Odd natlang features thread

The best topics from Languages & Linguistics, kept on a permanent basis.
ęzo
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 123
Joined: Sun Oct 06, 2013 4:09 pm

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by ęzo »

är, ehr > aˁː
er > oˁ
as far as I can tell.

Porphyrogenitos
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 168
Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2011 1:13 pm
Location: Ohio

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

I'm not sure how weird this is, so I'll post it here for confirmation.

In Menominee, /i̯a/ and /u̯a/ are constrative with /ja/ and /wa/.

Dē Graut Bʉr
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 593
Joined: Sun Jul 07, 2013 3:03 pm
Location: Nijmegen, Netherlands

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by Dē Graut Bʉr »

That's quite weird.

User avatar
linguoboy
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 3681
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2002 9:00 am
Location: Rogers Park/Evanston

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by linguoboy »

Dē Graut Bʉr wrote:That's quite weird.
Not so much. According some analyses, Spanish also contrasts /j/ and nonsyllabic /i/.

jmcd
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1034
Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2004 11:46 am
Location: Réunion
Contact:

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by jmcd »

And in French, all analyses show a phonemic distinction between /j/ and /i/. There are minimal pairs but the one I'm thinking of depends on a slightly non-standard accent: pays /pe.i/ and paye /pej/ (otherwise /pɛj/). In some cases (but not this one), this is because /j/ derives from older /ʎ/.

And English doesn't have a relationship between the two either due to the Great Vowel Shift.

Dē Graut Bʉr
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 593
Joined: Sun Jul 07, 2013 3:03 pm
Location: Nijmegen, Netherlands

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by Dē Graut Bʉr »

Porphyrogenitos seemed to be talking about a contrast between /j/ and non-syllabic /i/ though.

User avatar
linguoboy
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 3681
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2002 9:00 am
Location: Rogers Park/Evanston

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by linguoboy »

Dē Graut Bʉr wrote:Porphyrogenitos seemed to be talking about a contrast between /j/ and non-syllabic /i/ though.
Fixed. (If it were a contrast with syllabic /i/, why would I bother bringing it up?)

jmcd
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1034
Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2004 11:46 am
Location: Réunion
Contact:

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by jmcd »

Ah yes. I wasn't attentive enough. That's something I need to work on. So Porphyrogenitos=Linguoboy?

Valdeut
Sanci
Sanci
Posts: 56
Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2014 12:16 pm
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by Valdeut »

Porphyrogenitos wrote:I'm not sure how weird this is, so I'll post it here for confirmation.

In Menominee, /i̯a/ and /u̯a/ are constrative with /ja/ and /wa/.
Are you sure that those are rising diphthongs and not falling, i.e. are you sure that they're /i̯a u̯a/ and not /ia̯ ua̯/? The Wikipedia article doesn't actually say that they are /i̯a/ and /u̯a/, it simply writes /ia/ and /ua/. It does say that they pattern with long vowels which I believe is more common for falling diphthongs.

Many languages actually have falling opening diphthongs contrasting with the equivalent semivowel+vowel sequence. Finnish has /ie̯/ contrasting with /je/ (I'm almost sure), for example. And some varieties of English has falling centering diphthongs /ɪə̯ ʊə̯/ that are distinct from /jə wə/ although I'm not sure whether they can occur in the same environment.

vokzhen
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 352
Joined: Sat Aug 09, 2014 3:43 pm
Location: Iowa

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by vokzhen »

In Archi, some pronouns undergo agreement marking. An example:
d-ez un malgan
II.SG-1SG.DAT 2SG.ABS be.dear
You (female) are dear to me (male).
Where the d- of the dative pronoun -ez is noun class agreement with the absolutive un.

Particles and postpositions can also agree with the subject, rather than their own referent. Main-clause auxiliaries sometimes agree with things inside a dependent clause. Most verbs are unmarked for agreement, while some have up to four slots to mark agreement and can mark agreement with the same referent multiple times (at least two, they don't have examples higher than that).

Porphyrogenitos
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 168
Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2011 1:13 pm
Location: Ohio

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

Well, it turns out the Chimakuan languages (all two of them) are an odd bunch. Quileute has a very curious morphological feature:
Quileute features an interesting prefix system that changes depending on the physical characteristics of the person being spoken to. When speaking to a cross-eyed person, [ƛ-] is prefixed to each word. When speaking to a hunchback, the prefix /c̀-/ is used. Additional prefixes are also used for short men (/s-/), "funny people" (/čk/), and people that have difficulty walking (/čχ̣/).
Meanwhile, the other language in the family, Chemakum, did not have any velars - though it did have labiovelars, plain and labial uvulars, and glottals.

