Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[bradrn]

The problem with Baxter-Sagart is that, to my knowledge, there are no signs of the pharyngealization it posits in the rest of Tibeto-Burman

Nort has discussed before how some Tibeto-Burman languages do indeed have a pharyngealisation (or uvularisation or velarisation) distinction in vowels, so it’s not implausible.

If this points at an inherited +/-ARGH distinction in PST, it sounds more likely that it would have originally been on the vowels in pre-Sinitic (as otherwise why would +/-ARGH be on the vowels rather than the consonants in the rest of TB?).

I dunno, but it seems like the kind of thing which could easily migrate between consonants and vowels…

[Travis B.]

Nort has discussed before how some Tibeto-Burman languages do indeed have a pharyngealisation (or uvularisation or velarisation) distinction in vowels, so it’s not implausible.

If this points at an inherited +/-ARGH distinction in PST, it sounds more likely that it would have originally been on the vowels in pre-Sinitic (as otherwise why would +/-ARGH be on the vowels rather than the consonants in the rest of TB?).

I dunno, but it seems like the kind of thing which could easily migrate between consonants and vowels…

One thing I do wonder about is how Baxter-Sagart posits that there is a pharyngealization contrast even on uvulars...

[jal]

[jcb]

I watched a history TV-show, where they had an interesting linguistic claim that I have not heard before. They said that bilabials are much more than labiodentals in hunter-gatherer societies than in agricultural societies.

They said that people are usually born with a slight overbite, but if you eat hard and chewy food throughout your childhood, the lower jaw developes in such a way that the front teeth end up meeting edge to edge. This helps with biting of tough pieces of food. They also said that with that kind of jaw, producing labiodentals requires a little bit more effort, which is why the language would favor bilabials.

If someone wants the source I could look for the episode and post a link. It's in Swedish, though I think that part might have had English audio. But it's probably not viewable outside Sweden.

I have heard of that idea, though I don't remember where, and I don't know what to think of it. Most such claims of correlations between phoneme inventory features and geographical or cultural environments are doubtful, if not entirely spurious.

This idea was in the news a few years ago, I think due to this article.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aav3218

The idea is older though, and was apparently originally proposed by Charles F. Hockett in 1985.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/678561

See also here for some newer sources.
https://arts-pulleyblank-2024.sites.olt ... tFinal.pdf

Quite possibly it was just a mistake for conjunction, given (various cognates of) ‘conjunctive’ are often used for the various moods of European languages usually called subjunctive in English¹.

¹ Although I don't know about Swedish².
² I think, sorry if not Qwynegold

This is true for Swedish, these moods are pretty much always called konjunktiv, not subjunktiv (apparently the later term had some use is the 19th century, though).

I don’t think I’ve ever seen ‘subjunctive’ used as a name for a part of speech. I’ve always seen it used to refer to a kind of verbal inflection found primarily in subordinate clauses.

Nor do I. 'Subjunctive' is a mood, not a part of speech. I'd say that but is a conjunction.

In Swedish, it is fairly common to refer to subordinating conjuctions as subjunktioner, i.e. subjunctions. Is that not a thing in English? I did Google the term and there are certainly some English language examples, but they seem to mainly be from German, Swedish or Norwegian language learning materials.

That being said, as ‪Travis B.‬ noted, but is probably not a subjunction.

That reminds me: why is (labiodental) /f/ more common than (bilabial) /p\/, but (bilabial) /p/ is more common than a labiodental plosive?

[bradrn]

That reminds me: why is (labiodental) /f/ more common than (bilabial) /p\/, but (bilabial) /p/ is more common than a labiodental plosive?

Labiodental stops are hard to produce (because it’s hard to achieve full closure with the teeth), whereas labiodental fricatives are easy to produce (for the biomechanical reasons given in the paper linked earlier).

[Travis B.]

That reminds me: why is (labiodental) /f/ more common than (bilabial) /p\/, but (bilabial) /p/ is more common than a labiodental plosive?

Labiodental stops are hard to produce (because it’s hard to achieve full closure with the teeth), whereas labiodental fricatives are easy to produce (for the biomechanical reasons given in the paper linked earlier).

As I mentioned a while back, my dialect has phonetic labiodental affricates (which are phonemically clusters) but not plain labiodental stops.

[jcb]

That reminds me: why is (labiodental) /f/ more common than (bilabial) /p\/, but (bilabial) /p/ is more common than a labiodental plosive?

Labiodental stops are hard to produce (because it’s hard to achieve full closure with the teeth), whereas labiodental fricatives are easy to produce (for the biomechanical reasons given in the paper linked earlier).

As I mentioned a while back, my dialect has phonetic labiodental affricates (which are phonemically clusters) but not plain labiodental stops.

Can you explain more? What are they affricated with?

[Travis B.]

