Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
[J] in X-sampa, in case the IPA character in the title doesn't show up. What are some possible sound changes for it? It's a sound I don't like and rarely include in my languages, but a recent conlang developed it as a result of a change I had to include for other reasons and now I'm not sure how to get rid of it naturally. It seems too easy to have it just change back to [n].
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Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
IIRC, French (in at least some varieties) has /J/ > /n/ before /i/ and > /jn/ finally.
Ascima mresa óscsma sáca psta numar cemea.
Cemea tae neasc ctá ms co ísbas Ascima.
Carho. Carho. Carho. Carho. Carho. Carho. Carho.
Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
/J/ > /n`/ / __{a, o, u}
/J/ > /n/ / __V
/J/ > /j/
That would give you three different phonemes from one /J/. I'd expect /J/ > (/n`_j/ >) /n`/ as the full for the first.
Though, this might not be terribly realistic, I find it natural for my mouth.
/J/ > /n/ / __V
/J/ > /j/
That would give you three different phonemes from one /J/. I'd expect /J/ > (/n`_j/ >) /n`/ as the full for the first.
Though, this might not be terribly realistic, I find it natural for my mouth.
Warning: Recovering bilingual, attempting trilinguaility. Knowledge of French left behind in childhood. Currently repairing bilinguality. Repair stalled. Above content may be a touch off.
Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
The 日 initial in Chinese is thought to have been some form of palatal nasal (or even palatal nasal affricate...!). The reflexes in modern languages are quite varied:
Mandarin: voiced retroflex fricative (pinyin <r>), or null
Cantonese: palatal approximant, or null
Min Nan: voiced alvelo-palatal fricative, or lateral approximant
Japanese: palatalised alveolar nasal, or voiced alveolo-palatal affricate
Korean: palatal approximant, or null
Vietnamese: palatal nasal
Mandarin: voiced retroflex fricative (pinyin <r>), or null
Cantonese: palatal approximant, or null
Min Nan: voiced alvelo-palatal fricative, or lateral approximant
Japanese: palatalised alveolar nasal, or voiced alveolo-palatal affricate
Korean: palatal approximant, or null
Vietnamese: palatal nasal
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Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
Change it to /nj/, as happened in Latin American Spanish.
EDIT: Although it didn't happen where I thought it did (New Mexico), it still seems to me to be a plausible enough change, especially in a situation where there is a large population of non-native speakers whose L1 does not have palatal nasals.
EDIT: Although it didn't happen where I thought it did (New Mexico), it still seems to me to be a plausible enough change, especially in a situation where there is a large population of non-native speakers whose L1 does not have palatal nasals.
Last edited by Rory on Wed Jan 25, 2012 10:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
Source? And in what dialects of Latin America? I've never heard of this before, though my dialect does have one word where this happened: doña, reduced to ña and pronounced [nja]. Otherwise it's a plain [J].Rory wrote:Change it to /nj/, as happened in Latin American Spanish.
Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
How about ɲ > ĩ / j̃ like Portuguese does sometimes? That could make for some interesting diachronics.
Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
Wow. I had a quick look for sources, but I must have dreamed it up. I thought "oh, wait, it's just New Mexican Spanish", but apparently I dreamed that too. (New Mexican Spanish does have interesting verbal analogical changes though, but that's totally different.) Oops, I messed up. I'll edit my original post to reflect that.Serafín wrote:Source? And in what dialects of Latin America? I've never heard of this before, though my dialect does have one word where this happened: doña, reduced to ña and pronounced [nja]. Otherwise it's a plain [J].Rory wrote:Change it to /nj/, as happened in Latin American Spanish.
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Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
I would have it change to /n/ and have it affect the surrounding vowels in some way. Maybe following back vowels become fronted so /a o u/ become /æ ø y/ or something.
"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."
Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
I believe Ancient Greek, and maybe also French, changed /nʲ/ to /jn/, which formed diphthongs with proceeding vowels: /banjō/ > /bainō/, /ktenjō/ > /kteinjō/, etc.. The neat thing here is that since the /j/ was only present in the present stem, the other stems retained the original vowel, provding some nice alterations.
