Sound Change Quickie Thread

[Risla]

How plausible would a sound change be that caused devoicing and subsequent loss of unstressed vowels after ejectives?

[Aszev]

I have a sound change in a conlang where [ð] becomes [j] before front vowels and [ʋ] everywhere else, and dialectically it becomes [w] before /u/. This is reasonable, right? Didn't something similar happen with Faroese?

Contrarily to what's been said on the board at least twice this last week, I believe Faroese rather had ð > Ø, and then inserted semivowels between vowels in hiatus.

[Qwynegold]

Hmm, nah. If I did that, then the palatals would make 45% of all consonants. It looks ridiculous. (Heh, I finally understand why Ñ is used in Spanish baby talk.)

You could have the palatals front to alveolars or postalveolars first.

Hmm, I might do palatalized labial > palatal in another branch actually. In this lang, the palatalized alveolars become postalveolars, so a distinction between dentals and postalveolars is created. But does both of these ideas go together? I think it looks a little odd:

{nʲ tʲ dʲ sʲ lʲ} > {n̠ t̠ d̠ ʃ l̠}
{pʲ bʲ mʲ fʲ vʲ} > {c ɟ ɲ ç ʝ}

Could work. Slavic langs had like 29764284723 waves of palatalization, so you can do the same thing.

Ah yeah, but is it plausible that these two sound changes happen at the same time?

[Qwynegold]

In Nahuatl it's from */t/ before */a/ and */u/, actually.

Why would that happen? I can't see the motivation for it.

[Qwynegold]

I have a sound change in a conlang where [ð] becomes [j] before front vowels and [ʋ] everywhere else, and dialectically it becomes [w] before /u/. This is reasonable, right? Didn't something similar happen with Faroese?

Some dialects of Finnish had ð > j, but in all positions AFAIK.

[----]

I have a sound change in a conlang where [ð] becomes [j] before front vowels and [ʋ] everywhere else, and dialectically it becomes [w] before /u/. This is reasonable, right? Didn't something similar happen with Faroese?

Contrarily to what's been said on the board at least twice this last week, I believe Faroese rather had ð > Ø, and then inserted semivowels between vowels in hiatus.

What about things like 'maður' which, according to Omniglot, is pronounced [mɛavʊr]? Is the site just incorrect or was there some sort of fortitino thing going on where there was previously a glide but it changed to a fricative?

[Jetboy]

iunno, i suppose it'd help if you had [5]

Yeah, I'd have /ł/ in the same environment, actually, from /lˠ/. That's good to know, though, thanks.

[Nortaneous]

I have a sound change in a conlang where [ð] becomes [j] before front vowels and [ʋ] everywhere else, and dialectically it becomes [w] before /u/. This is reasonable, right? Didn't something similar happen with Faroese?

Contrarily to what's been said on the board at least twice this last week, I believe Faroese rather had ð > Ø, and then inserted semivowels between vowels in hiatus.

What about things like 'maður' which, according to Omniglot, is pronounced [mɛavʊr]? Is the site just incorrect or was there some sort of fortitino thing going on where there was previously a glide but it changed to a fricative?

Faroese orthography just uses <ð> for a pile of different random shit between vowels. Between most vowels and <u>, <ð> is /v/.

[Risla]

word-initial and post-coronal fortition of [ɬ] to [tɬ]: yes/no?

[ná'oolkiłí]

^^^ Definitely.

[Arzena]

How might I justify a sound change of /ɒ/ to [ɛ] in the environment R_ ?
R = /r ɾ w/

[Jetboy]

Well, I imagine that if /r ɾ/ have some allophonic rounding going on, /ɒ/ might become /α/, which could then merge with /æ/, and then that could raise to /ɛ/, which is attested in some Arabic dialects; this would probably drag a mid back vowel down to /α/. Not a terrific solution, but if you can't find anything better, it doesn't seem too crazy.

[Mr. Z]

word-initial and post-coronal fortition of [ɬ] to [tɬ]: yes/no?

Yes.

