There are 5 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Not enough difference?
From: George Corley
1b. Re: Not enough difference?
From: Alex Fink
1c. Re: Not enough difference?
From: George Corley
2.1. Re: More from the Popular Linguistics Front
From: Padraic Brown
2.2. Re: Tsk tsk (was: More from the Popular Linguistics Front)
From: Roger Mills
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Not enough difference?
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 30, 2013 1:57 pm ((PDT))
On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 3:10 PM, Alex Fink <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:56:17 -0500, George Corley <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> >Something that has been bugging me while working on Pahran -- I feel like
> a
> >lot of roots are coming through my sound changes untouched. Of 68 words I
> >have created so far (yes, I am slow with lexical development) 15 are
> >entirely unchanged, and many others have only developed in ways that are
> >clearly just allophonic variation.
> >
> >Keep in mind that Pahran's sound changes are supposed to span 1000-2000
> >years. I haven't really been thinking about how syntax and morphology are
> >changing, either. Being a high-class, somewhat literary dialect, the
> >variant of Pahran I'm working on may well make sense to be a little
> >conservative, but it seems a bit TOO conservative at the moment.
>
> What sound changes have you got so far?
>
*
[+coronal +anterior] > [-anterior] / ɻ_
V > [+long] / _[+cons +son]
V > [+nasal] / _[+nasal]
[+cons +son] > 0 / V_C.
[-son] > [-voice] / _#
[+syl +high] > [-high] / [+cons +dors +back -high]_
[+strident] > [+voice] / V_V
ɻ > r / _#
ɻ > ɾ / V_V
[-cont -cor] > [+round] / _[+round]
ħ > h
[-son +cor] > [-cont] / _[-cont]
[-cont +voice] > [+cont] / V_V
ɢ > [-voice] / #_
[+cont -son +long] > [-long]
Gemination of stops*
*
*
*I've omitted most the vowel harmony changes, because it's sort of a pain
to write them out (in my document I just have a listing for Vowel Harmony
and just apply it all at once).*
So what type of writing system does Pahran have, and what's its history?
> What other dialects are about?
>
Pahran has an alphabet that has been used since before the old three-vowel
system split, which (once I figure out how the modern form of that alphabet
works) will surely lead to some absolute hilarity when it gets applied to
representing nine vowels plus length and nasalization. I don't actually
have that writing system in front of me -- I do think I had originally
written both rhotics identically, but i may change that.
I haven't done much dialect work, but a few ideas in my head are:
-- Many dialects have merged both rhotics in favor of the trill, but the
prestige dialect attempts to preserve the distinction,
often hyper-correcting in the process.
-- There may be some variation in the uvulars -- the voiced uvular stop
tends to be rare in this variant, but it isn't always.
-- There may be small tweaks to certain rules. For instance, in the
variant I'm working on, the gemination rule actually applies to nasals as
well (essentially any combination YX where X is an oral stop and Y is a
nasal or oral stop, it becomes XX), but that may not be the case for all
dialects.
> Now, ordinarily, for someone complaining "my sound changes aren't enough!
> my words aren't different enough!" my advice would be: sound changes aren't
> everything in the world. If your lang's non-isolating, make some
> morphological changes! Resegment some affixes, allow some stem extensions
> to accrete up, forget the base of some derived forms and perform a new
> derivation to go the other way, this sort of thing. Vastly underused,
> compared to sound changes. And, of course, today's syntax is tomorrow's
> morphology, so change some of that too.
>
> But in your case, well, morphology and syntax are the sort of things which
> prestige varieties are _good_ at being conservative with respect to, so
> perhaps that advice doesn't apply here.
>
I will move to morphology changes and variation eventually. It's just that
I understand how sound changes work much better, and they seem to be easier
in terms of being more systematic (I said _more_ systematic, not
_completely_ systematic, in case people want to lecture me on the
irregularities that can be caused by inter-dialectal loans and whatnot). I
need to figure out what exactly to do about morphology -- it seems a much
bigger can of worms partly because I can't really write formal rules as I
did for sound changes.
