Random phonology/phonemic inventory thread

[sangi39]

Do you also want to have several independent click-o-genesises?

I'm considering how exactly I want to do that. At least for the inventory above, that's as far back as I want to go, so it's a case of "has had clicks as far back as we can reconstruct". Languages belonging to other families in the surrounding area might gain clicks through borrowing and possibly through the use of clicks as an avoidance feature.

As for elsewhere, I'm not entirely sure. It would definitely be cool to try out developing clicks in a family that descends from a language which didn't have clicks at all, I suppose mostly through consonant clusters. On the other hand, I might also try adding clicks to the phoneme inventories of some languages, with the proto-language have a limited number of clicks, with some languages gaining more as their relatives lose them.

[sangi39]

For the second proto-language which contained clicks, I was thinking something like this:



It's a lot smaller than the first and besides the grouping shown above, which reflects an older stage of the language's phoneme inventory, a lot more "gappy".

The click series is divided into two groups "noisy" (lateral) and "abrupt" (alveolar), as are their pulmonic counterparts, but the voiced clicks correspond at this stage to voiced fricatives instead of voiced stops (in contrast to the first click language above in which they correspond to voiced stops, with voiced fricatives being a distinct series). There's also no pulmonic counterpart to the nasal lateral click, which should be /ɲ/, which has instead merged with /j/.

The tilde in the cell that should be the velar nasal is there (mostly to myself), of something I want to do with what was a velar nasal that no longer exists in the language (so likely vowel nasalisation, merger with an older /g/ into /ʁ/, or into /ʔ/), but might also be filled allophonically by extant /m/ and /n/ (like them becoming [ŋ] word-finally or before velar consonants).

A less historical arrangement of the consonant inventory would give this:



More accurately showing how asymmetrical this inventory is.

[DesEsseintes]

Latest idea for Limestone: add ejectives!

/n/ n
/p p’ t t’ k k’ ʔ/ p p’ t t’ k k’ ’
/s ɬ x/ s ł x
/r j w/ r y w

I’m not sure whether to get rid of /p’ j/.

/n/ n
/p t t’ k k’ ʔ/ p t t’ k k’ ’
/s ɬ x/ s ł x
/r w/ r w

Regardless, I find this very attractive.

The vowels are something along the lines of /a i o ɨ/ or /a i u ə/.

[Frislander]

Here's a little diachronic phonology I've cooked up somewhat inspired by Samic.

*i *u
*ē *ea *ō *oa
*a~ā

Only *i, *u and *a occur in non-initial syllables, and *a does not occur in initial syllables, therefore *ā and *a are in complementary distribution and should be considered as allophones.

And the three daughters.

/i iː u uː/
/a aː/

The length contrast is only found in initial syllables.

/i iː u uː/
/e eː o oː/
/æ æː ɑ ɑː/

In non-initial syllables only /e o/ occur, in complementary distribution: /e/ following front vowels, /o/ following back ones.

/i iː y yː u uː/
/ie yø uo/
/e eː (ə) o oː/
/ea oɑ/
/æː ɑː/

/ə/ only occurs in non-initial syllables and is the only vowel which is found there. It may be deleted in certain environments; the is the only case where a vowel may be dropped in any of the three daughter languages.

(bonus points to the person who can work out how I derived these inventories from the parent).

[Parlox]

A consonant inventory i thought of,

/n/
/p b t d k g q ʔ/
/t͡ʃ/
/w f v/
/ʀˡ ʀˡˡ/
/l ɬ-ɮ/

/ʀˡ/ is more accurately described as a trilled [ʟ̠], while /ʀˡˡ/ is more accurately described as a trilled [ʟ̠͡l]. I'm thinking of removing /t͡ʃ/.

[DesEsseintes]

/ʀˡ/ is more accurately described as a trilled [ʟ̠], while /ʀˡˡ/ is more accurately described as a trilled [ʟ̠͡l]. I'm thinking of removing /t͡ʃ/.

The Snorelang?

[Frislander]

OK, diachronic sketch time!

*p *t̪ *t *c *k
*m *n̪ *n *ɲ *ŋ
*w *ɹ *j

*i *iː *u *uː
*a *aː

Syllable structure was CV(n), where *n assimilated to the POA of a following plosive. The apical consonants *t, *n and *ɹ did not occur word-initially, and *t likely had a flapped allophone when occurring as a single consonant intervocalically. There was probably phonetic gemination of plosives after short vowels (including when the second member of a cluster), while there may have been free variation between long vowel plus short sonorant and shot vowel plus long sonorant (where sonorant refers to both nasals and approximants).

