Re: Word Construction for a New Conlang

Ed Heil wrote:
> 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).
Well, what I usually do is I start off with just phonemes, I decide the
phonemes I want, and then make words.  While I'm developing a conlang,
the allophones will just sort of "evolve", sometimes making new
phonemes.  For instance, I once noticed that <ty>, denoting /tj/, came
out as [tS], instead of [tSj] (I'd earlier decided to make [tS] an
allophone of /t/), so I decided to accept /tS/ as a separate phoneme
(since /tSa/ could contrast with /ta/, and /tSu/ with /tu/)

> Do the rest of you start with this kind of harcore linguistics
> description and proceed to specific words, or vice versa, or somewhere
> in between, or some cycle between the two, or something entirely
> different?  Where did your words come from?
Well, I tend to start off with a list of intended phonemes, and allow
the allophones (and occasionally new phonemes) to evolve out of that,
and then I work out syllable-types (there's usually a bit of evolution
there, as well - formerly legal syllables are ruled out, or new
syllable-types are allowed in), and then I just start making words and
grammar, with occasions when I decide to modify the phonology, at which
point I may have to revise my lexicon, altering words with
newly-illegalized syllables, or changing random words to newly-legalized
syllables.

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