conlang sketch; feedback/flame appreciated

[2+3 clusivity]

I'd appreciate any thoughts. If anyone is curious for context I can post some of the morphology.

Phonology:

phonology1.jpg (62.29 KiB) Viewed 7125 times

All but v, vh are /phonemes/. The ~ symbols show [allophones].

phonology2.jpg (28.71 KiB) Viewed 7125 times

Phonology3.jpg (16.96 KiB) Viewed 7125 times

Phonotactics: F: fricative; C: consonant; V: Vowel; S: semi-vowel.
o Arcolect
 (F)(C)(C)(V)(C)-
 -(C)(C)(V)(C)-
 -(C)(C)(V)(C)(C)
o Mesolect:
 (C)(C)(V)(C)-
 -(C)(C)(V)(C)-
 -(C)(C)(V)(C)
o Basilect
 (C)(S)(V)(C)-
 -(C)(S)(V)(C)-
 -(C)(S)(V)(C)~(C)(S)(V)

[2+3 clusivity]

On second thought, the phonology doesn't make sense without something to go on.


1st and 2d pronouns.

pronouns1.jpg (79.08 KiB) Viewed 7122 times

Nouns: (adjectives decline as direct case w/o initial aspiration in the plurals)

nouns1.jpg (71.43 KiB) Viewed 7122 times

[WeepingElf]

The phonology is nice and rich, without being imitative of either Caucasian or Pacific Northwest inventories, and the morphological paradigms are also handsome and plausible. But what is an "inclusive 2nd person" pronoun? Standard linguistic terminology defines clusivity only for the 1st person, unless I have missed something.

[finlay]

Careful with aspiration. It doesn't really make sense for sonorants (liquids, nasals, etc), only for obstruents (plosives and fricatives). I can't work out how to pronounce r̥ʰ, and even if you're able to make the distinction, I don't think it's distinct enough from r̥ (and this is uncommon enough as it is!).

The other thing is, ^ɦ is usually taken as another way of writing breathy voice, since [ɦ] is also necessarily breathy (this is a quirk of having a POA in the same place as the voicing apparatus). So I would personally rewrite m_ɦ as m̤, etc.

Also, when you write phonemes, you shouldn't ever write ä (you've put it in a table; it's clear enough that way. plus, front and central aren't really distinct for open vowels, and it is common and recommended practice to use "a" for whichever open vowel you have if you only have one), and it's completely unnecessary to write the dental diacritic under consonants listed in a column entitled "dental". It's tautological.

[cromulant]

But what is an "inclusive 2nd person" pronoun?

Probs 'you + him/her/them,' as implied by his username.

[GrinningManiac]

It might be coincidence but I'm spotting little things that look like they were Hindi-inspired. I could be completely wrong and just looking for patterns where they aren't but I thought I'd ask.

[installer_swan]

But what is an "inclusive 2nd person" pronoun?

Probs 'you + him/her/them,' as implied by his username.

How is that different from the 2nd person plural?

[legolasean]

Well, I would like to say my on opinion: (thank y'all for saying all the impossibilities.)

The language is exotic, I would prefer her to be a proto-language, and simplify it for more languages (but you may of course not to listen to me. I would like to know what are the words you had been created, coz I prefer to choose the context myself. (that's just because you know the problems of your language and try the basic sentences as you can make, and I will think about it, and help you with challenging context that you will think about him until your brain will flow out of your head.)

Anyway good luck

[legolasean]

Well, I would like to say my on opinion: (thank y'all for saying all the impossibilities.)

The language is exotic, I would prefer her to be a proto-language, and simplify it for more languages (but you may of course not to listen to me. I would like to know what are the words you had been created, coz I prefer to choose the context myself. (that's just because you know the problems of your language and try the basic sentences as you can make, and I will think about it, and help you with challenging context that you will think about him until your brain will flow out of your head.)

Anyway good luck

[legolasean]

Well, I would like to say my on opinion: (thank y'all for saying all the impossibilities.)