Labiodental stops are hard to produce (because it’s hard to achieve full closure with the teeth), whereas labiodental fricatives are easy to produce (for the biomechanical reasons given in the paper linked earlier).

As I mentioned a while back, my dialect has phonetic labiodental affricates (which are phonemically clusters) but not plain labiodental stops.

Can you explain more? What are they affricated with?

Outside careful speech, /bv/ and /dv/ merge to [b̪v] as in obvious /ˈɑbviəs/ [ˈaːb̪viːɘs̟] and adventure /ˌæˈdvɛntʃər/ [ˌɛːˈb̪vɜ̃nʲtɕʁ̩ˤ(ː)].

[Nortaneous]

Anyone studying or having studied Classical Chinese: Tell me your preferred reconstruction of Middle Chinese, and why? I've been using Pulleyblank's which is fine, but it's based strongly one on'yomi from Japanese and isn't as interesting for the conlang I'm working on.

My problem with Middle Chinese reconstructions is that A) almost all syllables seem to include palatal glides while B) the same characters that correspond to syllables that allegedly have palatal glides are used to transcribe foreign names that do not have palatal glides.

Isn't this objection a bit overstated? Sino-Korean has the Ryugyong in Pyongyang. In the linked example of *ljuwk 'six', Mandarin has liù and Korean has ryuk - the yod is attested. A more reasonable example is 佛陀 bjut da; for 佛 Korean has bul.

[Travis B.]

Anyone studying or having studied Classical Chinese: Tell me your preferred reconstruction of Middle Chinese, and why? I've been using Pulleyblank's which is fine, but it's based strongly one on'yomi from Japanese and isn't as interesting for the conlang I'm working on.

My problem with Middle Chinese reconstructions is that A) almost all syllables seem to include palatal glides while B) the same characters that correspond to syllables that allegedly have palatal glides are used to transcribe foreign names that do not have palatal glides.

Isn't this objection a bit overstated? Sino-Korean has the Ryugyong in Pyongyang. In the linked example of *ljuwk 'six', Mandarin has liù and Korean has ryuk - the yod is attested. A more reasonable example is 佛陀 bjut da; for 佛 Korean has bul.

Conventional MC reconstructions from rime books have a majority of syllables being type B, which Karlgren treated as having -j- and which most subsequent reconstructions have inherited. Furthermore, foreign syllables are typically borrowed as being type B even if the source languages had no palatal glides. Something just smells horribly wrong with this. I personally would favor type B being completely unmarked and rather have type A syllables being marked in some fashion, whether it's +ARGH or with long vowels or like.

[Travis B.]

I have noticed that at least in my ideolect hello is phonologically odd, in that the most parsimonious analysis of its realization with a marked semivowel at the end as [ˌhɜːˈʟ̞o̞(ː)w] is as /ˌhɜˈlow/ or, to use conventional NAE phonemes, /ˌhɛˈloʊw/; contrast this with low [ʟ̞o̞(ː)] which lacks such a marked semivowel, which is best analyzed as /lo/ or, conventionally, /loʊ/.

[chelsea]

pull out of your ass

ass-pull

Could the latter be considered an incorporated applicative?

[Ephraim]

Related to the question of Chinese historical phonology, this YouTube channel just published some lectures on Old and Middle Chinese phonology presented by Guillaume Jacques and Nathan Hill. I have not watched them myself but I think they could be interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/@NathanWHill/videos

If this points at an inherited +/-ARGH distinction in PST, it sounds more likely that it would have originally been on the vowels in pre-Sinitic (as otherwise why would +/-ARGH be on the vowels rather than the consonants in the rest of TB?).

I dunno, but it seems like the kind of thing which could easily migrate between consonants and vowels…

One thing I do wonder about is how Baxter-Sagart posits that there is a pharyngealization contrast even on uvulars...

Pharyngealized uvulars are found in many Northeast Caucasian languages and some Northwest Caucuasian (Ubykh of course!).

For Archi (Northeast Caucasian), uvulars are apparently the only consonants that can be phonemically pharyngealized, but there are also pharyngealized vowels (maybe the same thing as what is referred to as retracted tongue root in other contexts?).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archi_language
https://openresearch.surrey.ac.uk/esplo ... 3832802346

Audio examples in this dictionary (highly recommended!):
https://www.smg.surrey.ac.uk/archi-dictionary/

Khwarshi (Northeast Caucasian) also has both pharyngealized consonants and vowels (at least in most dialects), including pharyngealized uvulars. Apparently, it's not entirely clear whether pharyngealization should be analysed as a feature of the consonant, the vowel or the syllable. Vowels are always pharyngealized following a pharyngealized consonant, but pharyngealized vowels can also appear word-initially and pharyngealized consonants can appear word-finally following a non-pharyngealized vowel. This might be relevant to the question of the feature potentially migrating between consonants and vowels in Sino-Tibetan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khwarshi_language
https://www.lotpublications.nl/Document ... lltext.pdf

