Post your conlang's phonology

[R.Rusanov]

I wasn't going for humor. Palatalization as a contrastive feature is so much commoner in Europe than labialization in stark contrast to the rest of the world.

[clawgrip]

It seems like people are confusing my language with Quantum's, but if I understand it right, the part that is possibly not realistic about the phonology I posted is that labialization occurs on voiceless consonants but not on voiced consonants or fricatives, which it would tend to do in natural languages. Am I right?

[Nortaneous]

It seems like people are confusing my language with Quantum's, but if I understand it right, the part that is possibly not realistic about the phonology I posted is that labialization occurs on voiceless consonants but not on voiced consonants or fricatives, which it would tend to do in natural languages. Am I right?

Right. It fits in your chart like a method of articulation, not a place of articulation. It's not implausible to have plosives as the only labialized consonants, but I wouldn't expect a full series of them... I would say to just have like /tʷ kʷ/ or something, but a kʷ-q contrast strikes me as unlikely in inventories that don't have a lot of labialized consonants.

You could probably get away with it but it's unstable.

[Herr Dunkel]

/palmface

Yeah, I confused yours with Quantum's. Sorry :s

[Jess]

Phonologies sometimes pop into my mind fully formed while I am doing some mundane task... this one is probably too ridiculous to actually use in a conlang but it amused me.

/b bʲ d dʲ k kʲ/ (labial and alveolar stops allophonically devoice in some environments)
/n nʲ/ (allophonically can occur at different POAs)
/d͡z d͡ʒ/
/z ʒ/
/w j/
/a a: i i: u:/

Short vowels can have high, mid, or low tone; long vowels can additionally be rising or falling.
/z/ and /ʒ/ can both by syllabic, including length contrast and tonality.
(C)V(C), with the syllabic fricatives included under V.

Theoretically the following could all be distinct series of phonemes (tone disregarded for the purpose of this example):

/a.d͡za/
/a.dz̩.a/
/a.d͡zz̩.a/
/ad͡z.d͡za/

[humanzinho]

I haven't found a phoneme inventory for Kuman

Here you go. So only a qualitative distinction between two laterals, though there is quite some variation in the velar one.

I find that lateral velars are less strange than what they might first seem. Especially lateral velar affricates feel more natural to articulate than their non-lateral counterparts because of a clearer qualitative distinction between the stop and the fricative release. Still, thinking a bit about their origins helps a lot in creating a balanced system. The perfect symmetry in humanzinho's stop and affricate inventories is something I might not decide to do myself.

This is something that does bother me about my phoneme inventory. Any suggestions on where to put gaps to make it seem a little more natural?

[Nortaneous]

eh it's probably fine but take out one of the lateral affricate series if you're that worried about it

[gach]

Yep, it's definitely a set on which you can build an excellent language.

If you decide to to weed the inventory a bit, merging the lateral series fully or partly is one possibility. Another possibility would be to do what's common for the Athabascan languages and have a reduced labial series with only one mode of articulation present. Yet another plausible way to go could be to make some or all of the affricate series to lack the aspiration distinction.

Take your time thinking yourself what you want to do and remember that not doing any changes to the system is also a valid solution that won't get any hate towards you.

[Nortaneous]

reduced labial series are way overdone in conlangs imo

you could do something like basque, where you have fortis/lenis contrasts for both the stops and affricates, but fortis/lenis in stops = aspirated/unaspirated but fortis/lenis in affricates = affricate/fricative. then again aren't velar lateral fricatives even less common than velar lateral affricates? and i don't know how you'd work ejectives into that

[Pogostick Man]

O:

/m n/ ⟨m n⟩
/p t k kʷ q qʷ/ ⟨p t k ḳ q q̇⟩
/ɸ s z x xʷ χ χʷ h/ ⟨f s z g ġ x ẋ h⟩
/ɾ/ ⟨r⟩
/β~w j/ ⟨w y⟩

/a aː ɛ ɛː ɛ~ə ɛː~əː e eː i iː ə əː ɨ ɨː o oː u uː/ ⟨a a: è è: ë ë: e e: i i: ơ ơ: ư ư: o o: u u:⟩
/ae̯ ao̯ ei̯ ou̯/ ⟨áe áo éi óu⟩

The /ɛ~ə ɛː~əː/ are the result of a vowel shift that had different outcomes in different dialects.

