Post your conlang's phonology

[Ulan]

Haha its been a while since I've posted



/m n ŋ*/ [m n ny]
[pʰ tʰ cʰ kʰ ] <b d j g>
[p t c k] <p t c k>
[t͡sʰ tɕʰ] <ds dz>
[t͡sʰ tɕ] <ts tz>
[ β s ɕ~ʂ x~h~ç ] <f s z h>
[ j~ɰ ɬ~l ] <y l>

-A syllable is considered heavy if it has a coda (regardless if it is pronounced), or carries a long vowel or a diphthong, otherwise it is considered light. It is rare to have a syllable t have a coda and a complex vowel-
<m n d l k h z> can show up in coda positions, but typically <n> nasalizes the preceding vowel, <l> usually only lengthens the preceding vowel, and <k d> are skipped except in very formal situations, to some speakers they are lenitioned into fricatives in this position or are pronounced as [ʔ]
<p t k> can form clusters with <l y> in syllable initial positions,
<z> takes a more retroflex position (contrasting with the usual alveolo-palatal) in places where there was a historical [*ɹ]
<h> is pronounced /h/ when in a light syllable, /x/ when in a heavy syllable, or as [ç] when around <i ii u>
<y> is pronounced [j] when in a heavy syllable or at the beginning of a word, otherwise [ɰ]
<l> takes a lateral positioning in heavy syllables

[i y ɯ~u][ <i ii u>
[ɛ~ɜ~ɔ ə] <e o>
[a~ä~ɒ] <a>

[ɛi ai ɑu ɛː aː] <ei ai au ee aa>

[ u] assumes /ɯ/ in light or non-initial syllables, except when near [o]
<e> and <a> are centralized when isolated or near <o>. but assume [ɛ a] respectively when around <i ii> or [ɔ ɒ] when around <u>, <e> is pronounced [ɔ] in heavy syllables as well


I'm still not sure what I should do with the vowels, or weather to keep [c cʰ]

[Vuvuzela]

Aymara has ejectives without phonemic glottal stops.

So do Quechua, Georgian, Itelmen, Ossetian and Tsez. So I was dead wrong there, sorry.

Now I wonder, are there languages with aspirated consonants that lack /h/?

The sixth paragraph of this section of a Wikipedia article says that it's a linguistic universal that an language with aspirated consonants must also have a glottal fricative. However, this statement is not linked to any source, so it could be bullshit.

[Ser]

Standard PRC Mandarin is a counterexample. It has aspirated consonants, but no [h].

[Risla]

Aymara has ejectives without phonemic glottal stops.

So do Quechua, Georgian, Itelmen, Ossetian and Tsez. So I was dead wrong there, sorry.

Now I wonder, are there languages with aspirated consonants that lack /h/?

...Aymara has aspirated consonants and no /h/. (It does have /x X/ tho)

[ZackBishop]

The proto-language to which this belongs is currently saddled with the humdrum monicker of "proto-A" -- I didn't want to commit to an eponym until I had some rules that I liked for the language.

I'd appreciate any feedback anyone cares to offer, both on linguistic plausibility and aesthetic reactions.

Phonology

Proto-A_Phono.JPG (70.68 KiB) Viewed 4578 times

(I just noticed the squiggly red auto-spellcheck lines in the image; please accept my apologies. D'oh!)

For those wondering about my reasons for the sounds above: I liked the voiceless sonorants in Icelandic, and I thought it would be interesting to have a language that doesn't contrast voicing and voicelessness on obstruents but does so on a range of sonorants. I looked around to see if there were any universals I was breaking; the only one I noticed was that in every language with voiceless sonorants, they apparently always contrast with their regular voiced versions (according to Wikipedia). There was a side note that such sounds are rare enough to appear in only about 5% of the world's languages.

I also looked for precedent, and found that there actually is one: Standard Tibetan. It contrasts a voiced /l/ and voiceless /l̥/ without having phonemic contrast in obstruents. For range of contrasting voice in sonorants, the phonology of Iaai is pleasantly exotic -- a bit more exotic than I wanted for this inaugural effort.


Things that worry me:

(1.) I've been considering adding the voiceless nasals /m̥/ and /n̥/. I'm less sure about /ŋ̊/.