EDIT: Oh and Quileute also lacks nasals. Though I know these last two aren't actually unusual among the PNW sprachbund.

hwhatting
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 2315
Joined: Fri Sep 13, 2002 2:49 am
Location: Bonn, Germany

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by hwhatting »

Porphyrogenitos wrote:Well, it turns out the Chimakuan languages (all two of them) are an odd bunch. Quileute has a very curious morphological feature:
Quileute features an interesting prefix system that changes depending on the physical characteristics of the person being spoken to. When speaking to a cross-eyed person, [ƛ-] is prefixed to each word. When speaking to a hunchback, the prefix /c̀-/ is used. Additional prefixes are also used for short men (/s-/), "funny people" (/čk/), and people that have difficulty walking (/čχ̣/).
Are we sure that the last speakers weren't just pulling the legs of the linguists documenting the language?

Porphyrogenitos
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 168
Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2011 1:13 pm
Location: Ohio

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

hwhatting wrote:
Porphyrogenitos wrote:Well, it turns out the Chimakuan languages (all two of them) are an odd bunch. Quileute has a very curious morphological feature:
Quileute features an interesting prefix system that changes depending on the physical characteristics of the person being spoken to. When speaking to a cross-eyed person, [ƛ-] is prefixed to each word. When speaking to a hunchback, the prefix /c̀-/ is used. Additional prefixes are also used for short men (/s-/), "funny people" (/čk/), and people that have difficulty walking (/čχ̣/).
Are we sure that the last speakers weren't just pulling the legs of the linguists documenting the language?
Haha, I don't know. Odd little socio-morpho-phonological features like that don't seem terribly uncommon among Native American languages. For example, Natchez has a special register used when pretending to be a cannibal:
Traditionally the Natchez had certain stories that could only be told during the winter time, and many of these stories revolved around the theme of cannibalism. Protagonists in such stories would encounter cannibals, trick cannibals, marry the daughters of cannibals, kill cannibals, and be eaten by cannibals. In these stories Natchez storytellers would employ a special speech register when impersonating the cannibal characters. This register was distinct from ordinary Natchez by substituting several morphemes and words for others.

In this example the standard optative prefix -ʔa- is exchanged for the cannibal register optative prefix -ka-

kapiʃkʷãː
ka-pi-ʃkʷ-aː-n
first.person.optative.(cannibal)-pl-eat-incompletive-phrasal.termination
"Let us [cannibals] eat him!"

User avatar
Nortaneous
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 4544
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2009 1:52 am
Location: the Imperial Corridor

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by Nortaneous »

seems plausible. didn't Greek use specific dialects for specific sorts of play? could be something like that -- imitating another dialect then generalizing from there.

(totally going to do that in a conlang)
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

User avatar
gach
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 472
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2003 11:03 am
Location: displaced from Helsinki

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by gach »

Porphyrogenitos wrote:Haha, I don't know. Odd little socio-morpho-phonological features like that don't seem terribly uncommon among Native American languages. For example, Natchez has a special register used when pretending to be a cannibal
Mithun gives a few pages for this in The Languages of Native North America and writes that when telling stories in the languages especially around the NW Coast area storytellers adopt a variety of different speech effects when doing the lines of certain legendary characters. She also includes Quileute in the examples though talks about different modifications for it than what you did and doesn't mention anything about modifications based on the addressee. Here are just some quotes from pp. 274-5 in the book:
Sapir reports that the Nootka culture hero Kwátiyaˑt typically inserts χ after the first vowel of a word ... Raven inserts -čχ- into words. Deer and Mink replace all sibilants with laterals (as one does for persons with defects of the eye).
In Quileute mythological beings and animals also have distinctive speech. The culture hero Q'ǽtiˑ prefixes sx- to every word; Raven prefixes š-; Raven's wife prefixes c- and shifts d and l to n, and b to m ... Deer prefixes ƛk- to every word and shifts all sibilants to laterals. In Lushootseed Raven replaces b and d with corresponding nasals m and n. This pattern reverses a sound shift in Lushootseed whereby original nasals were replaced by the voiced stops.
(The same shift /m n/ > /b d/ happened at least in Makah, Ditidaht, Lushootseed and the Chimakuan languages causing them some extent of lack of nasals.)
Coyote's use of inappropriate vocabulary, distorted or nonsense speech, and special forms appears all over the West. He shifts s to š in Coeur d'Alene, s to š and n to l in Nez Perce, s to in Kutenai, infixes ʎ in Cocopa and Yuma, and suffixes -pai in Shoshone and -ajakʲ Chemehuevi.
Sapir reported that in Takelma the prefix sˑ- typically occurs in the speech of Coyote and ł- in the speech of Grizzly Bear.

hwhatting
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 2315
Joined: Fri Sep 13, 2002 2:49 am
Location: Bonn, Germany

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by hwhatting »

Very interesting!