The language is exotic, I would prefer her to be a proto-language, and simplify it for more languages (but you may of course not to listen to me. I would like to know what are the words you had been created, coz I prefer to choose the context myself. (that's just because you know the problems of your language and try the basic sentences as you can make, and I will think about it, and help you with challenging context that you will think about him until your brain will flow out of your head.)

Anyway good luck

[communistplot]

Delicious triple-post.^

Anyway, I like what I say here, as it's been said a nice, rich consonant inventory without being too derivative, exotic and fresh.

I do need some more though before I pass final and most holy judgement on this though, so bring us MOAR.
kthnxbai

[cromulant]

But what is an "inclusive 2nd person" pronoun?

Probs 'you + him/her/them,' as implied by his username.

How is that different from the 2nd person plural?

2nd person plural is 'you + you.' You use it when you're talking to both A and B, whereas with the inclusive, you're talking to A and about B.

Maybe B is not physically present. And/or maybe A is the most salient or dominant member of the referent set: the general of an army, the president of a country, the father of a family, etc. Or maybe B is the real addressee, but social rules prohibit addressing B directly, so you address chaperone or representative A. A needn't necessarily outrank B, but I imagine there must be some difference in status for the inclusive to come into play. (Although he calls it "inclusive," it seems like a way of excluding members of the referent set from the discourse.)

That's just a guess. It's not a real natlang feature, so the only answer is the one the OP gives. But it's not hard to imagine all sorts of sociolinguistic applications of such a thing.

[2+3 clusivity]

But what is an "inclusive 2nd person" pronoun? Standard linguistic terminology defines clusivity only for the 1st person, unless I have missed something.

I would agree with Crumbulant. 2+3 clusivity or second person clusivity is a form of clusivity not reported for any natlang. It includes 3rd person referent(s). I conceive of it as something akin to the distinction between "you all, y'all, etc." v. "you people." In the former, all persons included in the speech act are present; in the latter, the opposite is true.

The phonology is nice and rich, without being imitative of either Caucasian or Pacific Northwest inventories

It's based on NIA/Dardic phonologies. GrinningManiac spotted that correctly; a bit of the grammar is similar too. Also, if you get a chance:

http://www.worldcat.org/title/dardic-an ... ef_results

This book is amazing. I was gearing up to put the phonologies it lists (alot) onto wikipedia, but I had to return it. Maybe another day. Also a great resource if you are a PIE person. I have little exposure to most american languages. I've looked at the caucasian phonologies. But after starting conlanging a few years back found that graduating from PIE imitation I fell straight into a caucasian phonology trap: the fortis, the lenis, the bidental fricatives, all of it. The horror, the horror, the horror.

Careful with aspiration.

You are correct. I'm playing fast and loose with the term 'aspiration' for breathy voice and unvoiced aspirates. In my internal notation it makes sense, to me at least, because both values are both involved in a similar consonant gradation process. I'll elaborate more on that.

As far as breathy voiced liquids and nasals go, its a pretty common feature in a couple language groups. The breathy voiced retroflex trill, yes, that's stretching it. Without getting stuck on that point--I can produce it--and I do expect it to be lost pretty quickly.

it's completely unnecessary to write the dental diacritic

I think you are right again. Notice that not all of the phonemes in the "dental" column are marked with the dental under bridge. The plosives/nasals are true dentals. The affricatives, etc. are aleovelar. I tried to simplify the columns earlier to keep them on one page. My bad--I made my phonology document forms before seeing this board and still keep a sort of odd americanist/IPA notation style with my own twist.


Give me a bit and I'll add more.

[finlay]

Careful with aspiration.

You are correct. I'm playing fast and loose with the term 'aspiration' for breathy voice and unvoiced aspirates. In my internal notation it makes sense, to me at least, because both values are both involved in a similar consonant gradation process. I'll elaborate more on that.

As far as breathy voiced liquids and nasals go, its a pretty common feature in a couple language groups. The breathy voiced retroflex trill, yes, that's stretching it. Without getting stuck on that point--I can produce it--and I do expect it to be lost pretty quickly.