[Nortaneous]

Arzena: No idea what those symbols are, but from the other post, I'm guessing that allophonic velarization on /r/ and that other thing might work. (The former is atttested in Old English.)

[Qwynegold]

OMG I just had my first conlanging dream! I don't know if I should post this in the dream thread, but this might be best. I was conlanging with someone else, and we were supposed to come up with a phoneme inventory where every phoneme matched up to a letter in the Latin alphabet. I don't remember much about his conlang, except that it had a very complicated syllable structure. For example www was a possible word (hmm, this reminds me of someone elses conlang ). I came up with this, and as you can see dreams aren't usually very plausible:

Code: Select all

  m   n
p b t d     k ɡ q ɢ ʔ
  ɓ  (ɗ)     (ɠ)  ʛ
    s z ʃ           h
  w   l   j
  ʙ   r

i y    (ɯ)u
e ø       o
(ɛ) ɜ ɞ   ɔ
        ɑ ɒ

The phonemes in parenthesis I'm not sure about. /ɛ/ I'm extremely unsure about; in the dream all vowels appeared in pairs of rounded/unrounded (except that ɔ/o was one pair for some reason), but there was no /œ/. The implosives I'm also uncertain about. I think there was /ʛ/, but I can't remember any other implosives.

Anyhow, this clearly doesn't match up to the Latin alphabet, <f j v x> remain unused, and still not every phoneme can get an unaccented letter of their own. I do remember that <c> was the last one I was struggling with in the dream, and decided to give it the value /ʃ/. Maybe if I added /x/ and /ɣ/ or /χ/, then one could have <x> and the other <j>. Though I kinda like it how there are so few fricatives in this lang. <c> and <ğ> are about the only things I can remember about the romanization, but here's an attempt:

Code: Select all

  m   n
p b t d     k g q ğ '
  b' (d')    (g') ğ'
    s z c           h
  w   l   y
  br  r

i ü    (ı)u
e ö       o
(ĕ) ? ?   ŏ
        a ?

I think actually <ǥ> would be better for /ɢ/ because in handwriting I stroke the descender of small q, so ǥ looks just like it except its tail is curled. Maybe dot above would be prettier for marking implosives. Though I don't think Pʔ contrasts with them. And <š> would be prettier for /ʃ/. I think <ı> might give too much of a Turkic feel, in the dream this language felt more Native American. I have no idea for what to use for the vowels I've marked with ?.

About the diachronics. Maybe if this language used to have /æ/, the vowel inventory wouldn't seem so weird. And then /æ/ turned into /ɜ/ for some reason. This language probably allowed no more than two consonants in clusters, but then even these clusters simplified. So /ʙ/ might've come from bilabial + r. I remember thinking in the dream that I should get rid of /w/, so I made this: /kw ɡw qw hw/ > /kʷ ɡʷ qʷ ʍ/, while in other positions it disappeared. It might've rounded the following vowel, but I remember thinking about whether /jw/ or /wj/ should become /ɥ/, but then decided against it, so /w/ disappeared without a trace when next to /j/. I think it might've gone like this:
w > ʷ / k_, ɡ_, q_
hw > ʍ
w > 0 / C[+bilabial]_, C[+implosive]_, j_, _j
wV[-rounded] > V[+rounded]
w > 0
Is this horribly implausible, or could it work? Note that for some reason /ɢw/ did not become /ɢʷ/.

The syllable structure was either (C)(C)V(C) or (C)(C)V(C)(C), but all (or perhaps just "most" clusters disappeared (a cluster that goes over syllable boundaries does not count as a cluster)). /ʔ/ had free variation between [ʔ] and 0 when word-initial; it might've not appeared next to any consonant.

Here's a random text sample (made with the help of Awkwords):

/øʃɗu hɔ ø ɜ uʙɒ ote iqe sobɑʙɑ dɒ yzle/
Öšd'u ho ö ĕ ubrá óte iqe sobabra dá üzle.

