Weird natlang phonologies

Discussion of natural languages, or language in general.
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finlay
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Post by finlay »

Gaxa wrote:Fur has [z] as an allophone of /j/
Fixed.

[] stand for allophones/phonetic transcriptions, // for phonemes.

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Post by Nortaneous »

Some dialects of Tibetan collapsed stop+/r/ clusters into retroflexes, even when the stop isn't coronal.

Classical Tibetan /grodpa/ /drungdu/ /p_hrugu/ -> Central Tibetan /d`_h2pa/ /t`ungdu/ /t`_hugu/
Classical Tibetan /skra/ /gru/ /bran/ -> Jad /t`a/ /t`u/ /t`an/
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Post by Gaxa »

finlay wrote:
Gaxa wrote:Fur has [z] as an allophone of /j/
Fixed.

[] stand for allophones/phonetic transcriptions, // for phonemes.
Thanks. :oops:

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Post by Miekko »

Gaxa wrote:Fur has [z] as an allophone of /j/
I don't see how that's weird?
< Cev> My people we use cars. I come from a very proud car culture-- every part of the car is used, nothing goes to waste. When my people first saw the car, generations ago, we called it šuŋka wakaŋ-- meaning "automated mobile".

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Post by finlay »

Gaxa wrote:
finlay wrote:
Gaxa wrote:Fur has [z] as an allophone of /j/
Fixed.

[] stand for allophones/phonetic transcriptions, // for phonemes.
Thanks. :oops:
I've had non-phonetician lecturers, like a psycholinguistic one recently, whose disciplines overlap with phonetics, and whenever it comes up they just have to sheepishly admit that they have no idea which way around the brackets are meant to go. Some kind of just do a squiggle or just say they don't really care if it's wrong because it's not relevant to their point. Anyway, it's one that is difficult to grasp, so don't worry.

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Post by Gaxa »

That's not the problem; I know the difference. :oops:

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Post by Miekko »

finlay wrote:
Gaxa wrote:
finlay wrote:
Gaxa wrote:Fur has [z] as an allophone of /j/
Fixed.

[] stand for allophones/phonetic transcriptions, // for phonemes.
Thanks. :oops:
I've had non-phonetician lecturers, like a psycholinguistic one recently, whose disciplines overlap with phonetics, and whenever it comes up they just have to sheepishly admit that they have no idea which way around the brackets are meant to go. Some kind of just do a squiggle or just say they don't really care if it's wrong because it's not relevant to their point. Anyway, it's one that is difficult to grasp, so don't worry.
there's a lot of confusion, I think, among conlangers as to how important the distinction actually is a lot of the time. sometimes, just talking about 'sounds' actually is entirely sufficient.
< Cev> My people we use cars. I come from a very proud car culture-- every part of the car is used, nothing goes to waste. When my people first saw the car, generations ago, we called it šuŋka wakaŋ-- meaning "automated mobile".

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Post by Echobeats »

finlay wrote:
Gaxa wrote:
finlay wrote:
Gaxa wrote:Fur has [z] as an allophone of /j/
Fixed.

[] stand for allophones/phonetic transcriptions, // for phonemes.
Thanks. :oops:
I've had non-phonetician lecturers, like a psycholinguistic one recently, whose disciplines overlap with phonetics, and whenever it comes up they just have to sheepishly admit that they have no idea which way around the brackets are meant to go. Some kind of just do a squiggle or just say they don't really care if it's wrong because it's not relevant to their point. Anyway, it's one that is difficult to grasp, so don't worry.
Is there a convention for neutral brackets, for use when the phonemic/allophonic status of the sound is the very question at issue? I have a feeling I've seen {} used in this context – is that right?
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Post by Colzie »

Echobeats wrote:
finlay wrote:
Gaxa wrote:
finlay wrote:
Gaxa wrote:Fur has [z] as an allophone of /j/
Fixed.

[] stand for allophones/phonetic transcriptions, // for phonemes.
Thanks. :oops:
I've had non-phonetician lecturers, like a psycholinguistic one recently, whose disciplines overlap with phonetics, and whenever it comes up they just have to sheepishly admit that they have no idea which way around the brackets are meant to go. Some kind of just do a squiggle or just say they don't really care if it's wrong because it's not relevant to their point. Anyway, it's one that is difficult to grasp, so don't worry.
Is there a convention for neutral brackets, for use when the phonemic/allophonic status of the sound is the very question at issue? I have a feeling I've seen {} used in this context – is that right?
You could just write the sound without any brackets at all. That's what all my phonology professors have been doing, anyway.
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Post by finlay »

unless I'm explicitly talking about a ""phoneme"" or a specific language I always use [] – it's actually a good rule of thumb to use that one when in doubt, although too many use // when in doubt. but yeah you're right, if it's not relevant people are inclined not to bother with brackets – it's just that some of them get themselves in a pickle because the phoneme/phone distinction is suddenly relevant and they've forgotten which way round they go...

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Post by roninbodhisattva »

It's not a phonology, but is a weird phonological rule. In Montana Salish, /n/ > before /s/ and sometimes before other fricatives.

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Post by Nortaneous »

bluggggh massive bump. I should just put this shit in a textfile instead of dumping it here but I'm lazy

Bats has an ejective uvular affricate, but no plain uvular stops. (actually, is affrication on uvular stops that uncommon?) Also, it has a full inventory of epiglottals, which is pretty rare. (although all the Nakh languages have those, except Chechen, which doesn't have the stop)
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Post by Xonen »

One fairly well-known one that apparently hasn't been mentioned here yet: Icelandic has a voicing distinction on (at least some of its) approximants, but not obstruents. Which is kinda the exact opposite of what you'd usually expect.
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Post by Whimemsz »

Nortaneous wrote:Example of some fun historical development.