User avatar
alynnidalar
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 491
Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2014 9:35 pm
Location: Michigan, USA

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by alynnidalar »

gach wrote:
Raven's wife prefixes c- and shifts d and l to n, and b to m ...
(The same shift /m n/ > /b d/ happened at least in Makah, Ditidaht, Lushootseed and the Chimakuan languages causing them some extent of lack of nasals.)
Did Raven's wife have a cold?
I generally forget to say, so if it's relevant and I don't mention it--I'm from Southern Michigan and speak Inland North American English. Yes, I have the Northern Cities Vowel Shift; no, I don't have the cot-caught merger; and it is called pop.

User avatar
gach
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 472
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2003 11:03 am
Location: displaced from Helsinki

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by gach »

alynnidalar wrote:Did Raven's wife have a cold?
Probably was just a nagging conservative fed up with a misbehaving husband.

TaylorS
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 557
Joined: Sat Jul 05, 2008 1:44 pm
Location: Moorhead, MN, USA

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by TaylorS »

Porphyrogenitos wrote:Well, it turns out the Chimakuan languages (all two of them) are an odd bunch. Quileute has a very curious morphological feature:
Quileute features an interesting prefix system that changes depending on the physical characteristics of the person being spoken to. When speaking to a cross-eyed person, [ƛ-] is prefixed to each word. When speaking to a hunchback, the prefix /c̀-/ is used. Additional prefixes are also used for short men (/s-/), "funny people" (/čk/), and people that have difficulty walking (/čχ̣/).
This is awesome!!!

CatDoom
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 739
Joined: Fri Sep 20, 2013 1:12 am

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by CatDoom »

gach wrote:
Sapir reports that the Nootka culture hero Kwátiyaˑt typically inserts χ after the first vowel of a word ... Raven inserts -čχ- into words. Deer and Mink replace all sibilants with laterals (as one does for persons with defects of the eye).
Notably, the same source mentions that the -čχ- morpheme in Nootka is also used when referring to greedy people, and that Raven, as portrayed in Nootka mythology, was noted for being a glutton. I'd guess that the morpheme, and probably many or all of the other Chimakuan speech patterns marking individual traits, emerged first in storytelling and were subsequently adopted into everyday speech, which is really cool. Kind of reminds me of Darmok... and suddenly I'm tempted to make a conlang with a whole set or morphemes used solely for making literary allusions. :P
Last edited by CatDoom on Tue Dec 16, 2014 12:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Qwynegold
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1606
Joined: Thu May 24, 2007 11:34 pm
Location: Stockholm

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by Qwynegold »

Lol, this is kinda like Japanese where -nya is used in cat speech. :mrgreen: In manga and anime they tend to make up all kinds of suffixes that certain characters use.
Image
My most recent quiz:
Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Birdlang
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 427
Joined: Sat Dec 27, 2014 5:34 am
Location: Virginia

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by Birdlang »

Taa uses u with bar for a long u and tildes under for strident voice in the Latin script. What does u with bar actually stand for in Taa?
Hello there. Chirp chirp chirp.

----
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1418
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2011 11:15 pm

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by ---- »

mid tone.

User avatar
gufferdk
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 108
Joined: Sat Feb 14, 2015 5:27 am
Location: Western Jutland, Denmark

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by gufferdk »

Rapidly spoken Danish can have some pretty crazy vowel clusters, due to a high degree of consonant reduction, sometimes even of the same vowel.
Example:
"Er en dyreskueuge uudholdelig?" (Audio recording (not sure how to write it in IPA): http://bit.ly/1DhDGaL)
(The underlined part is more or less the same vowel over and over again)
"Is a week of county fair unbearable?"
Languages i speak fluently: Dansk, English
Languages i am studying: Deutsch, Español

hwhatting
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 2315
Joined: Fri Sep 13, 2002 2:49 am
Location: Bonn, Germany

Re: Odd natlang features thread

Post by hwhatting »

Spoken Danish... the rumours are all true. We went to Copenhagen over the new year, and while understanding written Danish is doable with knowing German and English, I was unable to understand almost anything spoken (Except für Godt Nytår, because I heard that often enough ;-) )

Post Reply