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Not enough difference?
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 30, 2013 8:28 pm ((PDT))
On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 15:57:36 -0500, George Corley <[email protected]> wrote:
>> What sound changes have you got so far?
[*snip*]
Yeah, that feels scant to me for a millennium, though I guess the vowel changes
could bulk it up. Maybe you could add more "small" rules, that is rules of
relatively specific conditioning. Such small rules could either result in (a)
an actual change in spelling, where the "big" rules don't, or (b) no change in
spelling and then an opportunity for spelling pronunciation to happen. Or
maybe some doublets could form via some kind of semi-classical reborrowing
procedure, like the semi-learned reborrowings like _regla_ in Spanish etc.
Though I should've asked what the initial inventory and phonotactics are, as
well. For instance, have you got affricates? That would make the strident
voicing strange.
Actually, it's odd that only stops take on rounding, whatever your inventory
is, probably.
I also suppose it's likely to matter for the speakers' subsequent understanding
of these changes whether they're allophonic or not. If all [z] are <s> between
vowels, fine. If there's /z/ which is now spelled <z> everywhere as well as
<s> intervocalically... well, that's probably still survivable, but it'll be
noticed.
>So what type of writing system does Pahran have, and what's its history?
>> What other dialects are about?
>
>Pahran has an alphabet that has been used since before the old three-vowel
>system split, which (once I figure out how the modern form of that alphabet
>works) will surely lead to some absolute hilarity when it gets applied to
>representing nine vowels plus length and nasalization. I don't actually
>have that writing system in front of me -- I do think I had originally
>written both rhotics identically, but i may change that.
Might even be non-hilarious! If the length and nasalisation are consistantly a
following <r> and <n> (or nasal C), respectively, that's not too bad. The
qualities, I reserve judgment for now...
>I haven't done much dialect work, but a few ideas in my head are:
>-- Many dialects have merged both rhotics in favor of the trill, but the
>prestige dialect attempts to preserve the distinction,
>often hyper-correcting in the process.
Do they contrast?
>-- There may be some variation in the uvulars -- the voiced uvular stop
>tends to be rare in this variant, but it isn't always.
>-- There may be small tweaks to certain rules. For instance, in the
>variant I'm working on, the gemination rule actually applies to nasals as
>well (essentially any combination YX where X is an oral stop and Y is a
>nasal or oral stop, it becomes XX), but that may not be the case for all
>dialects.
These seem like the sort of things which would have a chance to be
reintroduced, then: extra instances of [G\] where it's spelled (especially if
that doesn't violate otherwise exceptionless phonotactics), extra [nt]-type
clusters where they're spelled.
>I will move to morphology changes and variation eventually. It's just that
>I understand how sound changes work much better, and they seem to be easier
>in terms of being more systematic (I said _more_ systematic, not
>_completely_ systematic, in case people want to lecture me on the
>irregularities that can be caused by inter-dialectal loans and whatnot). I
>need to figure out what exactly to do about morphology -- it seems a much
>bigger can of worms partly because I can't really write formal rules as I
>did for sound changes.
Yeah, fair enough.
Alex
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Not enough difference?
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 30, 2013 8:59 pm ((PDT))
On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 10:28 PM, Alex Fink <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 15:57:36 -0500, George Corley <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> >> What sound changes have you got so far?
>
> [*snip*]
>
> Yeah, that feels scant to me for a millennium, though I guess the vowel
> changes could bulk it up. Maybe you could add more "small" rules, that is
> rules of relatively specific conditioning. Such small rules could either
> result in (a) an actual change in spelling, where the "big" rules don't, or
> (b) no change in spelling and then an opportunity for spelling
> pronunciation to happen. Or maybe some doublets could form via some kind
> of semi-classical reborrowing procedure, like the semi-learned reborrowings
> like _regla_ in Spanish etc.
