes thread, I've been plagued with [even more] constant thinking about the historical phonology of Austronesian languages. There are at least a couple more people on this board who are apparently interested in this topic other than myself and I'd rea...

-Erromango languages- PSV to Proto Erromango mʷ pʷ bʷ vʷ > m p b v v > p/_# v > f when the adjacent syllable contained a sibilant r > L sometimes (L is a formal symbol, not IPA or anything) s c j > h s s o > a i u > e o sometimes a > i/_C{i, u} many word medial vowels lost Proto Erromango to Sye L >...

I didn't replace the words. I removed what was left of your articles (i.e. k'a ), and ran them through the sca. You don't run them through all the sound changes that happened in the history of your conlang, obviously--not all conlangs have the same sounds. You just change them as if they were loane...

Proto Tanna to Southwest Tanna t > r b bʷ d > p pʷ t ɣ > 0/#_ ɣ > k r > l {c, j} > s s > h irregularly {p, pʷ, v}Vh > fV Proto Tanna to Kwamera t > r b bʷ d > p pʷ t ɣ > 0 {c, j} > s s > h irregularly {p, pʷ, v}Vh > fV a marginal phoneme fʷ develops (by a similar process?) Vowels: Okay, so from POc...

anything beginning with /r/ or other rhotics

Here I'll be going over the languages of Tanna. Like Anejom (and all the languages of Vanuatu to some degree), they're notable in that words can become highly eroded, and more uniquely, they developed a six vowel system /i e a o u ə/ in which /ə/ is fully phonemic, appearing even in stressed syllabl...

Here's what I think is the most fun of them all :) Proto-Southern Vanuatu to Anejom C > 0/_# unless C = *t t > s/_# {v, vʷ} > h k > 0/V_V sometimes b bʷ g > p pʷ k s > h rarely s > θ (sometimes doesn't occur when s/_i) d j c > tʃ s s {n, ŋ} > ɲ/_{i, e} w > v in the majority of words l > tʃ/_{i, e, o...

I'll be going through all the languages traditionally classified as 'Southern Vanuatu languages'. Lynch reconstructs a medial stage, Proto Southern Vanuatu (PSV): POc to PSV m b > mʷ bʷ/_u p > bʷ or b (sometimes) p > vʷ/_u ** p > v k > ɣ (frequently) R > r (frequently) R > 0 dr > d or r ñ > y n > ŋ ...

oyster

I found The Linguistic History of Southern Vanuatu at the library today. Prepare for a substantial addition to the correspondence library everyone