Ehh, no, aspirated voiceless trill. r̊ʰ, if that looks clearer than r̥ʰ. r_0_h

I don't think it's possible.

[2+3 clusivity]

I think the voiceless dental aspirated trill is fairly easy to produce, though not terribly distinct from a voiceless dental trill. Give it a whirl in front of the mirror.

I suppose you could argue it is just a cluster of /r̊h/. With the morphology I'm considering, it, nevertheless, makes sense at least to me.

Voiceless trills are rare enough that I'd be surprised if a natlang has a contrastive pair. But, hey, there are many contrastable sounds that are never contrasted. Also, consider the voiceless aspirated aleovelar fricatives of languages such as Burmese.

[Nortaneous]

nah, it's fine, just say there's Weird Tone Shit on vowels following aspirated consonants or so, and between that and the overall pervasiveness of aspiration i don't see why not

[Qwynegold]

On the row marked "approximant/flap", which one is the flap? And why don't you show this "v /P/, v_t /P_t/" as "P ~ v, P_t ~ v_t" instead like with your other allophones? And what's the deal with "(h)"? Also, I don't understant your third table at all. :/

[Whimemsz]

Yeah, I think this is a case where it's almost impossible to know what you're actually showing us because there's so little context. A table that lists a bunch of sounds is virtually meaningless -- even if you mark some of them as "allophones" of one another, or put some in parentheses or whatever. You need a good (preferably detailed!) description of the situation: the allophony, the phonetics of the segments, the morphophonology, the phonotactics, sandhi, and how all these interact, and the same goes for the morphology and so on. Tables and charts are ways of simplifying and conceptualizing data in a schematic way, but they're not a substitute for an actual presentation of the full data, and without the latter they can often be more confusing than enlightening.


Anyway as for the aspirated trill thing I don't see why that's a problem. If it's got a more delayed VOT than the "normal" voiceless trill, and if it patterns with the other aspirates within the phonological system, then there's no reason not to call it an aspirated trill.

[2+3 clusivity]

Sorry, I have been quite busy since my original posts. I will get my notes on verb morphology out as well as some samples.

Phonology4.jpg (87.47 KiB) Viewed 6848 times

Allophones:
• Nasals assimilate to the POA of following plosives, affricatives
• Labiodental approximant: <v>, /ʋ/, [ʋ~w]; <vʱ>, /vʱ/, [ʋʱ~wʱ]. [w], [wʱ] before rounded vowels (u, o, ɔ), else [ʋ], [ʋʱ].
• Free variation between trills and flaps in coda.
• Free variation between laterals and lateral flaps in coda /EDIT: the typo in the graph on the subapical laterals is not intentional/
• Free variation between [ɳ, ɳʱ] and [ɽ̃ ~ ɽ̃ʱ] between vowels
• Free variation between [z], [ʐ] and [zʱ], [ʐʱ]
• Velar plosives: [kʷ], [kʷʰ], [gʷ], [gʷʱ] before rounded vowels (u, o, ɔ), else [k], [kʰ], [g], [gʱ].
• (h) is marginal, typically replaced by ɦ or Ø.
• Glotal fricatives: [xʷ], [ɣʷ] before rounded vowels (u, o, ɔ), else [h], [ɦ].
/EDIT: /y/ sharpens to [jy] in sandhi between vowels


For the time being, I listened to the demands and fleshed out a bit of the allophones and made the cons. table more readable. I have not done much with all allophones before so feel free to jump in.

And . . . for further confusion.

alignment and concord.jpg (101.48 KiB) Viewed 6848 times

Verbal concord split is made knowing it would be a rare feature.

*: A marking, rather than P marking, occurs under a multifactor analysis. Favoring marking under these criteria: (1) A is 1st or 2d person, (2) A is definite or animate, (3) A is proximate, (4) plural A is clusive rather than non-clusive, (5) A is present for the speech act, (6) speaker wishes to emphasize the A.