>
Damn. That's unfortunate. I really hate to add more changes after having
coined words. I guess I could pin down what I have as an earlier stage in
the language and then develop further. Now I need to do even _more_
freaking derivations. (I'm deriving words by hand, because I can't find
single damn sound change applier that can handle the kinds of sound changes
I want, and the one I had used required too many ridiculous workaround
rules.)
> Though I should've asked what the initial inventory and phonotactics are,
> as well. For instance, have you got affricates? That would make the
> strident voicing strange.
> Actually, it's odd that only stops take on rounding, whatever your
> inventory is, probably.
>
I have no idea if this table will survive the list. If it doesn't, I'll go
through and type the damn thing out:
*
Labial
Alveolar
Retroflex
Palatal
Velar
Uvular
Pharyngeal
Glottal
Voiceless Plosive
p
t
k
q
ʔ
Voiced Plosive
b
d
g
ɢ (ǵ)
Nasal
m
n
Trill
r
Fricative
f
s
ħ (hh)
h
Approximant
ʋ (w)
ɻ
j (y)
Lateral
l
*
Phonotactics are essentially (C)(C)V(C)(C) with a few extra stipulations
(glottals and the pharyngeal do not appear in clusters, second consonant of
the onset must be a sonorant -- as must the penultimate consonant in a
complex coda). Initial vowels are /i a u/, expanding to a much larger nine
vowel system through [front] and [high] harmony (once vowel harmony kicks
in, /a/ becomes one of those odd transparent vowels.
> I also suppose it's likely to matter for the speakers' subsequent
> understanding of these changes whether they're allophonic or not. If all
> [z] are <s> between vowels, fine. If there's /z/ which is now spelled <z>
> everywhere as well as <s> intervocalically... well, that's probably still
> survivable, but it'll be noticed.
You'll see that I have no voiced fricatives
> >So what type of writing system does Pahran have, and what's its history?
> >> What other dialects are about?
> >
> >Pahran has an alphabet that has been used since before the old three-vowel
> >system split, which (once I figure out how the modern form of that
> alphabet
> >works) will surely lead to some absolute hilarity when it gets applied to
> >representing nine vowels plus length and nasalization. I don't actually
> >have that writing system in front of me -- I do think I had originally
> >written both rhotics identically, but i may change that.
>
> Might even be non-hilarious! If the length and nasalisation are
> consistantly a following <r> and <n> (or nasal C), respectively, that's not
> too bad. The qualities, I reserve judgment for now...
The biggest issue is how a writing system meant for /i a u/ is going to
contort itself to represent /i y e ø a ɤ o ɯ u/. I'm planning on lots of
diacritics. Nasalization and lengthening is not going to be a huge issue,
as you say -- just use some silent letters from history -- although there
is some potential for confusion due to some coda nasals surviving (and not
causing nasalization). The bigger challenge will probably be the
romanization -- it doesn't really matter so much if your "native script" is
balls out wacky, since that's just natural.
> >I haven't done much dialect work, but a few ideas in my head are:
> >-- Many dialects have merged both rhotics in favor of the trill, but the
> >prestige dialect attempts to preserve the distinction,
> >often hyper-correcting in the process.
>
> Do they contrast?
There's a historical contrast between the retroflex approximant and
alveolar trill. You can see them starting to merge in my tables. My idea
is that merger goes further in some dialects, but others preserve the
distinction. Then, literate people observe the distinction in writing,
but occasionally end up hypercorrecting historical trills to retroflexes.
> >-- There may be some variation in the uvulars -- the voiced uvular stop
> >tends to be rare in this variant, but it isn't always.
> >-- There may be small tweaks to certain rules. For instance, in the
> >variant I'm working on, the gemination rule actually applies to nasals as
> >well (essentially any combination YX where X is an oral stop and Y is a
> >nasal or oral stop, it becomes XX), but that may not be the case for all
> >dialects.