/ɔdʙɜzre tirɑ pjyʃɔ pø i ɒbjɔtø ɔ ykjy ɔʃpjɞ ɒʃetø ɢɞbɑ ɒʔ ɒly ɞlzejsɜʔ/
Odbrĕzre tira pyüšo pö i ábyotö o ükyü ošpyŏ ášetö ǥŏba á' álü ŏlzeysĕ'.

/tjɔ ɞ ɒdqy pobtɑɢi ɑt ʛowɒ urɗø uʃ ɯɢɓɑ ɜbdje/
Tyo ŏ ádqü pobtaǥi at ǥ'ówá urd'ö uš ıǥb'a ĕbdye.

/uʃɑʙɒqo ɔw jø zid ʃɔkɑq sɯt/
Ušabráqó ow yö zid šokaq sıt.

/ʃɞkbo i ubqjɔr ɯru ɞlsɞ/
Šŏkbo i ubqyor ıru ŏlsŏ.

Hmm, the orthography needs some serious work. And also the phoneme frequencies.

[Mbwa]

How might I justify a sound change of /ɒ/ to [ɛ] in the environment R_ ?
R = /r ɾ w/

You don't need to justify it.

[Qwynegold]

I'm developing sound changes leading to the language I described about. I've managed to come up with rules that makes /ʔ/ only appear next to voiced phonemes. Now, the plosives are gonna turn into implosives when next to /ʔ/, but what about the other consonants. Could this happen?:
ʔm ʔn ʔz ʔl ʔj ʔw ʔr > bˀ dˀ dˀ dˀ ɟˀ ɡˀ dˀ > ɓ ɗ ɗ ɗ ʄ ɠ ɗ
The idea is that the ʔ transfers it's plosive feature unto the other consonant, but it also remain glottalized.

Another question I have is about allophony regarding uvulars. I've seen some languages where /i/ is [e] next to a uvular. I guess this makes sense since [e] is a little further back than [i]. But I think I've also seen /u/ being [o]. Why would uvulars lower adjacent vowels?

Oh, one more question. What could be made out of breathy vowels? I know low tone is one possibility, moving the breathy feature to a consonant another, but is there anything else?

[Astraios]

Another question I have is about allophony regarding uvulars. I've seen some languages where /i/ is [e] next to a uvular. I guess this makes sense since [e] is a little further back than . But I think I've also seen /u/ being [o]. Why would uvulars lower adjacent vowels?

Because uvulars are pronounced low down in the mouth?

[Qwynegold]

Another question I have is about allophony regarding uvulars. I've seen some languages where /i/ is [e] next to a uvular. I guess this makes sense since [e] is a little further back than . But I think I've also seen /u/ being [o]. Why would uvulars lower adjacent vowels?

Because uvulars are pronounced low down in the mouth?

Are they? Ah, I found this:

Unlike other uvular consonants, the uvular trill is articulated without a retraction of the tongue, and therefore doesn't lower neighboring high vowels the way uvular stops commonly do.

I do wish they had written more than a sentence about it. :/

[Astraios]

Well, if you think about it, /u/ is a high vowel just like /i/, and to pronounce a proper /q/ you need to lower the back of your tongue to hit the right spot (that totally doesn't sound like an innuendo), so you're going to have to lower the vowel some on the way in between /u/ and /q/.

[Risla]

Yeah. I'm just going to point out that in distinctive feature theory, uvulars are featurally [-high] and that's one of their characteristics to distinguish them from the other dorsal series.

[Jetboy]

Yeah, aren't uvulars associated with low vowels? Or is that only pharyngeals?

[jmcd]

I thought uvulars would be associated with mid back vowels because dorsal like velars but not high like them. And velars would be associated with high back vowels via [M\] and [w].

[Qwynegold]

Okay, thanks! I can actually neatly create new vowels, which I need, if I lower everything next to a uvular. So does anyone have an answer to my question if it's plausible to develop implosives out of other consonants than plosives?

[Nortaneous]

Nasal+stop clusters.

Re: uvular trill not lowering vowels: Not necessarily, cf. German.