[2+3 clusivity]

And . . . the paradigms for two nouns in acrolect, mesolect and basilect.

Sample nouns.jpg (92.71 KiB) Viewed 6827 times

Plural root alteration; singular: sorG --> *sʰorG --> /horG/; in the basilect /h/ is marginal so it often elides, thus <(h)orG>, /ó̤:rG/.

Elision and the phonotactic constraints of the mesolect and basilect produce a marginal register system. The rules are roughly--

• typically loss of coda breathy voiced cons., always loss of ɦ -> high tone, breathy voice
• loss of initial h/ɦ -> high tone, breathy voice
• loss of coda h, s, c, cʰ -> /r̊/ -> modal~creaky low tone

[2+3 clusivity]

A few samples:

First: showing the variation in speakers:

>Arcolect: mato sora-ro năhato ʦʰe; [mother.sing.aug.dir girl.sing.dim.obl-acc predicate.bathe.sing.aug aux.3rd]; mother washes the girl

>Similarly, mesolect: mato sora-ro năhato ʦʰe; [mother.sing.aug.dir girl.sing.dim.obl-acc predicate.bathe.sing.aug aux.3rd]; mother washes the girl

>But, basilect: mãyo sore-ro ná̤do (se); [mother.sing.aug.dir girl.sing.dim.loc/obl-acc predicate.bathe.sing.aug aux.3rd]; mother washes the girl


Second: showing the morphophonological changes for plural

>Arcolect: mato sora-ro năhato ʦʰe; [mother.sing.aug.dir girl.sing.dim.obl-acc predicate.bathe.sing.aug aux.3rd]; mother washes the girl

>Arcolect: mʱata horĩ năhata ʦʰã; [mother.plur.aug.dir girl.plur.dim.obl-acc predicate.bathe. plur.aug aux.3rd]; mothers wash the girls

>Arcolect: mʱatĩ horĩ năhatĩ ʦʰã; [mother.plur.dim.dir girl.plur.dim.obl-acc predicate.bathe. plur.dim aux.3rd]; (young) mothers wash the girls


Third: showing the split in alignment

>arcolect: mato á̤:ptã-ro năhata ʦʰã; [mother.sing.aug.dir you.plural.obl-acc predicate.bathe.sing.aug aux.3rd]

>arcolect: mata-ne á̤:ptã-ro năhajyĩ ʦʰo; [mother.sing.aug.obl-erg you.plural.obl-acc predicate.bathe.plur.dim aux.2d] : mother washed you.inclusive (children), i.e. mother washed you children and others.

>arcolect: mata-ne vʱã-ro năhajyĩ ʦʰã; [mother.sing.aug.obl-erg you.plural.obl-acc predicate.bathe.plur.dim aux.3rd]: mother washed them.



Here is the verb structure and a corrected alignment/concord chart. * in the final chart stands for the verb root. The verb is formed as: [predicate] [auxiliary]

The attachment verbs1.jpg is no longer available

The attachment alignment and concord2.jpg is no longer available

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[2+3 clusivity]

I've straightened out some issues folks had raised.

