Morkai5's scratchpad

[Morkai5]

I'm working in a language, Naucan, a simple agglutinative language based in my childhood conlangs and very slightly in PIE languages and other languages that I like. It was going to be for a conworld project that seems like it will never take off.

So I can't post much until the translation of my part of the translation relay is done, but I'm sharing the phonology with you in case you can tell me what you think and give me some advice or opinion. It would be very helpful, thanks!

Here it is: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CbjGFU ... sp=sharing

[Richard W]

By 'transcription', you mean 'transliteration'. It would have helped to know that there was a writing system earlier in the description. Does it mark word boundaries?

All the sounds of the phonemes are its allophones, not just the 'off-nominal' ones. Is the contrast between unstressed /e/ and /i/ neutralised? (There may be some hocus pocus here. The language looks as though it has inflection, and if suffixed the inflection will shift stress.)

Are nasals contrasted before /r/, /s/, /z/, /w/ and /j/?

The contrast of dental /d/ and /t/ but alveolar /n/ looks odd.

[foxcatdog]

By 'transcription', you mean 'transliteration'. It would have helped to know that there was a writing system earlier in the description. Does it mark word boundaries?

All the sounds of the phonemes are its allophones, not just the 'off-nominal' ones. Is the contrast between unstressed /e/ and /i/ neutralised? (There may be some hocus pocus here. The language looks as though it has inflection, and if suffixed the inflection will shift stress.)

Are nasals contrasted before /r/, /s/, /z/, /w/ and /j/?

The contrast of dental /d/ and /t/ but alveolar /n/ looks odd.

Dental *t and *d vs Alveolar other coronals is attested in tons of languages. Heck even dental *t vs alveolar every other non-palatal coronal is attested

[Morkai5]

By 'transcription', you mean 'transliteration'. It would have helped to know that there was a writing system earlier in the description. Does it mark word boundaries?

All the sounds of the phonemes are its allophones, not just the 'off-nominal' ones. Is the contrast between unstressed /e/ and /i/ neutralised? (There may be some hocus pocus here. The language looks as though it has inflection, and if suffixed the inflection will shift stress.)

Are nasals contrasted before /r/, /s/, /z/, /w/ and /j/?

The contrast of dental /d/ and /t/ but alveolar /n/ looks odd.

Hi! Thanks for the advice! Yeah, you're right, I was sloppy with the term, I will change it! At the beginning of the grammar it's explained that has a writing system, but sorry, this was not in this section. Yeah, it marks word boundaries, should I put that here or in the writing system section?

You are right about allophones, I'll rephrase that paragraph. Thanks!

You're right, the contrast is neutralized, it happens in my language with other vowels, and happens in other languages and I like it. In careful/liturgical speech the reduction is suppressed, so... I added a paragraph on that, but still not published. If suffixed, the inflection shifts stress indeed.

No, I didn't put contrast in nasals before those sounds. Does it sound natural? Romance languages in my area doesn't do that (Catalan, Spanish, Portuguese...).

/d/ and /t/ are supossed to be deni-alveolar, as in Spanish, French, Italian...

Thanks again, to both of you!

[Richard W]

Hi! Thanks for the advice! Yeah, you're right, I was sloppy with the term, I will change it! At the beginning of the grammar it's explained that has a writing system, but sorry, this was not in this section. Yeah, it marks word boundaries, should I put that here or in the writing system section?

I think it may be relevant to neutralisation of nasals at word boundaries. I think you have a hocus pocus decision to make as to what happens to final nasals. If there are liturgical pronunciations, then speakers are probably aware of word boundaries, and there then might not be a word-final shift between /m/ and /n/ depending on the following consonant. Literacy affects speech.

No, I didn't put contrast in nasals before those sounds. Does it sound natural? Romance languages in my area doesn't do that (Catalan, Spanish, Portuguese...).

I think the language could go either way at word boundaries. The combinations /mr/ and /mw/ look unstable word internally, though I think /nw/ and /mw/ could jump either way. For /nw/ > [mw] we have the example of English sandwich , but I think there may be a widespread dispreference for labial + /w/ clusters. The ambivalence of /w~u/ and /j~i/ may come into play. Nasals might assimilate to palatal nasals before /j/.

I would expect assimilation to [n] before /s/ and /z/.

Thanks again, to both of you!

Glad to be of help; I was worried I was being too nit-picky.

[Travis B.]

Hi! Thanks for the advice! Yeah, you're right, I was sloppy with the term, I will change it! At the beginning of the grammar it's explained that has a writing system, but sorry, this was not in this section. Yeah, it marks word boundaries, should I put that here or in the writing system section?

I think it may be relevant to neutralisation of nasals at word boundaries. I think you have a hocus pocus decision to make as to what happens to final nasals. If there are liturgical pronunciations, then speakers are probably aware of word boundaries, and there then might not be a word-final shift between /m/ and /n/ depending on the following consonant. Literacy affects speech.

Assimilation of /n/ to following consonants' POA's is extremely common, and may occur across word boundaries. For instance, as a kid I always thought of the Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee as the Home Bridge because the /n/ in Hoan regularly assimilated to the /b/ in bridge as [m]. I even as a kid thought of in between as a single word "imbetween" [ˌɪ̈̃ːmbɘˈtʷʰwĩ(ː)n] because of this.

No, I didn't put contrast in nasals before those sounds. Does it sound natural? Romance languages in my area doesn't do that (Catalan, Spanish, Portuguese...).

I think the language could go either way at word boundaries. The combinations /mr/ and /mw/ look unstable word internally, though I think /nw/ and /mw/ could jump either way. For /nw/ > [mw] we have the example of English sandwich , but I think there may be a widespread dispreference for labial + /w/ clusters. The ambivalence of /w~u/ and /j~i/ may come into play. Nasals might assimilate to palatal nasals before /j/.

My own dialect of English regularly elides /n/ before /w/, including across word boundaries, resulting in sandwich [ˈsɛ̃ːwɘːtʃ] and can we [ˈkʰɛ̃ːˌwi(ː)].

I would expect assimilation to [n] before /s/ and /z/.

I should note how in many English varieties /ns nz/ are realized as [nts ndz] (or with final devoicing, merged to [nts]) regularly.

[Nortaneous]

sandwich [ˈsɛ̃ːwɘːtʃ] and can we [ˈkʰɛ̃ːˌwi(ː)].

cf. Toothbeef Sandwich

[Travis B.]

sandwich [ˈsɛ̃ːwɘːtʃ] and can we [ˈkʰɛ̃ːˌwi(ː)].

cf. Toothbeef Sandwich

Thank you for sharing.

[Morkai5]

Could you give me some advice on the conscript? It's an artificial alphabet within the context. What I'm least convinced about is the r (edit: I've tweaked a little the r).

[keenir]

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_SjSP ... kOmg=w1280

Could you give me some advice on the conscript? It's an artificial alphabet within the context. What I'm least convinced about is the r (edit: I've tweaked a little the r).

testing...

[Morkai5]

Let's see if it works now.