Also, some subdialects of Nias Seletan affricate and labiodentalize /t d/ before /u/: /adudu/ [adz_Pudz_Pu]. Labiodentalization there is more common than affrication. Some speakers apparently even have [pf bv] for those /t d/.
All the Plains Algonquian languages went through some fucking crazy sound changes. See the Correspondence Library (Cheyenne, Arapaho, Gros Ventre [Atsina], and Blackfoot are all Plains Algonquian).*



*It's not a genetic grouping though!

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Post by Nortaneous »

Hopi has a vowel system of /a E 2 o i 1/ and some weird allophone fuckery. Also, the differences between the two main dialects are absurdly large.
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

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Post by Nortaneous »

Onondaga has a vowel system of /i e o æ a ẽ ũ/
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

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Post by Whimemsz »

Eh, that's not that strange. Plus we've already mentioned an Iroquoian vowel system earlier, and they're mostly similar to that.

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Post by Nortaneous »

Whimemsz wrote:Eh, that's not that strange. Plus we've already mentioned an Iroquoian vowel system earlier, and they're mostly similar to that.
Ignoring the nasal vowels (which are analyzed as /e~ o~/, I think), it violates at least one universal, since it has two low and mid vowels but only one high vowel.
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Post by Radius Solis »

Nortaneous wrote:Hopi has a vowel system of /a E 2 o i 1/ and some weird allophone fuckery. Also, the differences between the two main dialects are absurdly large.
Uto-Aztecan vowel systems are prone to oddities and apparent imbalances. This may partly result from the PUA vowel system of */a i 1 u o/, which a goodly number of modern UA langs have retained, e.g. O'odham and Shoshone. It seems unbalanced, and some have argued it's in violation of the universal that there's always more front vowels than back vowels, but its survival in multiple branches over a time depth of 6k-ish years would seem to imply it's not actually unstable. And the ones that have rearranged their vowel systems, like Hopi, are often still atypical.

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Post by Whimemsz »

See, that's why most "universals" are stupid.

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Post by Nortaneous »

Radius Solis wrote:This may partly result from the PUA vowel system of */a i 1 u o/, which a goodly number of modern UA langs have retained, e.g. O'odham and Shoshone. It seems unbalanced, and some have argued it's in violation of the universal that there's always more front vowels than back vowels, but its survival in multiple branches over a time depth of 6k-ish years would seem to imply it's not actually unstable.
Unbalanced? Doesn't seem that weird to me; it's a minor variation on /a o @ i u/, and isn't that pretty well attested?
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

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Post by Nortaneous »

Archi has a set of lateral velar fricatives (and affricates - yeah, it has [k͡ʟ̝̊ʷʼ]) but no central velar fricatives.
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
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Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

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Re: Weird natlang phonologies

Post by opipik »

Benabena has /ɸ/ which can be realized as in word-initial positions.
It also has /j/ that can be realized as [ʝ] in word-initial stressed syllables and as [z] in word-initial unstressed syllables.

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Re: Weird natlang phonologies

Post by Bristel »

Faroese has [j] in some (or all?) places where /ð/ was in the older language, and it is written <ð>. (I'm guessing this isn't so weird? Do [ð] get lowered a bit as an approximant and then turned into [j] in other languages?)
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Post by vokzhen »

Nortaneous wrote:Bats has an ejective uvular affricate, but no plain uvular stops. (actually, is affrication on uvular stops that uncommon?)
Late to the party by 5 years, but no it's not. I complained about a kitchen sink phonology violating a bunch if "universals" some time ago and someone asked for proof that these were universals, and I've slowly been collecting data when I have time; I've found no language that contrasts /q qX/ and a significant minority - maybe even close to half - have [qX] as either a positional allophone or the primary realization of /q/. Affrication of /q'/ is less common, but in light of the /q qX/ relationship doesn't seem out of place, and seems especially likely when there's no other uvular occlusive (see also: Georgian).
Bristel wrote:Faroese has [j] in some (or all?) places where /ð/ was in the older language, and it is written <ð>. (I'm guessing this isn't so weird? Do [ð] get lowered a bit as an approximant and then turned into [j] in other languages?)
/ð/ does weird things all over. Irish has it > ɣ, Osco-Umbrian > v, in a few Formosan languages it's related to ɮ, I think it ends up as -j- in some Astur-Leonese dialect(s) just like Faroese, and there's the really off-the-wall -w in Catalan.

By now it's probably well-known here, but Qiangic and Jiarongic languages. Japhung with plain, voiced, aspirated, and prenasal stops at 8 POAs: /p t ts tʂ tɕ c k q/, minus /ɢ/. Jiaomuzu apparently has /tɽ tɽʰ dɽ/ as unitary consonants, contrasting with /tʂ/ from loans. Extremely large vowel inventories are common, e.g. Yadu /i y u ɪ o ɛ ə æ ɑ/, long /u: o: ɛ: ɑ:/, rhoticized /uʴ ɛʴ əʴ ɑʴ uʴ: ɑʴ:/, plus 17 native diphthongs and another 10 borrowed (and another 22 vowels that the author claimed but aren't in the data). There's some pretty crazy initial clusters, like ʁɢ- in Taoping (which is the result of an *s- prefix uvularizing). Non-phonologically the Jiarongic are all but entirely prefixally polysynthetic while being SOV, which afaik is otherwise only found in Dene-Yeniseian.

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