[roninbodhisattva]

Something I just came up with, cuz I wanted something a little weird

Code: Select all

m    n
     t              k
     ts             ks
b    d    		
     θ    ɬ         x
w         l    j    

i a o
i: a: o: 

Syllable structure is CV(V)(C),

[Travis B.]

This is the basic phoneme inventory of Proto-Søkkli. Note that not all these phonemes are used evenly; in particular, short monophthongs are far more common other vowels.

Syllable Structure

(C)CV(C(C)) or (C)CVV(C), where CC and VV may or may not be long consonants and vowels respectively.

Note that long consonants cannot be realized at the end of a word, and if a situation arises where a long consonant does fall at the end of a word, it will be realized as a short consonant.

Phonemes

Consonants

Plosives: /p t k/ <p t k>
Affricates: /ts tɕ/ <c ć> (These have both short and long versions, the long versions being held longer before release.)
Voiced fricatives: /β ð ɣ/ <b d g> (These are never long.)
Voiceless fricatives: /s ɕ x/ <s ś h>
Nasals: /m n ɲ/ <m n ń>
Liquids: /r l ʎ/ <r l ĺ>
Semivowels: /w j/ <w j> (These are never long.)

Vowels

Short monophthongs

Close: /i y u/ <i y u>
Close-mid: /e o/ <é ó>
Open-mid: /ɛ œ ɔ/ <e ø o>
Open: /a ɒ/ <a å>

Oral long monophthongs

Close: /iː yː uː/ <ii yy uu>
Open-mid: /ɛː œː ɔː/ <ee øø oo>
Open: /ɑː/ <aa>

Nasal long monophthongs

Near-close: /ɪ̃ː ʏ̃ː ʊ̃ː/ <in yn un>
Open-mid: /œ̃ː/ <øn>
Near-open: /æ̃ː/ <en>
Open: /ɑ̃ː ɒ̃ː/ <an on>

(These reflect former vowel-short coda nasal sequences, with neutralization of vowel length, and with subsequent changes in vowel quality not reflected by the orthography. Note that long nasals between vowels were not affected)

Diphthongs

Opening: /iə̯ yə̯ uə̯/ <ie ye ue>
Closing: /ɛi̯ œy̯ ɔu̯/ <ei øy ou>

[----]

Rough draft of something I've started working on very recently:

/p t c k k͡p/
/m n ɲ ŋ ŋ͡m/
/β~v ð ɽ ɣ j w/

+ palatalization on everything except palatals and /ɽ/.

/i e a o u ɨ ɜ/

There is also a 3-way phonation distinction on vowels, distinguishing murmured/breathy voice, modal voice, and glottalized/creaky voice. Dunno what the syllable structure is, probably (C)V.

[2+3 clusivity]

For lack of a better thread for this, here goes . . .

Anyone know of a language contrasting /q/ v . /qχ/ or /q/, /qχ/, and /χ/? I'm looking for a language contrasting uvular stops and affricates.

[Hallow XIII]

I think there are languages where contrastive /qʰ/ is realized as [q͡χ]. Furthermore, there is Kabardian.

[clawgrip]

I was looking at a language I made a year or so ago, and I noticed that the vowel length is pretty weird because it has some vowels that are only short, some that are only long, and two that are both short and long. The full inventory is as follows:

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i    ɨː     u
e~ɛ  ə     o
     əː
         ʚː~ɔː
     a
     aː

This seemed okay when I made it, but it strikes me as pretty weird now. This vowel system is the result of various vowel mergers from a previous form of the language. Seems like it would make more sense if I swapped the length so it was iː / uː / ɨ and oː / ʚ~ɔ, except the long ones are long because they derive from long vowels and diphthongs. Maybe I'll just shorten the long vowels except for əː and aː.

[2+3 clusivity]

I think the main odd bit is that the long vowels are all central. Even the seeming exception, ʚː~ɔː, is central(ized) it seems.

Were there any diphthongs?

The following would seem more stable:

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i    ɨː~əː   u
e:~ɛ:  ə   oː~ɔː
     a
     aː

Basically a triangular short vowel system with a diamond long vowel system superimposed.

[Hallow XIII]

I think the main odd bit is that the long vowels are all central.

There is a Mayan language where all long vowels are front, and all short vowels back(ed).

[clawgrip]

Thanks for that. I may go with your suggestion as the eventual development of these sound changes. The language does not have any diphthongs, just those. /i/ and /u/ alternate allophonically with /j/ and /w/.