First: phonology and allophony

PhonologyA.jpg (100.32 KiB) Viewed 6699 times

Consonant allophony:
• /pʰ/ freely varies between [pʰ] and [fV̀] initially, word internally and finally it is more often realized as [V̌f]
• /kʰ/ freely varies between [kʰ] and [xV̀] initially, word internally and finally it is more often realized as [V̌x]
• /bʱ/ is often realized as [ʋʱ] or [vʱ] word internally.
• /gʱ/ is often realized as [ɣʱ] word internally
• /d/, /dʱ/, /ɖ/, /ɖʱ/ are often realized as [ɾ], [ɾʱ], [ɾ̢], [ɾ̢ʱ] word internally, partically in coda.
• /zʱ/ freely varies between [zʱ] and [z] with tone adjustment in all positions
• /ʐʱ/ freely varies between [ʐʱ] and [ʐ] with tone adjustment in all positions
• <h> is /ɦ/, which is [h] initially, [ɦ] or elided with tone modification internally and finally.
• /n/ is often realized as [ɾ̃] word internally
• /nʱ/ is often realized as [ɾ̃ʱ] word internally
• /ɳ/ is often realized as [ɾ̢̃] word internally
• /ɳʱ/ is often realized as [ɾ̢̃ʱ] word internally
• <v> is /ʋ/, which is realized as or [b̪] in sandhi
• <vʱ> is /ʋʱ/, which is realized as [bʱ] or [b̪ʱ] in sandhi
• /y/ is realized as [j] or [jy] in sandhi
• /yʱ/ is realized as [jʱ] or [jyʱ] in sandhi
• /r/ freely varies between /r/ and /ɾ/ finally
• /rʱ/ freely varies between /rʱ/ and /ɾʱ/ finally
• /ɽ/ freely varies between /ɽ/ and /ɾ̢/ finally
• /ɽʱ/ freely varies between /ɽʱ/ and /ɾ̢ʱ/ finally
• /l/ freely varies between /l/ and /ɺ/ finally
• /lʱ/ freely varies between /lʱ/ and /ɺʱ/ finally
• /ɭ/ freely varies between /ɽ/ and /ɺ̢/ finally
• /ɭʱ/ freely varies between /ɽʱ/ and /ɺ̢ʱ/ finally
• The dental plosives and liquids may be advanced to interdental in initial position; fricatives, affricatives and trills may not.

Vowels:

phonologyB.png (11.12 KiB) Viewed 6699 times

Vowel descriptions:
• Peripheral vowels have length conditioned by their pitch.
• Centeralized vowels have short length in all cases and must either be low or rising.
• Peripheral vowels have phonemic nasalization; vowels preceding a nasal in coda are typically nasalized and are never contrastive
• Vowel quality is triggered by pitch; in high register it varies between modal and creaky if a trill is in an adjacent syllable even across word bounderies.
• Syllables with breathy/aspirated onsets are realized as breathy,
• Breathy vowels (in low or rising register) always occur after aspirated/breathy onsets
• Breathy vowels (in low or rising register) may occur after non-aspirated/non-breathy onsets and are contrastive.

Register:

phonologyC.png (15.01 KiB) Viewed 6699 times

note: isolated refers to isolated syllables, i.e. monosyllabic words.

Phonotactics:

(C)(trill/semi-vowel)V[(N)(non aspirated homo-organic plosive)/(plosive)(trill, final m, final n)/(nasal, lateral or trill)]


Mutation:

Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3
V V̮ V̖
h /ɦ/ V̖ -
k kʰV̮ kʰV̖
g gʱV̮ gʱV̖
y yʱV̮ yʱV̖
ʈ ʈʰV̮ ʈʰV̖
ɖ ɖʱV̮ ɖʱV̖
ʈʂ ʈʂʰV̮ ʈʂʰV̖
ɖʐ ʐʱV̮ ʐʱV̖
ʂ hV̖̊ -
ʐʱV̬ ɦV̖ -
ɳ ɳʱV̮ ɳʱV̖
ɽ ɽʱV̮ ɽʱV̖
ɭ ɭʱV̮ ɭʱV̖
t tʰV̮ tʰV̖
d dʱV̮ dʱV̖
ts tsʰV̮ tsV̖
dz dzʱV̮ zʱV̖
s hV̖ -
zʱV̬ ɦV̖ -
r rʱV̮ rʱV̖
l lʱV̮ lʱV̖
v vʱV̮ vʱV̖
m mʱV̮ mʱV̖
p pʰV̮ pʰV̖
b bʱV̮ bʱV̖


Grammar is as in tables above. I'll add more samples in a day or two. The tone orthography I am using is not playing well with the board.

[2+3 clusivity]

I'll add more, when I have time.

transcription1.png (29.6 KiB) Viewed 6631 times

[Birdlang]

I made a language once, but it is very similar.

[Birdlang]

I made a language for India called Śuktīpurī, but it is not Indo Aryan but it also has a romanization.