Re: Gramaticalised phonology

Peter Bleackley sikyal:

> Has anyone else created a conlang, or is anyone aware of a natlang, in
> which certain phonemes or phonological features can occur only in
> particular grammatical contexts? This happens quite a lot in Magzhelyagon,
> which, as I've mentioned before, is intended to be an unpronounceable
> polysynthetic monstrosity. An example is the evidentiality system - the
> dubious evidentiality is denoted by all the stops in the word regarded as
> representing doubtful information becoming prenasalised, or a prefix [nde]
> if there are no suitable stops, and the certain evidentiality is indicated
> by lateralisation of all fricatives in the word representing certain
> information, or a prefix [Ke] if there are no suitable fricatives.
> Prenasalised stops and lateral fricatives do not occur elsewhere.
Systems similar to what you describe are quite common--sort of. Many
languages have systems wherein a grammatical feature is indicated by some
phonetic change. Celtic mutations are probably the most commonly known
example, but there are many others.

However, you implied that the phonetic feature in question doesn't occur
*except* in the given grammatical construction. This is quite a bit rarer,
but I don't think it's unknown. I know that the inverse occurs, where
certain sounds occur in roots but NOT in affixes, yet I can't think of any
natlang examples of exactly what you're asking for.

Yivrian is a close conlang example. The verbal suffix -ya create a lot of
Cy clusters, which are otherwise pretty much nonexistent.

--
Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/blog

Jesus asked them, "Who do you say that I am?"

And they answered, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground
of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our
interpersonal relationship."

And Jesus said, "What?"