Zompist Bboard Again

Thanks! I checked on PHOIBLE but couldn't figure out any way of comparing two segments - can you show me how? I'm afraid all I've got is a script I wrote to search through the raw data (which they let you download). I could share it, I suppose, but it's just something I whipped out one day, nothing...

akam chinjir wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2019 4:07 am Phoible has 849 languages with ʔ of which 213 lack h. Seems common enough.

Thanks! I checked on PHOIBLE but couldn't figure out any way of comparing two segments - can you show me how?

Is it plausible to have /ʔ/ but not /h/?

[...] adjectives follow the nouns they modify, and there's a productive genitive suffix /ɗe/ in both of them, one use of which is to form compound words (in which modifiers follow the head, so they often end in this genitive suffix). I don't quite understand. Do you mean that the genitive can be ap...

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here. Are you saying that you want all of, say, /tærok/, /tærɒːk/, /tɑrek/ to go to /tærak/, with similar changes for all other verbs (i.e. not just tär-k)? Or am I misunderstanding? Basically, yes. It's the beginning of a triconsonantal root system. That means...

Now, given all these changes, what can be done so that only CVCaC/CVCCam (passive voice) and CVCuC/CVCCum (active voice) verb patterns result? I'm not quite sure what you're asking here. Are you saying that you want all of, say, /tærok/, /tærɒːk/, /tɑrek/ to go to /tærak/, with similar changes for ...

In Estonian this only occurs for C+/r l/ clusters (and C+j clusters turn into /Ci/), but in Hungarian this occurs for most heterorganic consonant clusters. The so-called "syncope stems" hence also include plenty of level or falling-sonority consonant clusters, e.g. from *rm: három : hárm(...

In Estonian this only occurs for C+/r l/ clusters (and C+j clusters turn into /Ci/), but in Hungarian this occurs for most heterorganic consonant clusters. The so-called "syncope stems" hence also include plenty of level or falling-sonority consonant clusters, e.g. from *rm: három : hárm(...

While we're discussing syncope: what could happen after V > Ø / _# in multisyllabic words? Oddly enough the Index Diachronica reports this change quite frequently, so it appears to be plausible, but I'm worried it could result in lots of weird consonant clusters at the end of words in cases like e....

Here's another dissertation: Gouskova (2003) [pdf] on syncope. That article looks very interesting as well, but it looks very jargony - I can't understand it because I don't know Optimality Theory. Could you give a summary, or at least point me to some resources to help understand it? While we're d...

Also, really for my information more than anything else: Since there are no voicing contrasts until the implosives become regular voiced stops and merge with the allophonically voiced tennis stops, is it plausible with my phonotactics to have allophonically devoiced implosives? If so, where? Anyone...

Here's another dissertation: Gouskova (2003) [pdf] on syncope. That article looks very interesting as well, but it looks very jargony - I can't understand it because I don't know Optimality Theory. Could you give a summary, or at least point me to some resources to help understand it? While we're d...

Here's a whole dissertation on hiatus resolution: Casali (1996) [pdf] . That might give you some concrete ideas. It's very comprehensive, with lots of information on which vowel is deleted, how often it happens, vowel coalescence, etc. Ah, thanks, that looks quite interesting! I should have specifi...

A more general question: does anyone know of a good crosslinguistic survey of different types of vowel deletion? Either synchronic or diachronic. Oddly enough, a while ago someone recommended one to me in this same thread: Here's a whole dissertation on hiatus resolution: Casali (1996) [pdf] . That...

Another newb question: what is a periphrastic applicative voice? My current conlang has a deep and pervasive love of serial verb constructions, so it would probably have that if it is frequently associated with verb series. I wouldn't know off the top of my head, but I think I could work it out. Ac...

Also, how to design a conlang that sounds energetic and happy-go-lucky. I'm not sure there even is one way of doing this, to be honest - I would second linguistcat in saying that it all depends on your personal sound symbolism. And I would think that something which is 'energetic and happy-go-lucky...

While /k'/ is the most common ejective, It is unusual for a language not to have ejective affricate. In fact, many languages have just /k'/ and ejective affricates. While /p'/ tends to merge with /p/, /t'/ tends to be affricated. That's interesting! I always thought that ejective affricatives were ...

Ah, thanks for alerting me to those typos! They are fixed now. The reason there are only voiceless geminates is because they actually descend from an earlier 'fortis' series, which contrasted with the plain voiceless obstruents as well as the voiced ones. In some dialects they were realized as ejec...

As can be seen above, I'm probably not the best person to review sound changes. But I still have a few questions/clarifications: Old Northwest Shorzhic p t ts tʃ tɕ k pː tː tsː tʃː tɕː kː b d dz dʒ dʑ g ɸ s ʃ ɕ x h ɸː sː β z ʒ ʑ ɣ m n ŋ r l j w i iː u oː ɛ eː ɐ ɐː ɔ oː a aː ɛi ɔu ai au ɔi ɐu The nas...

ʔɐɪ ~ ɔɪd- ~ əː- ~ æɪtʃ < Eng. eat m̊ɐɪ ~ mɔɪd ~ məːt ~ moɪ < Eng. meat vaːðɛːɾæ ~ βɑʒɪteɾjɪː ~ βäːtsəɾn ~ ʋɑːʃɛɾ < Eng. vegetarian A: ʔeːse ɾɛɸɐɪ wæ ʔaː ʒæ sɑ vuːɾ < ? repeat what I just (said?) (before??) B: ɾɛpɔɪd nɑʊ wäd æɪð sɑð < repeat now what I'[d/ve] said C: ɾɛpəːt dʒi nə: wæt æɪd säd ɜt <...