[WarpedWartWars]

i just remembered about how pneumonic, mnemonic, and gnomonic are all pronounced nearly the same (at least in my accent), with the only differences being the quality of the initial vowel, which in all three is often just turned into a schwa (though for me they're all already phonemic schwas, just different flavors)

[Travis B.]

i just remembered about how pneumonic, mnemonic, and gnomonic are all pronounced nearly the same (at least in my accent), with the only differences being the quality of the initial vowel, which in all three is often just turned into a schwa (though for me they're all already phonemic schwas, just different flavors)

I think this is the case for most English-speakers ─ for me these are in careful speech /ˌnuˈmɑnək/ [ˌnʲʷỹːˈmãːɾ̃ɘʔk], /ˌnɛˈmɑnək/ [ˌnɜ̃ːˈmãːɾ̃ɘʔk], and /ˌnoʊˈmɑnək/ [ˌnø̞̃ːˈmãːɾ̃ɘʔk], but in fast/unstressed speech they all merge to [nə̃ːˈmãːɾ̃ɘʔk] or [nə̃ːˈmãːɘ̯̃ʔk].

[anteallach]

i just remembered about how pneumonic, mnemonic, and gnomonic are all pronounced nearly the same (at least in my accent), with the only differences being the quality of the initial vowel, which in all three is often just turned into a schwa (though for me they're all already phonemic schwas, just different flavors)

I think this is the case for most English-speakers ─ for me these are in careful speech /ˌnuˈmɑnək/ [ˌnʲʷỹːˈmãːɾ̃ɘʔk], /ˌnɛˈmɑnək/ [ˌnɜ̃ːˈmãːɾ̃ɘʔk], and /ˌnoʊˈmɑnək/ [ˌnø̞̃ːˈmãːɾ̃ɘʔk], but in fast/unstressed speech they all merge to [nə̃ːˈmãːɾ̃ɘʔk] or [nə̃ːˈmãːɘ̯̃ʔk].

It is different for me, and I assume most speakers from outside North America, because pneumonic has /nj/.

[jal]

i just remembered about how pneumonic, mnemonic, and gnomonic are all pronounced nearly the same (at least in my accent), with the only differences being the quality of the initial vowel, which in all three is often just turned into a schwa (though for me they're all already phonemic schwas, just different flavors)

Though I'm accustomed to the English dislike for pronouncing an initial k before n ("know" and "knight" being common enough), I'm always tripped up by the same rule for gn-, no doubt because this combination is a lot rarer.


JAL

[Raphael]

i just remembered about how pneumonic, mnemonic, and gnomonic are all pronounced nearly the same (at least in my accent), with the only differences being the quality of the initial vowel, which in all three is often just turned into a schwa (though for me they're all already phonemic schwas, just different flavors)

Though I'm accustomed to the English dislike for pronouncing an initial k before n ("know" and "knight" being common enough), I'm always tripped up by the same rule for gn-, no doubt because this combination is a lot rarer.


JAL

Same.

[bradrn]

i just remembered about how pneumonic, mnemonic, and gnomonic are all pronounced nearly the same (at least in my accent), with the only differences being the quality of the initial vowel, which in all three is often just turned into a schwa (though for me they're all already phonemic schwas, just different flavors)

Though I'm accustomed to the English dislike for pronouncing an initial k before n ("know" and "knight" being common enough), I'm always tripped up by the same rule for gn-, no doubt because this combination is a lot rarer.

As for me, and I’m a native speaker. I will always say ‘gnu’ as /ɡnʉː/.

(Though mind you, I usually refer to that animal as a /ˈvɪl.də.biə̆st/.)

[Travis B.]

i just remembered about how pneumonic, mnemonic, and gnomonic are all pronounced nearly the same (at least in my accent), with the only differences being the quality of the initial vowel, which in all three is often just turned into a schwa (though for me they're all already phonemic schwas, just different flavors)

Though I'm accustomed to the English dislike for pronouncing an initial k before n ("know" and "knight" being common enough), I'm always tripped up by the same rule for gn-, no doubt because this combination is a lot rarer.

As for me, and I’m a native speaker. I will always say ‘gnu’ as /ɡnʉː/.

(Though mind you, I usually refer to that animal as a /ˈvɪl.də.biə̆st/.)

For native English words <kn-> is /n/ here but <kn-> is not uncommon in names of German origin here and for these I have /kn/ not broken up by an epenthetic schwa.

As for <gn-> I normally have /n/ but for the Gnu Project I have /gn/.

For the animal, though, I normally say /ˈwɪldəˌbist/ [ˈwɨːɯ̯ɾəːˌpisʲtʲ].