A polymorphic language
From: | Peter Bleackley <peter.bleackley@...> |
Date: | Tuesday, February 14, 2006, 14:17 |
Here's an idea that I'd like to play around with in the near future. I'm
defining a polymorphic language as one where most morphemes have several
possible allomorphs, and it's not always predictable which one will occur
in a given situation.
To do this, I'm going to start off with an ancestor language with a more
simple and predictable morphology. The phonemic inventory will be
p t k ?
f s x h
w r j
m n N
i u
a
and the allowed syllables will be [C]V[L][n]
However, each phoneme will have more than one allophone, eg
/hi/ = [Ci]
/ha/ = [ha]
/hu/ = [Wu]
Then, I'll introduce sound changes that turn the different allophones into
separate phonemes. That should leave me with the effect I desire.
I'd welcome suggestions for what allophones different phonemes should have,
and how to break allophony.
Pete