<banjō>. Hah.
<banjō>. Hah.
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Even better than a proto-conlang, it's the *kondn̥ǵʰwéh₂s
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Even better than a proto-conlang, it's the *kondn̥ǵʰwéh₂s
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Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
Kajkavian dialect of Croatian changes /ɲ/ to /jn/.
I have idea of changing /ɲ/ to /ni/.
I have idea of changing /ɲ/ to /ni/.
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Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
Sound changes I tend to apply to this sound include [ɲ] > [j] and [ɲ] > [ŋ]. The latter hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet but seems quite plausible to me; if anything, I'd predict it to be more likely than [ɲ] > [n] as there is a greater similarity in the articulation.
Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
I would suggest one of either [n], [ŋ], [nj], [ŋj], or [j].
At, casteda dus des ometh coisen at tusta o diédem thum čisbugan. Ai, thiosa če sane búem mos sil, ne?
Also, I broke all your metal ropes and used them to feed the cheeseburgers. Yes, today just keeps getting better, doesn't it?
Also, I broke all your metal ropes and used them to feed the cheeseburgers. Yes, today just keeps getting better, doesn't it?
Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
Vietnamese (Hanoi dialect) has /ɲ/ > [ŋ], e.g. lính ['lïŋ˧ˀ˥] "soldier". This causes fronting of back vowels, e.g. banh ['ɓæ̈ŋ̟˧ˀ˥].Curlyjimsam wrote:Sound changes I tend to apply to this sound include [ɲ] > [j] and [ɲ] > [ŋ]. The latter hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet but seems quite plausible to me; if anything, I'd predict it to be more likely than [ɲ] > [n] as there is a greater similarity in the articulation.
Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
But isn't [J] closer to [n`] than [N]?Curlyjimsam wrote:Sound changes I tend to apply to this sound include [ɲ] > [j] and [ɲ] > [ŋ]. The latter hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet but seems quite plausible to me; if anything, I'd predict it to be more likely than [ɲ] > [n] as there is a greater similarity in the articulation.
Warning: Recovering bilingual, attempting trilinguaility. Knowledge of French left behind in childhood. Currently repairing bilinguality. Repair stalled. Above content may be a touch off.
Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
It's not so much fronting of back vowels, really. According to the grammar I've been using, orthographic a before nh/ch finals is better analyzed as the phoneme represented by <ă> in other positions, which for many speakers, the primary realization is in fact /æ/. This makes sense, because other than that vowel, only /i/ and /e/ can appear before the palatal finals (i.e. No back vowels can precede it). This leads many phoneticians to analyze /-ɲ/ as /ŋ/ affected by a front vowel, which might have been where our conflicting interpretations arose from.linguoboy wrote:Vietnamese (Hanoi dialect) has /ɲ/ > [ŋ], e.g. lính ['lïŋ˧ˀ˥] "soldier". This causes fronting of back vowels, e.g. banh ['ɓæ̈ŋ̟˧ˀ˥].Curlyjimsam wrote:Sound changes I tend to apply to this sound include [ɲ] > [j] and [ɲ] > [ŋ]. The latter hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet but seems quite plausible to me; if anything, I'd predict it to be more likely than [ɲ] > [n] as there is a greater similarity in the articulation.
Nevertheless, other Vietnamese dialects do similar things with it, particularly the Saigon/HCMC dialect. Using the same example, 'lính', we get this:
/lɪɲ/ > [lɨn] (tone not marked because of irrelevance)
That /ɨ/ can even appear as [ɯ] for a significant number of speakers. So what we have is backing/centralization of vowels, and the palatal nasal becomes alveolar.
