Re: Word Construction for a New Conlang

My .02 Deutschmark:

*** pls use a font like Courier to read this ***


>I'm finding myself in a state of throwing away all the beginnings of
>conlangs I've started and wanting to start over again.  And I'm just
>not sure how to start, so I turn to you (pl) for help...
>
>It's the phenomenon of making words and making phonologies.  Think
>back, if you can, to when you first started on your conlangs (or first
>started on a new project)...  How did you go about making a phonology
>and then making words?
>
>Let's assume for the moment that the thing to do is (1) settle on a
>phonology and phonotactics and (2) make words according to that
>pattern.
That's the way we (a bunch of language-inventers with weekly meeting)
normally do ... of course, often we start with some words that sound "cool"
or "strange", but just to find out which sounds are to be found in the
language to invent, and then build a system around it.

Let's assume a quite simple language:

   Vowels:      i   u          Cover Symbol:
                  a              V  'latin (or italian) sound values

   Diphthongs:  ai au            V(D)

   Consonants:  p  t  k          P
                f  th kh         F  'th like in "thin", kh like in "loch"
                  s sh           S  'sh like in "shine"
                m  n             N
                  r l            L  'r trilled
                                            y             Y  'the y of
"yard"

Of course, you could handle stressed/unstressed syllables different,
especially as for vowels (e. g. long vowels in stressed syllables, reduced
vowels in unstressed etc.)

Now the first (and quite useful) thing to invent is the syllable structure:
Maximum number of consonants and vowels in the syllable. E. g.

     (C)(C)V(C) - a quite common scheme

- means that each syllable consists of at least one vowel (or diphthong);
the onset (leading consonants) can range from 0 to 2 consonants, and at the
end of the syllable there is none, or only one cons.

If you're going to make phonotactics very elaborated, you could invent
different syllable structures for the first, the last, the
stressed/unstressed, high/low pitch syllables and so on. (For example, if
you like "italian" combinations like "str-" but want to avoid
four-consonant-clusters in the middle, the first syllable could have a syll.
structure like (C)(C)(C)V(C).)

At this point, syllables like "thtif" or "yfar" are still possible, so you
could go on excluding the onset combinations you don't want - now the Cover
Symbols are getting useful. Let's allow the following:

   PS PL    - means that each of "p, t, k" (P group)
                 can combine with any of the F, S or L groups
   FS FL
      SL SN - by the way, you could restrict that to "shL shN" - German,
            for instance, allows only "sh" in front
            of another consonant at the beginning

and of course every single consonant (well, not that "of course" - some of
them could be restricted to the coda, or to the absolute beginning of the
word ...)

Then, the same for syllable ending ("coda") - let's assume here: all
consonants except "y" are allowed.

Now we got syllables like "a", "shu", "rat", "shmuk", "ith", "yikh"

Next, think about what's going to happen at the syllable boundary (we like
to call this "Grenzstreitigkeiten", but this only works in German): Now
there are up to three consonants and possible vowel/diphthong combinations.
(If you use a spreadsheet progam that can handle text, the concatenate
function is quite useful if things are getting tricky.) Here, the "deep
structure" vs. "surface structure" system comes handy, so we assume that in
deep structure, all combinations are possible, but get changed to surface
structure according to additional rules (checking every possible pair), for
example:

   C1 C2 C3 > C1 C3, means that from each three-consonant-cluster, the
middle one is omitted (allegedly, a quite brute rule)

   PF: P is deleted, and F gets the articulatory place of P (so "*kaptha"
becomes "kafa", possibly "*kaptha" > "*kap-fa" > "kafa")
   PN: P is deleted ("*itna" > "ina") - maybe in PF and PN combinations, the
resulting cons. could become geminated, so "kaffa" and "inna"?
   FP: f becomes u (assuming that f was formerly w that changed with u) -
this may result in strange di- and triphthongs, see below -; th and kh
become voiced (only a phonetic, not a phonemic shift)
   FS, FL: F vanishes ("*tithshu" > "tishu")
   SF: S deleted ("*asfir" > "affir" or "afir")
   SL: metathesis ("*kusru" > "kursu")
   NP, NF, NS: N gets homorganic (like F in FP): "*shimta" > "shinta",
"*trinfukh" > "trimfukh")
   NL: metathesis ("*anlu" > "alnu")

   FF, SS, NN, LL: first consonant deleted, second one geminated ("*khufkhi"
> "khukkhi") - kkh meaning long kh
   other consonant combinations: no restrictions

   vowel combinations:
   two equal vowels merge into one
   two-vowel-combinations become diphthongs, if possible (ai, au)
       if not (iu, ui), a "y" is inserted
   DV: aiu (by *ai-f-P, see above) becomes ayu (so "*kaifta" > "*kaiuta" >
"kayuta")
       aia becomes aya
       aui, aua become afi and afa (well, f could have a voiced allophone v
here)
   VD: iau, iai: a "y" is inserted
       uau, uai: a (voiced) "f" is inserted
   DD: aiau, aiai > ayau and ayai
       auau, auai > afau and afai

hmmm ... you see that's quite a lot of work, but I confess this set of rules
has got rather complex - one could do with less;)

Now if you want an isolating language, that's it ... but the fun starts when
you create a conlang with agglutination, flection or inflection: then the
phonotactic rules give the new language a quite "natural" (i. e. irregular)
flavor.

>Not being a professional linguist, I'm not sure I've ever seen a
>complete description of the phonotactics of a natlang, so I'm not sure
>how I would go about describing such a beast.  I don't explicitly know
>the phonotactics of any of the few natlangs I've studied, nor of my
>native language.  As for phonologies, I've seen phoneme inventories
>but I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like a complete analysis of
>the phonology of a natlang (allophones and all).

Neither did I ... if anyone has got a really complete phonotactics, please
give me a hint.

>Given a "sound" that I might want a language to have, when I try,
>clumsily, to analyze that sound and make a formula for creating it, I
>usually don't end up getting anywhere near it.  And when I try to make
>a system from scratch, not following a vision but just making up some
>rules and seeing where they lead, I don't often get anywhere I want to
>be.
>
>I've tried using Jeffrey Henning's _Langmaker_ and Christopher
>Pound's  _werd_ and you can do some cool stuff with them, but again, I
>suffer from an inability to come up with formulas for word creation
>that produce quite the sets of words I want.
Langmake is really great at the point of inventing a vocabulary. From
version 1.09 on, you can attribute sounds a certain probability, thus
controlling the entire sound of your language. But, it has its flaws when it
comes to sound changes (e. g. in diachronics). I must be fair, though:
Together with a friend, I once tried something similiar in VB for _only one_
language ("Babaluba", a CV-only conlang), so i got a slight idea what amount
of work it is to code.

Regards,

Aestiipaen

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