Vowel-less/zero-syllable words

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Chengjiang
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Vowel-less/zero-syllable words

Post by Chengjiang »

I've always had a certain fondness for languages having words that, while clearly independent, do not contain anything that is a legal syllable nucleus in that language. I quite like Russian в "in", с "with", and к "to". English possessive -'s is also probably best analyzed as one of these since it can modify phrases. I'm not counting words with a sonorant consonant as their only syllable nucleus, unless that cannot normally be a nucleus in that language.

In my own languages, Chavakani has the copula n', which is pronounced as /n/ or as a nasal homorganic with a following consonant. When enunciated or referred to in isolation it is pronounced /ni/, but to do so in the flow of a sentence would sound very unnatural. As a slightly more complex case, Janaharian has the word ishk "man". Its citation form is ishk /ɪʃk/, but most suffixes cause the deletion of the stem vowel, e.g. shkô /ʃko/ "my husband" (lit. "my man"), shkra /ʃkrɐ/ "masculine". This vowel is also deleted obligatorily after vowel-final case/number particles, e.g. u 'shk /ʊʃk/ "(the) man (DAT)", and optionally after other vowel-final words. Thus the vowel found in the citation form is arguably epenthetic and not part of the underlying form of the word.

What are some no-vowel words in your languages? How do your languages deal with them phonologically?
[ʈʂʰɤŋtɕjɑŋ], or whatever you can comfortably pronounce that's close to that

Formerly known as Primordial Soup

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It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a 青.

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Re: Vowel-less/zero-syllable words

Post by Dē Graut Bʉr »

In Bearlandic, some function words may be reduced to something vowel-less when unstressed, giving "words" like g "I", d "the, that, it" and ss "on/at/with/by/of/for/from/to/or/...". Such reduced words cliticise to nearby words, as in for instance giss "I am".
Last edited by Dē Graut Bʉr on Wed Apr 05, 2017 8:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Vowel-less/zero-syllable words

Post by spanick »

Gutisk has a definite article for nominative, singular, masculine nouns s which functions as a clitic when the consonant cluster allows for it and surfaces as /sə/ when the consonant cluster wouldn't be allowed. This includes all sibilant-initial words and well as words which begin with affricates. It also will devoice voiced obstruents: Guta /guta/ "Goth" but s'Guta /skuta/ "the Goth" . It's name however is sas, which sometimes, though quite rarely, functions as the article in lieu of s.

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Re: Vowel-less/zero-syllable words

Post by Soap »

Some of my conlangs, such as Khulls, are grand champions at this. Some single consonant words are: p "teacher", "eye", b "pine tree", "breast, inedible body part", "one, singulative", ŋ̇ "clam", "sleep", ṣ̌ "bomb", ż "to injure, hurt", "wet, soaked with water", ḳʷ "God", "insect", ġʷ "to believe; to stand up", "to bite, grasp firmly", "human, soldier", ʕʷ "fire". Although it would be grammatical to use the nouns among these in bare form, I think few if any speakers would do so, and my intention is that these morphemes will mostly appear in compounds. On the other hand, the verbs can and do appear with just the ordinary verb endings attached, being similar to Spanish verbs such as "ser", "ir", etc that have subsyllabic stems but monosyllabic conjugated forms.

However, I should add that Khulls respects syllable boundaries (the dots on most of the consonants show that they are syllabic), and therefore a word like ṡī "I slept" has two syllables, not one. However, the stops are still subsyllabic.
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Re: Vowel-less/zero-syllable words

Post by Chengjiang »

Soap wrote:However, I should add that Khulls respects syllable boundaries (the dots on most of the consonants show that they are syllabic), and therefore a word like ṡī "I slept" has two syllables, not one. However, the stops are still subsyllabic.
In that case, what do the dotted plosives mean? At least, i presume that <p> and <k> don't stand for continuants.
[ʈʂʰɤŋtɕjɑŋ], or whatever you can comfortably pronounce that's close to that

Formerly known as Primordial Soup

Supporter of use of [ȶ ȡ ȵ ȴ] in transcription

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a 青.

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Re: Vowel-less/zero-syllable words

Post by Soap »

Chengjiang wrote:
Soap wrote:However, I should add that Khulls respects syllable boundaries (the dots on most of the consonants show that they are syllabic), and therefore a word like ṡī "I slept" has two syllables, not one. However, the stops are still subsyllabic.
In that case, what do the dotted plosives mean? At least, i presume that <p> and <k> don't stand for continuants.
I pretty much use dots as a catch-all diacritic. ṗ ṗʷ ṭ ḳ ḳʷ are ejectives, ġ is a voiced stop, and the fricatives and nasals are syllabic. The reason I need a diacritic to spell IPA /g/ is that almost all of my conlangs belong to a sprachbund where IPA /ɣ/ is a very common sound, but voiced stops are rare, and IPA /g/ is the rarest of the voiced stops and often is absent even if the language has other voiced stops. I think the sprachbund will fall apart sometime between 4700 AD and 8733 AD, but I only have 2 conlangs whose maturation date is later than 4700 AD.
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