Seeking help in building my conlang

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

It's ordered that way to correspond to the IPA table.
Nasals
Stops
Affricates
Fricatives
Liquids (e.g. r, l)

also, no, you can't have pharyngealized vowels that way, all you get in the environment of coming after pharyngealized consonants is backing of vowels. Like for example /ʃˤan/, will actually likely become [ʃˤɑn], but that is not to say that /i/ will become as back as /u/.

[Megandia]

It's ordered that way to correspond to the IPA table.
Nasals
Stops
Affricates
Fricatives
Liquids (e.g. r, l)

also, no, you can't have pharyngealized vowels that way, all you get in the environment of coming after pharyngealized consonants is backing of vowels. Like for example /ʃˤan/, will actually likely become [ʃˤɑn], but that is not to say that /i/ will become as back as /u/.

Would those sounds still be likely with just five vowels? Or should I think about expanding them for those particular sounds?

[vokzhen]

I have a very beginner question about this, why is it arranged like that? I'm probably missing something very obvious.

Yep, see the IPA table here. Note that people do change things a bit; generally a single chart is used rather than, affricates, non-pulmonics, etc. being in their own charts, and it's fairly common to for example condense rhotics, liquids and glides into a single row of /r l j w/, affricates are often placed between stops and fricatives since they're a bit of both, /j/ may be put in the same column as the postalveolars for the sake of space, and so on. Generally though, they're broadly ordered in the same way.

I added four sounds. /k/, like was suggested which really does make sense, then three pharygenealized sounds: /tʃˤ/ , /ʃˤ/ , and /ʒˤ/ . These sounds would in turn change the vowel sounds that follow into pharygenealized versions, correct? So zhjeru would be pronounced like /ʒˤɛˤɾu/ instead of /ʒˤɛɾu/ . (Also, what is a good way to show this in vowels other than using a ˤ, or is there a better way?)

Here's where it's important to make the distinction between /phonemic/ and [phonetic] transcription. It would still be /ʒˤɛɾu/ (or just /ʒˤeru/), but it may be pronounced [ʒˤɛˤɾu] or [ʒˤæɾu] or [ʒˤɜɾu]. If you look at a grammar, such as the ones in Wikipedia, they often list the "easiest" glyph and then explain that /r/ and /e/ are really [ɾ] and [ɛ], except adjacent to a pharyngeal [æ]. Similarly to how in English true will usually be transcribed /tru/, but in American English is often closer to [tʃɻˤɪu̯].

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

[tʃɻˤɪu̯]

Why is that no matter how hard I try, I can never find the pharyngealization in my /r/. And it is said that it is pharyngealized in Canadian eglish too.

[vokzhen]

[tʃɻˤɪu̯]

Why is that no matter how hard I try, I can never find the pharyngealization in my /r/. And it is said that it is pharyngealized in Canadian eglish too.

I'm pretty sure it depends in part on position; /r/ in words like red and rain most pharygnealized, most rounded, and closest, while /r/ in card is lightly pharyngealized, unrounded, more retracted, and probably best described as an offglide rather than a consonant, and better /r/ might be nothing but retracted and sulcal, with no rounding or pharyngealization at all. But these are all perceptual things, I have no evidence to back those up.

Also, lack of nerves compared to the rest of the mouth might just be inhibiting things, like how you can pinpoint pain in your hand exactly but pain in the torso is highly diffuse. You can get a very detailed idea on what your mouth and tongue are doing in the coronal area, but the tongue root area is so ambiguous multiple new POAs have been recognized in the last half-century.

[Megandia]

In good news, I have a name for the language now! Fenuve i Andunon.

Fenuve is the noun form of the verb fena meaning to speak, and Andunon is what they call themselves. 'Children of Andul'.

Also, I collapsed the Hodiernal past and future tenses into the present tense. Now it it just hodiernal and present tense. Or would it just be considered Hodiernal? Can a present tense be considered something different than hodiernal? Or would it be reason enough to use one tense to speak about anything happening either right now or occurring in the same day?