>
> These seem like the sort of things which would have a chance to be
> reintroduced, then: extra instances of [G\] where it's spelled (especially
> if that doesn't violate otherwise exceptionless phonotactics), extra
> [nt]-type clusters where they're spelled.
True. I will add that this language is for a fantasy world that as at a
stage of social development where literacy isn't terribly common. As such,
it would probably make sense for spellings to be somewhat in flux, with no
really effective way to standardize. This society may or may not have an
early printing press, but if they do it is a very new and very limited
phenomenon.
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2.1. Re: More from the Popular Linguistics Front
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 30, 2013 6:18 pm ((PDT))
--- On Sat, 3/30/13, George Corley <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > Not sure. The audio, hilariously, only has the spelling
> > > pronunciation /tIsk/.
>
> > This is more real than you might think. My wife insists that "tsk" is
> > pronounced /tIsk/. She has never made the connection with a dental
> > click, and was genuinely incredulous when I explained it to her.
Well, your wife isn't wrong by a long shot -- there are two words in play
here. One is pronounced with the click (don't know how to "spell" it in
IPA) and the other is pronounced /tIsk/.
I hear both, and though I agree with George that these words are low
frequency in the grand scheme of things, I don't think either one is in
any real danger of disappearing. They operate in different domains, as far
as I've seen them used. In my experience (personal use and how I've heard
them used by others -- all anecdotal), the click is used when literally an
"exclamation of disapproval of a situation or action", as if to say "what
a shame that is; what a waste". It's usually reduplicated (or less often
quintuplicated) and is uttered "straight". The "spelling pronunciation"
variety, /tIsk/, I hear and use in a much more disparaging way, usually as
part of the phrase "well, tisk tisk!" enunciated almost with a sense of
exasperation when someone makes a little mole hill into a big mountain, or
when their perceived problem is something I don't see as an issue at all.
> It will probably be replaced. Granted, I haven't done a study, but I
> rarely hear the click much any more. It's very low frequency, anyway.
Padraic
Messages in this topic (35)
________________________________________________________________________
2.2. Re: Tsk tsk (was: More from the Popular Linguistics Front)
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 30, 2013 7:32 pm ((PDT))
BTW I've seen it written "tch tch" ( I think).
--- On Sat, 3/30/13, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
From: Padraic Brown <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: More from the Popular Linguistics Front
To: [email protected]
Date: Saturday, March 30, 2013, 9:18 PM
--- On Sat, 3/30/13, George Corley <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > Not sure. The audio, hilariously, only has the spelling
> > > pronunciation /tIsk/.
>
> > This is more real than you might think. My wife insists that "tsk" is
> > pronounced /tIsk/. She has never made the connection with a dental
> > click, and was genuinely incredulous when I explained it to her.
Well, your wife isn't wrong by a long shot -- there are two words in play
here. One is pronounced with the click (don't know how to "spell" it in
IPA) and the other is pronounced /tIsk/.
I hear both, and though I agree with George that these words are low
frequency in the grand scheme of things, I don't think either one is in
any real danger of disappearing. They operate in different domains, as far
as I've seen them used. In my experience (personal use and how I've heard
them used by others -- all anecdotal), the click is used when literally an
"exclamation of disapproval of a situation or action", as if to say "what
a shame that is; what a waste". It's usually reduplicated (or less often
quintuplicated) and is uttered "straight". The "spelling pronunciation"
variety, /tIsk/, I hear and use in a much more disparaging way, usually as
part of the phrase "well, tisk tisk!" enunciated almost with a sense of
exasperation when someone makes a little mole hill into a big mountain, or
when their perceived problem is something I don't see as an issue at all.
> It will probably be replaced. Granted, I haven't done a study, but I
> rarely hear the click much any more. It's very low frequency, anyway.
Padraic
Messages in this topic (35)
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