The writing system for the language still preserves the former six vowel system with long and short vowels, so it will make for some convoluted spelling, which is fun.

[ObsequiousNewt]

For lack of a better thread for this, here goes . . .

Anyone know of a language contrasting /q/ v . /qχ/ or /q/, /qχ/, and /χ/? I'm looking for a language contrasting uvular stops and affricates.

There's always Klingon.

[8Deer]

I think the main odd bit is that the long vowels are all central.

There is a Mayan language where all long vowels are front, and all short vowels back(ed).

Which language? I've heard of it before and its driving me nuts trying to remember.

[2+3 clusivity]

There's always Klingon.

And Ithkuil. Wikipedia suggested the contrast was not present in NatLangs, so it is interesting to see Karbadian.

[CatDoom]

I've been playing around with a daughter language for my ongoing project Yipta, which, for the moment, I'm calling Yufto:

Consonants

Nasals: /m mʷ n ɲ/ <m m̃ n ñ>
Stops: /p b t d k g/ <p b t d k g>
Affricates: /t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ/ <c j č ǰ>
Fricatives: /ɸ θ s z ʃ ʒ x ɣ/ <f th s z š ž h gh>
Approximants: /ɹ j w/ <r y w>
Lateral Approximant: /l/ <l>

[β ð] appear as allophones of /ɸ θ/ between vowels. [ɰ] appears between vowels, resulting from the lenition of underlying /ɣ/. [ɰ] contrasts with [ɣ] (underlying /x/) in this position, but does not contrast with /w/, which has elided between vowels.

Vowels

Close: /i iː u uː/ <i ī u ū>
Close-Mid: /eː oː/ <ē ō>
Mid: /ə/ <ĕ>
Open-Mid: /ɛ ɔ/ <e o>
Open: /a aː/ <a ā>

The reduced vowel /ə/ has a very limited distribution, generally occurring only in the final syllable of a word, but never word-finally.

Creaky Voice

In addition to contrasting voiced and voiceless obstruents, Yufto contrasts between modal and creaky voiced phonation. This is a prosodic feature that is distinguished at the level of the syllable; a syllable that is pronounced with creaky voice is followed by an apostrophe <'>, which should not be mistaken for a glottal stop.

Phonotactics

Like its parent language, the basic syllable structure of Yufto is (C)(C)V(C)(C). However, a number of rules govern the relative position of phones within a syllable.

*Syllables conform to the sonority hierarchy, such that in consonant clusters within a syllable, the more sonorous component of the syllable always comes immediately before or after the vowel.

*Clusters may consist of a stop and a nasal, a stop and an approximant, or a fricative and a nasal. Except at syllable boundaries, nasal-approximant clusters occur only in coda position, and stop-fricative clusters are prohibited.

*Affricate consonants and voiced stops occur in clusters only at syllable boundaries.

*The nasals /mʷ/ and /ɲ/ are found only in onset position, and never in consonant clusters.

*The approximants /j/ and /w/ do not occur intervocalically. The approximant /ɹ/, on the other hand, occurs only between vowels, but it fully contrastive in that position.

*/j/ never follows a front vowel, and /w/ never follows a back vowel.

*Yufto has no diphthongs, but vowels may occur in hiatus, though only if their differ in backness.

[Nortaneous]

I think the main odd bit is that the long vowels are all central.

There is a Mayan language where all long vowels are front, and all short vowels back(ed).

Ixil.

Thanks for that. I may go with your suggestion as the eventual development of these sound changes.

It looks fine to me, though not terribly stable. Might lose length distinction, might develop /e:/. Doubt /o:/ would front without influence from another language.

[clawgrip]

i ɨː u
e~ɛ ə o
əː
ʚː~ɔː
a
aː[/code]

Thanks for that. I may go with your suggestion as the eventual development of these sound changes.

It looks fine to me, though not terribly stable. Might lose length distinction, might develop /e:/. Doubt /o:/ would front without influence from another language.

I'm thinking I'll first get rid of the length distinction in all vowels, and simplify /e~ɛ/ and /ʚː~ɔː/ into /e/ and /ɔ/. Then I can just merge /aː/ and /əː/ and front them to /ɛ/. This will give me a simple nine vowel system:

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i ɨ u
e ə o
ɛ   ɔ
  a