(2.) /l̥/ is similar but distinct from the fricative /ɬ/; when I hear people demonstrate the way the latter sounds (e.g. in Welsh) it sounds (to me, at least) like they let their tongue go slack and let the air sort of blurp out from the side. The way I've been pronouncing /l̥/ (by way of contrast) is to set my tongue pressed against my top front teeth, just as if I was going to make a clear /l/ sound, then to hiss the air out. It sounds "crisper" to me, if that makes any sense at all.

(3.) As an addendum to the above: In my internal notes the voiceless sonorants are all digraphs prefaced with an "h": hr, hl, hw, etc., and that's more-or-less how I pronounce them. Should these be analyzed as single phonemes (possibly with preaspiration) or as consonant clusters? I've seen the voiceless /w/ designated as /w̥/ in Iaai, /ʍ/ in Cornish, and as /hʷ/ in certain English dialects (and in the Gothic alphabet it gets the unique letter "hwair" [ƕ]). Are these all roughly the same sound, or are there complexities and subtleties that I as a newbie am overlooking? I'm so unsure about the /hj/ sound that I failed to include it above: it sounds like the the /hj/ in "Houston," but the article over here has me second-guessing myself as to how to list it. Expert guidance would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks again to everyone here for your time.

[Solarius]

Aymara has ejectives without phonemic glottal stops.

So do Quechua, Georgian, Itelmen, Ossetian and Tsez. So I was dead wrong there, sorry.

Now I wonder, are there languages with aspirated consonants that lack /h/?

Mandarin.

[Shrdlu]

Ni hao?

[finlay]

[x]

it should be clarified that ejectives are NOT oral plosive+glottal stop, and aspirates are NOT oral plosive+glottal fricative, although in some ways they resemble those, given that the glottis is where voicing happens. aspirates are better defined as a delay in the onset of voicing (although yes, [h] is voicelessness without anything happening in the oral tract), while ejectives are a different airstream mechanism, where the glottis is completely closed as in a glottal stop, but it makes a kind of movement to increase pressure behind the articulator. certainly one does not imply presence of the other, that is ridiculous.

[8Deer]

[x]

it should be clarified that ejectives are NOT oral plosive+glottal stop, and aspirates are NOT oral plosive+glottal fricative, although in some ways they resemble those, given that the glottis is where voicing happens. aspirates are better defined as a delay in the onset of voicing (although yes, [h] is voicelessness without anything happening in the oral tract), while ejectives are a different airstream mechanism, where the glottis is completely closed as in a glottal stop, but it makes a kind of movement to increase pressure behind the articulator. certainly one does not imply presence of the other, that is ridiculous.

I had read previously that aspirates do not occur in languages that don't have [h]. Thank you for pointing out that it's wrong.

ZachBishop, I really like that phonology and I believe there is natlang precedent in a Native American language somwhere for a voicing distinction on sonorants but not obstruents.

[Pole, the]

Now I wonder, are there languages with aspirated consonants that lack /h/?

Mandarin.

[Acid Badger]

Now I wonder, are there languages with aspirated consonants that lack /h/?

Standard PRC Mandarin is a counterexample. It has aspirated consonants, but no [h].

Mandarin.

Mandarin.

Has anyone mentioned Mandarin yet?

[Vuvuzela]

BY THE WAY, I JUST THOUGHT I'D LET YOU KNOW: MANDARIN, A LANGUAGE WHICH CONTRASTS ASPIRATED WITH DE-ASPIRATED CONSONANTS, HAS NO /h/. THAT IS ALL.

[Thry]

What about Chinese.

[Rodlox]

What about Chinese.

Which one?

[Thry]

What about Chinese.

Which one?

Mandarin IIRC. But I'm not sure, previous comments seem to suggest otherwise.

[Vuvuzela]

What about Chinese.

Which one?

Gee, I wonder if there are any posts about that earlier in the thread?

[Rodlox]

What about Chinese.

Which one?

Gee, I wonder if there are any posts about that earlier in the thread?

Mandarin. But I'm not sure, previous comments seem to suggest otherwise.

[----]

Navajo applies for many speakers; orthographic <h> will often correspond to [x] or [χ], and the language has an aspirated series.

[Pole, the]

Now I wonder, are there languages with aspirated consonants that lack /h/?

Standard PRC Mandarin is a counterexample. It has aspirated consonants, but no [h].

Mandarin.

Mandarin.

Has anyone mentioned Mandarin yet?

Sorry, was almost asleep and didn't switch the pages.

