The CBB

Some people claim that there is a difference. I'm not sure if this is true though, for me some very frequent verbs use past tense (`war' and not `ist gewesen') and other verbs use the perfect (`hat gearbeitet' not `arbeitete'). The example usually claimed to differentiate is: Past tense ungrammatic...

I don't think there is a conclusive answer based on natlangs. Not enough data to generalize.

Some people claim that there is a difference. I'm not sure if this is true though, for me some very frequent verbs use past tense (`war' and not `ist gewesen') and other verbs use the perfect (`hat gearbeitet' not `arbeitete'). The example usually claimed to differentiate is: Past tense ungrammatica...

Ich hab in der letzten Zeit viel anderes zu tun. Hab viele Ideen, aber mir fehlt die Geduld das durchzusetzen. Und ich war lustigerweise in Edinburgh dieses Jahr. Hab die Inspiration für Hogwarts gesehen. Das war cool. Und übrigens: Hat wirklich jemand was neues zum Voynich-Manuskript zu sagen oder ...

Hello, I am hoping to develop a descendent of Classical Qutrussan which develops pitch accent or register tone. I don't really want full contour-tones à la Chinese, but I am struggling to come up with ways to develop pitch accent or a register tone system. Does anyone know of any papers that descri...

From the context and world knowledge. Or you don't know at all, if it does not matter.

Sorry, I don't understand your question. Could you rephrase it?

Word initial geminates are rare and onsets bearing moras is to. There are some language though where similar things happen, so it might be natural after all. Nina Topintzi has worked on this topic a lot IIRC.

I would say it can, but not in the way you showed it in your example. Postvocalic consonants make more sense IINM. Starting out from English, which slightly lengthens vowels before voiced consonants, you could have the following. /ata a:ta asa a:sa/ > /ata a:da asa a:za/ > /ata ada asa aza/ Another ...

/p b t d k ɡ/<p b t d k g> /m n/<m n> /ts tʃ dʒ/<c q j> /f v s z ʃ ʒ h/<f v s z x y h> /r l/<r l> /i ɨ u/<i î u> /e ə o/<e ê o> /a/<a> /eo ea oa eoa/<í é ó á> Next: /p b pʲ bʲ pˤ bˤ t d tˤ dˤ tʲ~kʲ dʲ~gʲ k g q~kˤ ʡ ʔ/ /f v fʲ vʲ fˤ vˤ s z sˤ~ʂ zˤ~ʐ sʲ~ɕ~xʲ zʲ~ʑ~ɣʲ x ɣ χ~xˤ ɢ~ʁ~ɣˤ~gˤ ħ ʕ h/ /w r~l j ...

There is a phonotactics database and thus probably a way to answer questions 1 to 3. Don't know about 4 though. The sample is not the largest one though, one should keep that in mind. Answers based on a short query: 1. 0.1 % 1a. Georgian, Oowekyala 1b. ? 2. 0.1 % 2a. Haisla, Mixe, Oowekyala 2b. ??? ...

I also like the Arabic/triconsonantal touch of the verbal morphology I was wondering if there is nominal derivational morphology. What happened to the diminutives?

If ridiculous means heavily unnatural, than this is easy. A language without plosives or vowels, consisting of only voiced fricatives and voiceless sonorant consonants (no glides). Maybe have some weird morphological categories e.g. for verbs 'happening on the top of a roof' vs. 'not happening on th...

The sounds are already palatal, and clicks, which the language has several of, tend to multiply. Thus, I don't think it'd be too much of a stretch for the palatal fricative/affricate to become a fricative click. However, I wan't to gauge the plausibility thereof before making the changes official. ...

What languages other than Celtic have word-initial consonant mutations expressing grammatical meanings? Celtic langs cannot be that unique it only appears in them. At our university we are working on a mutation database. If you just want to know about initial consonant mutation, I can PM you a list...

/p pʲ t c k/<p pj t tj k> /b bʲ d/<b bj d> /m mʲ n ɳ/<m mj n nj> /ts tʂ tɕ/<c cj kj> /dz dʐ dʑ/<dz dj gj> /f fʲ s ɕ ç x/<f fj s sj hj h> /v vʲ z ʑ ʝ ɣ/<v vj z zj rj r> /w l ʎ j ɰ/<w l lj x> /i ɨ u/<i y u> /e ə o/<e ' o> /a/<a> Yeah, no trigraphs [:)] Next: /m n ɳ ɲ ŋ/ /p t ʈ c k/ /ts tʂ cç/ /s ʂ ɕ h...

I don't think the question was silly at all, and I see no need to be embarassed. There is no general answer to your first question, but there are some tendencies: if you have only one series of stops, they tend to be voiceless. The same is often true for affricates. If you have only one series of fr...

I really like that idea. Did you already think of other changes? Maybe one could do something nice with the vowels (keeping half of them from becoming /i/)?

/p t t̠ c k/ p t t̠ ķ k /pf ts t̠ɕ cç kx/ pf c c̱ ķḩ kx /tɬ t̠ɬ̠ cʎ̝̊ kʟ̝̊/ tl t̠l̠ ķļ kʟ /s ɕ ç x h/ s s̱ ḩ x h /w ɹ~r~ɾ j ɰ~ʁ~ʀ/ w r y ğ /l l̠ ʎ ʟ/ l l̠ ļ ʟ /i ɪ ʊ u/ i ị ụ u /e ɛ ɘ ɜ ɔ o/ e ẹ ə ə̣ ọ o /ɐ a/ ạ a /a˩ a˧ ↓a˥ a˥/ à a ã á On a personal note: /ɜ/ /ɐ/ are distinguished? And ingressives...

Bonus points if you can guess which natlang this is Is this PIE ? [xD] /p b bʱ t d dʱ c ɟ ɟʱ k g gʱ kʷ gʷ gʷʱ/<p b bh t d dh c j jh k g gh q w wh> /m n/<m n> /s h ʕ Xʷ/<s h x f> /j w/<j v> /l/<l> /r/<r> /i u e o a/<i u e o a> /m̩ n̩ r̩ l̩/<mh nh rh lh> /Vː/<VV> /V́ V́ː/<V́ V́V> (stress is unmarked ...