Sometime this week I am going to sit down and write out some more detail into this. I have more than what I've put here. I'm scouring through the forum to look at how others have posted their languages so I can do it in an orderly fashion. I'm realizing now just how behind I am at this than everyone here!

(On that note, does anyone have any suggestions on which threads I should take a look at for this? Or which conlangs you guys really enjoyed personally? I think I should have down that first, though I was in a hurry to get my stuff out there. I shouldn't have rushed!)

[StrangerCoug]

Also, I collapsed the Hodiernal past and future tenses into the present tense. Now it it just hodiernal and present tense. Or would it just be considered Hodiernal?

Your phrasing implies just hodiernal, and that seems to be the more plausible solution to me anyway. When linguists speak of categories collapsing together, it means there are no distinctions between them anymore. As a hypothetical example, say your language used to distinguish between a nominative case (in English, this usually translates into the subject), an accusative case (which usually translates into the direct object), and a dative case (which usually translates into an indirect object). Over time, sound changes wore away the differences between accusative and dative and they have collapsed to form an oblique case (which can mean either the direct object or the indirect object). The English pronouns "me", "him", and "them" are good examples to demonstrate the oblique case since it is ungrammatical to use them as the subject in English.

[Megandia]

Also, I collapsed the Hodiernal past and future tenses into the present tense. Now it it just hodiernal and present tense. Or would it just be considered Hodiernal?

Your phrasing implies just hodiernal, and that seems to be the more plausible solution to me anyway. When linguists speak of categories collapsing together, it means there are no distinctions between them anymore. As a hypothetical example, say your language used to distinguish between a nominative case (in English, this usually translates into the subject), an accusative case (which usually translates into the direct object), and a dative case (which usually translates into an indirect object). Over time, sound changes wore away the differences between accusative and dative and they have collapsed to form an oblique case (which can mean either the direct object or the indirect object). The English pronouns "me", "him", and "them" are good examples to demonstrate the oblique case since it is ungrammatical to use them as the subject in English.

Then my wording was incorrect. What I meant was that I took out those two tenses and changed the present tense to hodiernal. I'm sorry! Thanks for correcting me! If anything, I am learning so much more from all of your inputs than I have just sitting down and reading my few Language and Linguistics books! Thank you guys!

[Jūnzǐ]

You might want to look at Washo: Like your conlang, it also has a lot of tenses. The site I linked to also has a dictionary under its "Resources" section, if you're interested in Native Californian Languages.

[Megandia]

You might want to look at Washo: Like your conlang, it also has a lot of tenses. The site I linked to also has a dictionary under its "Resources" section, if you're interested in Native Californian Languages.

Oh nice! I love the idea of distant past and near past. Though I think I will stick with turning my three hodiernal tenses into one and use aspects, context, and such to convey what part of the day they're talking about.

I've gone back to the beginning to get a hold on what this language means to me. I should have done that in the first place. I realize that, even though I want it to be fairly natural, this is an artlang. I'm writing in in conjecture with novels. I'll have some phrasing scattered throughout, but it's more of a naming language than anything else. Though I am a bit of a perfectionist about this and I want to have basic grammar and more down for my own enjoyment.

Since you guys helped me out a lot on phonology, I am going to post an updated phonology chart. IF I can figure out how to do so in this forum. Go! Google BBCode. Go!

Code: Select all

Consonants 
m n ng	/m n ŋ/
t d g k	/ t[tʰ] d[dʰ] g k/ 
ts ch j	/ts tʃ dʒ/
f v s z    /f v s z[dz]/
sh zh h 	/ʃ ʒ h/
r l y	   /r l j/
chj shj zhj	/tʃˤ ʃˤ ʒˤ/
		

a e i o u 	/a ɛ i ɔ u/
ai ei ou	/aj ɛi ɔu/
		

[tʰ], [dʰ], and [dz] are word-initial allophones. (They will probably exist somewhere in words as well, but I haven't delved that far.) I'm not sure how to put that in the chart. Did I put those in correctly there?

