Re: Merian H-4: Grammar and Phonology.

Quoting Joe Hill <joe@...>:

> Yet another Conlang of My world :-)
>
> Merian H-4
>
> Merian H-4 is a heavily inflected multi-cased system.  It has a fairly
> complex phonology.
>
> Consonants
>
> Tt - Dental Stop
> Dd - Voiced Dental Stop
> Qq - Uvular Click
> Kk - Uvular Stop
> Gg -Voiced Uvular Stop
> Nn - Voiced Velar Nasal
> Ff - Bilabial Affricate
> Vv - Voiced Bilabial Affricate
> Ss - Velar Sibilant
> Zz - Voiced Velar Sibilant
> Cc - Velar Stop
> Xx - Velar Affricate
> Hh - Glottal Aspirate
> Mm - Voiced Bilabial Nasal
(In the following, I'm assuming that you want your language
to look like natural languages.  If you don't, then you can
ignore this.)

Joe, one word about natural languages.  Usually, when languages
acquire a distinction, they apply that distinction to a whole
class of sounds.  So, for example, if you get affrication on
/p/ to get /p_f/, you'll also find affricates /t_T/ or /t_s/
and /k_x/. So, let's look at your system:

  p     t d       c      k g
  f v             x
                                h
                         (q)
  m                 n

This is a little anomalous in several ways. It's not weird for
a language to have a voiceless /p/ without a voiced /b/ (in
fact, that's the more unmarked system), but it is unusual to
have a voicing distinction in some places of articulation but
not others. Also, it's not unusual to have several manners of
articulation at bilabial, velar and uvular PoAs, but having
phonemes at these places implies their presence at a coronal
(i.e., dental or alveolar) PoA, which is the least marked PoA.
It's possible to get around this;  labial PoA is only slightly
more marked than coronal, and yet some languages (Atkan Aleut,
Onondaga) lack these entirely.  You do have two coronal phonemes,
but the ratio is a little skewed (but believable).  Lastly,
uvular clicks are not really possible, unless by uvular you
mean where the back part of the tongue closes off the airflow.

> Aa - Open Back Unrounded
> Uu - Closed Front Rounded
> Oo - Open Back Rounded
> Ee - Mid Front Rounded
> Ii - Mid Central Unrounded
So, are you saying that vowel height is not a salient
distinguishing feature? I take it you mean the following
by the above:

 <a> = [A]
 <u> = [y]
 <o> = [Q]
 <e> = [o"]
 <i> = [@] or [E"]

It's not strange that you would have [A] for /a/ and
[Q] for /o/, but it is a little odd that you would have
two *rounded* front vowels with no unrounded counterparts --
the former generally imply the presence of the latter.

> Cases
>
> Ergative - The Ergative case is the subject in Present tense
> transitive
> sentences.
> Absolutive - The Absolutive is the object in Present tense transitive
> sentences, and the subject in intransitive present tense ones.
> Pretergative - The Ergative, but in Past Tense
[...]
> Facudative - Indirect object in the uncertain future tense
>
> As you see, there is a different case for each tense, so I shall merely
> list the Present cases.
It is not very unusual to have split ergativity along
tense lines, but usually this is restricted to an aorist/
perfect having an ergative-absolutive system, and present/
imperfect having a nominative absolutive system.  If you
want to read up more about this, I would suggest getting
Dixon's _Ergativity_, which talks at considerable length
about ergativity splits:

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521448980/qid=
1009315718/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1_1/107-8779639-9578927>

(I didn't know Amazon now has photocopies of excerpts
on their page! That can be rather helpful information
when buying books.)

Dixon's style is rather formal, and if you don't have much
linguistics background, I'd suggest something like _Describing
Morphosyntax_ by Thomas Payne, which is more approachable:

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521588057/qid=
1009315867/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1_1/107-8779639-9578927>

> (Eastern)- To signify if something is in the East
> (Western)- same as above, but in the west
> (Southern)- something is in the south
> (Northern)-Guess what.
> (Northwards Etc.) - If something is done towards specified direction.
>
> (Rightwards and Leftwards)- Same as above, but right and left.
Usually, natural languages that grammaticalize directions do
so relative to the kind of terrain that the language is used
in.  So, for example, the dialect of English spoken on the Great
Plains of North America (Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, etc.) typically
will talk about the *north* side of the house, or the *south*
side of the house, because there aren't many recognizable
features on the plain to relate to otherwise.  In California
and Alaska, on the other hand, native languages tend to have
deixis systems that refer to whether things are up river, or
down river or up the hill or down the hill, because that is
more accessible than North or South. Usually, though, languages
don't grammaticalize *both* cardinal and relative directions.
This would suggest that you should consider what kind of environment
the language developed in, and choose one of the two systems (
either right/left or north/south).

> Number
>
> Again, all the work is done by the noun, there are numbers
> inflected for up to 10, and a plural number, for above or
> unspecified.
Highly inflected, indeed.  I can't think of a language that
grammaticalizes so many numbers, but as long as you can think
of a reasonable sociolinguistic motivation for it, I think it's
an interesting idea.

> Noun Letter Order
> CVCVC
> CVC
> qCV
> CVCVCV
> CVCV
> CVCVCV
Do you mean 'licit syllables'?

> The Cases and number are inflected after a glottal stop.
What does this mean?  Does it mean that there are no cases
usually, and they only appear after a glottal stop, or does
it mean that cases are normally autonomous units which
become cliticized after glottal stops at the end of nouns
they attach to?

> The Verb does not inflect.
This is typologically normal; it's called 'dependent marking'
because the dependents (nouns, pronouns, prepositional phrases)
of the phrase's head (the verb) are what show agreement.

> Letter Order is the same as nouns
When you say letter order, do you mean letters (i.e.,
orthography) or phonemes (sounds)?

> The adjective merges with the noun, but has the same letter order
What do you mean, "merges with the noun"? Do you mean that
the adjective becomes phonologically *bound* to the noun it
modifies, or that it's *written* that way?  You seem to be
confusing two very separate issues -- the way something is
pronounced, and the way it is written.  The one is rule-
based; the other is entirely arbitrary.

> The adverb is the same, but with verbs.
Same question applies here.

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...> <http://home.uchicago.edu/~trwier>

             "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street   and not complete one road that has no turn"
Chicago, IL 60637     Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers

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