Re: New Conlang

John Vertical wrote:


>> ># 1 wrote:
>> >
>> > > Last night, I tought of a new conlang.
>
>> > > All the nouns (an pronouns) are made of a root of vowels
>
>> > > When the case is absolutive, the infix is the verb, made of one or
>>more
>> > > consonants. Its time is indicated by a suffix.
>> >
>> >This looks very, very, very much unlike any natlang I have seen or
>> >heard of - but it is an interesting idea.
>> >
>>
>>That's exactly what I wanted!
>
>Yes, looks quite creative.
>
>
>>The only problem I see is that it is too weird to be really effective.. I
>>always get stuck with the dilemma efficienty vs. weirdness...
>
>If you want to stick with the heavy morphophonological constraints, I guess
>the best solution would be to add more phonemes. And while adding new POAs
>may work for a while, the exponential approach would probably be more
>effective. Eg. by adding contrastive palatalization and glottalization, you
>could (almost) quadruple your phonemic inventory. And consonants like
>/G_j_>/ would certainly help with the weirdness. :D
>
/G_j_>/? Yeah that seems weird!

I tought that only the voiceless consonant could be ejectives, am I wrong?

>BTW, one xenophonology idea I've considered allowed almost any phonemes to
>be co-articulated. Of course, with phonemes like /vo)/ and /p4)/, you can
>imagine it'd be a bitch and a half to pronounce...
>
How does /vo)/ sounds? How does sound a coarticulation of a consonant and a
vowel?

That'd sure be weird! I wonder how such caracteristic could appear in a
language.. It would need a sound change like "all the vowels accuring
between two single consonants desappear" or something like this..

>
>> > > t_N = tl
>> > > d_N = dl
>> > > s_N = sl
>> > > z_N = zl
>> > > l = l
>> > > l_N = ll
>> >
>> >Ahh, linguolabials!  Sweet!
>> >
>>
>>Yeah I like them! particularly /l_N/, but /s_N/ and /z_N/ also sound odd
>>:-)
>
>Speaking of of which. What's the lower jaw doing while pronouncing
>linguolabials? Is it supposed to hang open or aid in the closure??
>Particularily the fricatives sound IMO totally different depending on
>this...
>
I always thought that in linguolabials, the only opening is between the
tongue and the upper lip and that the lower lip is pasted to the tongue

Or on each side of the tongue if it is lateral

But a language could distinct linguolabials of the same type by the position
of the lower jaw.. that'd be strange

>
>> > > B\ = cc
>> >
>> >|cc| for a bilabial trill is, well, hardcore ;-)
>> >
>>
>>In fact I wanted trills being two times the flap letters (because, after
>>all, that's what they are) and the flaps being individual letters and not
>>digraphs because I want to use them often as basic sounds
>
>Is there an official way in any phonetic alphabet to denote the length of a
>trill? How does one mark whether /r:/ is /444/ or /4444/ or /4444444/ ... ?
>
If a /r/ is distinct by the lenght the simbols would probably be /4/, /r/,
/r:\/, /r:/

Are there languages that distinct the lenghts of the trills (otherwise than
only single vs. more, /4/ vs. /r/)

When a language does, is that trill distincted only in consonant position,
or when syllabic or both?

>
>> > > There are also two consonants that do not mean verbs
>> > >
>> > > /?/ = q
>> > > That marks the ergative
>
>I'd have chosen a more "neutral" symbol... it looks like most words in a
>phrase are going to end up with a "q" this way. But I guess that goes well
>together with your goal of freakyness :)
>
In fact, that -q- is an infix but yes a lot of words have |q| - /?/ in the
middle, but I don't find it sooo weird.. Actually, I could even say that /?/
is not phonemic, say that the infix space stays empty but that an "empty
slot" is pronounced /?/, and mark that "empty slot" by an hyphen...

But that's sure that if the same marking is used for all the cases but
Absolutive and that this marking is not zero, a lot of words will have a
common phoneme...

>How are you forming conjunctions, etc?
>
For Ergative pronouns, I've used "wV(V)(V)"    (w...V)

For Absolutive + Verbs it is "(V)(V)VC(C)(C)V(V)(V)"    (V...C...V)

For Ergative nouns it is "(V)(V)VqV(V)(V)"    (V...q...V)

For Conjonctions I suppose that "(V)(V)VC(C)" could be a good form
(V...C)

And for markers (modes, negative, aspects (but progressive and perfective),
voices, and a few other verbal things) "qV(V)(V)C(C)" may also work
(q...C)

The form "V(V)(V)" could be used for other things I still didn't tought
about

- Max