[Taernsietr]

Seriously though, are there any languages with aspirated consonants without having any of /x h/? (though they can be quite different acoustically, I'm finding that people often mistake the two in their analyses - BrPt being my prime example)

[Melteor]

How do you figure out the vowels? Like if you want phonetic transcription of a word?

[ZMoring]

I feel kind of left out- everyone's got cool, complex phonologies. Mine is rather simple.

Plosives: /b t k/ <b t k>
Nasals: /m n/ <m n>
Fricatives: /v s ʃ h/ <v s sh h>
Approximants: /ɾ l/ <r l>
Vowels: /i e a u/

With rules as followed (an incomplete list):
-The syllable structure is (C)(/v/)V(C). When /v/ occurs between a consonant and a vowel, it is realized as [w] rather than as [v]. (e.g., /kva/ is realized as [kwa])
-/b/ and /v/ de-voice before a voiceless consonant; by the same token, they also de-voice at the end of a word, unless the following word begins with a vowel.
-Voiceless sounds voice intervocally, and between an approximant and a vowel (e.g., /alka/ is realized as [algə], Romanized as alga)
-/n/ varies between [n] or [ŋ], depending on the speaker.
-/h/ is realized variously as [h], [x], or as a silent letter, depending on the speaker.
-The sequences /ɾl/ and /lɾ/ are impossible; the first becomes [hl~xl~l:], and the second [hɾ~x~r:], depending on the speaker.
-The sequences /vu/ and /uv/ are possible, but are realized phonetically as [wo] and [oʊ], respectively (Romanized as <vo> and <ov>).
-/i/ is realized as [j] before another vowel
-/a/ is realized as [a] normally, and as [ə] when word-final.
-/e/ is realized as [e] when stressed and as [ɛ] otherwise; some dialects condense the two together into a pure mid vowel, [e̞]. There are also some rather complex rules regarding an epenthetic "e" and consonant-based affixes, but I don't really know how to describe the rules properly.
-Stress is normally penultimate in stems. The stress doesn't change when affixes are applied.

[Ulan]

I don't see anything egregiously bad with that, ZMoring
You don't need a digraph for [ʃ] since you have a bunch of unused glyphs, you could do something along the lines of [s ʃ] <c s>
Why do you only have a voiced bilabial stop, and only a devoiced dental and velar stop?
Also your bits with 'depending on the speaker' could be refined to '<n> varies between [n] or [ŋ], depending on the surrounding syllable' and create some rules that add in some allophones if you want a broader inventory

[Thry]

This is just nitpicking, but for this rule:

-/e/ is realized as [e] when stressed and as [ɛ] otherwise; some dialects condense the two together into a pure mid vowel, [e̞]. There are also some rather complex rules regarding an epenthetic "e" and consonant-based affixes, but I don't really know how to describe the rules properly.

I'd expect the opposite, I don't have a solid explanation, but maybe I have this impression because stressed syllables tend to be open in the languages I speak, so [ɛ] for stressed and [e] for unstressed appears more natural to me. I'd like a second opinion on this though.

[ZMoring]

I don't see anything egregiously bad with that, ZMoring
You don't need a digraph for [ʃ] since you have a bunch of unused glyphs, you could do something along the lines of [s ʃ] <c s>
Why do you only have a voiced bilabial stop, and only a devoiced dental and velar stop?
Also your bits with 'depending on the speaker' could be refined to '<n> varies between [n] or [ŋ], depending on the surrounding syllable' and create some rules that add in some allophones if you want a broader inventory

I tend to avoid "c" because it has about a billion different pronunciations, but I like your idea. I also like your suggestion for the allophonic rules; this is my first language that I'm actually planning to follow through past a rough phonology and a few words, so help and suggestions are appreciated
The voiced labials are just for personal preference; I dislike the sound of voiceless labials. "P" and "f" sound comedic to me for some reason.

This is just nitpicking, but for this rule:

-/e/ is realized as [e] when stressed and as [ɛ] otherwise; some dialects condense the two together into a pure mid vowel, [e̞]. There are also some rather complex rules regarding an epenthetic "e" and consonant-based affixes, but I don't really know how to describe the rules properly.

I'd expect the opposite, I don't have a solid explanation, but maybe I have this impression because stressed syllables tend to be open in the languages I speak, so [ɛ] for stressed and [e] for unstressed appears more natural to me. I'd like a second opinion on this though.

Ah, thank you. I must sheepishly admit that I got them reversed. Thanks for catching that!