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Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
Well, the default meaning of [ɲ] is palatal, and palatal articulations get classified under the "dorsal" (body of the tongue, like velars and uvulars) category, rather than "coronal" (blade and tip of the tongue, like alveolars). So in that sense [ɲ] has more in common with [ŋ] than [n]. But it perhaps should be noted that the [ɲ] symbol is apparently also used for palatalised postalveolars (e.g. in Polish according to Wikipedia), which sound similar, and those are classified as coronal.Wattmann wrote:But isn't [J] closer to [n`] than [N]?Curlyjimsam wrote:Sound changes I tend to apply to this sound include [ɲ] > [j] and [ɲ] > [ŋ]. The latter hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet but seems quite plausible to me; if anything, I'd predict it to be more likely than [ɲ] > [n] as there is a greater similarity in the articulation.
Medieval Scots apparently had a palatal-like nasal in Gaelic loanwords, written nȝ as in MacKenȝie, and this sometimes became [ŋ] as in Menȝies (now written with a z of course). So, if you're prepared to invoke a bizarre orthographic confusion followed by a spelling pronunciation, you could even change [ɲ] into [nz]...
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Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
There's a separate series of symbols for coronal palatals, as outlined in that article (ȶ ȡ ɕ ʑ ȵ ȴ), but it seems like nobody uses any of them, besides the ones for sibilants.AnTeallach wrote:Well, the default meaning of [ɲ] is palatal, and palatal articulations get classified under the "dorsal" (body of the tongue, like velars and uvulars) category, rather than "coronal" (blade and tip of the tongue, like alveolars). So in that sense [ɲ] has more in common with [ŋ] than [n]. But it perhaps should be noted that the [ɲ] symbol is apparently also used for palatalised postalveolars (e.g. in Polish according to Wikipedia), which sound similar, and those are classified as coronal.
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.
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Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
Nobody but Sinologists, at least.Nortaneous wrote:There's a separate series of symbols for coronal palatals, as outlined in that article (ȶ ȡ ɕ ʑ ȵ ȴ), but it seems like nobody uses any of them, besides the ones for sibilants.
Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
Well, given that [ɲ] and [ȵʑ] are two of the reconstructed Early Middle Chinese values for the 日 initial, I don't think we really need to invoke spelling pronunciation...AnTeallach wrote:Medieval Scots apparently had a palatal-like nasal in Gaelic loanwords, written nȝ as in MacKenȝie, and this sometimes became [ŋ] as in Menȝies (now written with a z of course). So, if you're prepared to invoke a bizarre orthographic confusion followed by a spelling pronunciation, you could even change [ɲ] into [nz]...
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Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
I did [ɲ] > [ŋ] in my conlang, at least.Curlyjimsam wrote:Sound changes I tend to apply to this sound include [ɲ] > [j] and [ɲ] > [ŋ]. The latter hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet but seems quite plausible to me; if anything, I'd predict it to be more likely than [ɲ] > [n] as there is a greater similarity in the articulation.
Online dictionary for my conlang Vanga: http://royalrailway.com/tungumaalMiin/Vanga/
#undef FEMALE
I'd love for you to try my game out! Here's the forum thread about it:
http://zbb.spinnwebe.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=36688
Of an Ernst'ian one.
#undef FEMALE
I'd love for you to try my game out! Here's the forum thread about it:
http://zbb.spinnwebe.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=36688
Of an Ernst'ian one.
Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
[nj], [ɲ] > [ŋ] occurred in Canadian French. [nj], [ɲ] > [n] occurred in Ryukyuan.
Chances are it's Ryukyuan (Resources).
Re: Possible sound changes for [ɲ]
For a Uralic survey: *ń (which may have been [ɲ] or [nʲ]) is fairly stable — a few languages change it to /n/ or /j/ (Mari does both: /n/ initially, /j/ medially), and a change to *jn has been posited (but not very commobly accepted, AIUI) in Finnic, but there's nothing odder than that.
Denasalization to [ɟ] or [dʲ] (or something these can further decay to) should also work, tho I'd expect to see denasalization of other nasals too in at least some positions in conjunction.
Denasalization to [ɟ] or [dʲ] (or something these can further decay to) should also work, tho I'd expect to see denasalization of other nasals too in at least some positions in conjunction.
[ˌʔaɪsəˈpʰɻ̊ʷoʊpɪɫ ˈʔæɫkəɦɔɫ]