And as cool as the ʑˤ was, it wasn't fitting my needs. The /tʃˤ/ and /ʃˤ/ are on their way out with the /ʒˤ/ soon to follow. I want to make sure that this is at least a good beginning, now. I have the romanized versions because That will be how I write them in my books. I don't know why there aren't any /p/'s or /b/'s. I was going off of the words I had already and none have those. Though I also do not have the /ts/ or /ŋ/ in my lexicon, either.

[StrangerCoug]

I don't know why there aren't any /p/'s or /b/'s. I was going off of the words I had already and none have those.

Missing /p/ I don't find that weird—of the stops, it's one of the two most commonly missing stops in the most common six. Arabic doesn't have it and I think it's rare in native Japanese. It's common to lenite it to /f/, a sound you have—perhaps explain its absence that way?

Missing /b/ I find more unusual, but I wouldn't say it really has an independent existence in modern Greek—<μπ> is pronounced /b/ word-initially and (supposed to be) /mb/ everywhere else. The <β> that represented /b/ in ancient Greek is pronounced /v/ these days—again, a sound you have.

[vokzhen]

And as cool as the ʑˤ was, it wasn't fitting my needs. The /tʃˤ/ and /ʃˤ/ are on their way out with the /ʒˤ/ soon to follow. I want to make sure that this is at least a good beginning, now. I have the romanized versions because That will be how I write them in my books. I don't know why there aren't any /p/'s or /b/'s. I was going off of the words I had already and none have those. Though I also do not have the /ts/ or /ŋ/ in my lexicon, either.

If sounds are rare, and you'd like to keep them that way, there's a few things you could try and take into account. One is that a set of allophones might be phonemicized, but remain rare. Something similar happened with English /ʒ/, where it was an allophone of *zj (azure, pleasure, treasure, measure, etc) that's become phonemicized, but still very rare and found exclusively before /(j)u/ and /ɚ/ (while the sounds /s t d/ underwent the same change, but /ʃ tʃ dʒ/ already had a number of other sources so they remain common), except where it's been reinforced by rare borrowings (i.e. genre, massage, beige). It's also possible for something to be rare were you to look it up in the dictionary, but common in spoken/written language, as is the case with English /ð/, which is extremely common due to words like "the this them those that," but very uncommon in lexical items. Might also just be rare for non-obvious reasons; some languages (perhaps especially those with large consonant inventories) have sounds that only appear in a couple words: Chechen and Ingush have voiceless r's in the numbers seven and eight and afaik nowhere else; Archi has a voiced lateral fricative in a tiny handful of words before voiced stops; Arabic has emphatic l only in allah and certain derivations of it. Some of these might be remnants of the original language, but all words using those sounds were replaced by borrowings or derivation, or the old sounds were almost entirely replaced by sound changes; some might be abnormal cluster reductions in common words that stuck around because they're common words; some might have other reasons. Your /ts/ and /ŋ/, especially, might be one of these, rare sounds that are rare for historical reasons. With the pretty strict CV syllable structure you have, maybe they're old clusters that acted oddly when they were reducted; i.e. maybe old clusters of kl kr ks gl gr gz all became /ʃ ʒ/, except word-final -a/-oks > -a/-otsa, leaving /ts/ with a highly limited distribution.

As I think I said earlier in the thread, you of course don't have to take into consideration this amount of historical detail in your language, and can certainly just decide /ts/ is going to be rare and place it wherever you feel like. Personally I like tinkering in this manner. You can also probably "fake" such detail if you'd like a middle path, not having a specific reasoning in mind but limiting distribution anyways (like if English was a conlang and someone arbitrarily decided they'd only use /ʒ/ before /u ɚ/).

EDIT: Perhaps you could actually take into consideration your real-world history with the language, and have a change of /ʒˤ/ > /dʒ/ in most positions as you mentioned earlier in the thread. Any remaining /ʒˤ/ remain as a result of their specific context, either being particularly high-use words, or limited to one or two particular positions.
EDIT2: Woops that's embarrassing, /ʒ/ is also before syllabic /n/ (vision, fusion). Still, point remains, highly limited.