Daughter 1:

/p t̪ t c k/
/m n̪ n ɲ ŋ/
/ⁿb ⁿd̪ ⁿd ⁿɟ ⁿg/
/β ð ɹ j ɣ/
/ɾ/

/i u/
/a/

Syllable structure was (C)V(n), with the additional restriction that voiceless and prenasalised stops do not occur word-initially, nor do the apical sonorants /n ɹ r/. Any vowel pairs may occur together, with new long vowels being formed when two identical vowels occur in hiatus.

The main change which took place between the parent and daughter was the loss of single glides *w *ɹ *j, followed by the lenition of single stops: *p *t̪ *t *c *k > /β ð ɹ j ɣ/ and the strengthening of geminate nasals to prenasalised stops. Remaining *w merged with β.

Daughter 2:

/p t̪ t c k/
/m n̪ l ɲ ŋ/
/w ɹ j/
/ɾ/

/iː ɨ (ɨː) u uː/
/a (aː) ɔː/

Syllable structure is CV(l), where (l) becomes a nasal at the same POA as a following non-apical consonant. Long /ɨː aː/ are of highly limited distribution, only occurring before the rhotic consonants /ɹ ɾ/.

The main sound changes which took place were the loss of geminates, with stops being shortened and geminate nasals producing long vowels preceding; the centralisation of *i; the raising of *aː; the lateralisation on *n; and the loss or remaining /l/ before rhotic consonants with compensatory lengthening of a preceding short vowel (note that the last change came after the vowel shifts).

[opipik]

I thought I'd make a diachronic sketch, so here it is:

The proto-language had the following phonology:
/p t k/
/b d g/
/m n ŋ/
/s/

/i e a ə o u/

Syllable structure was (C)CV(C).

The middle language was phonologically quite interesting:

/p k/
/m n/
/θ s x/

/i i: e e: a a: o o: u u:/

Syllable structure was (C)CV(C)(C) or (C)CV:(C).

Now, some explanation as to how did this quite strange, t-less phonology arise. First, a kind of Grimm's law happened, where voiceless stops fricativized and voiced stops devoiced. /t/ then lenited to /r/. /f/ and /θ/ then merged and surprisingly, the result was /θ/ instead of the more common /f/.
Schwas (and post-vocalic ŋ) were deleted with compensatory vowel lengthening. The remaining schwas then shifted into either /e:/, /a/ or /o/, depending on length and position. /ŋ/ then devoiced.

And now for the modern language.

/p t ʧ k/
/pm tn kŋ/
/ᵐb ⁿd ᵑɡ/
/m n ŋ/
/r/
/ɸ s x/
/w j/

/i ɯ u e ɛ ʌ ɔ a/
/ai ou/

Syllable structure is CV(C).

This one is even harder to write about, because much more sound changes occurred (and I'm lazy). But basically /θ/ merged with /s/ intervocalically and with /t/ everywhere else. (but sθ -> ts). Then s + stop clusters became aspirated stops. s voiced and lenited to j everywhere except initially, x voiced and lenited to w in the same environment.
The remaining /x/ eroded. Vowels disappeared word-initially, phonemicizing /w/ and /j/. /ts/ then deaffricated. A vowel shift begun.
Long u fronted, short u unrounded and lowered. Short a raised, first to /ʌ/, then to /ɯ/ to compensate for this loss. Long mid vowels diphthongized (to /ai/ and /au/).
Short i centralized. Length was lost. The mid vowels then lowered to /ɛ ɔ/ and /ai/ monophthongized (to /e/) again. /au/ shifted to /ou/. What was once long u, now pronounced /y/ unrounded (but avoided merging with /i/) and diphthongized as well, yielding /ai/.
Nasal + j and s, r + j clusters collapsed into /ɲ/ (which then backed to fill the gap) and /ʃ/, which soon affricated. And finally, stops voiced after nasals and word-initial clusters (except nasal + stop and stop + nasal clusters) were reduced to the second consonant.

[Thrice Xandvii]

I'm seeking a bit of aid, folks!

I had the following inventory for a now defunct conlang that had some glorious clusters and made me kinda happy. However, I can tell that it's not one I will be going back to. (The relevant thread is here, if you want more info about where this project started.)

/ n / ⟨ n ⟩
/ b t k q / ⟨ p t c ķ~q ⟩
/ mb nd nʤ ŋg ɴɢ / ⟨ mb nd nǧ ng nģ ⟩
/ tˁ θˁ sˁ ʦˁ / ⟨ t' þ' s' č' ⟩
/ θ s~ʃ x / ⟨ th/þ s h ⟩
/ ʧ~ʦ / ⟨ č ⟩
/ β̞~ʋ l ʁ ̞~ ʢ ̞ / ⟨ v l r~' ⟩

/ i ɛ yː u / ⟨ i e ű u ⟩
/ ə ɑ øː o / ⟨ ə a ő o ⟩
/ n̩ / ⟨ ṇ ⟩
/ l̩ / ⟨ ḷ ⟩

Now, what I'd like to do, is re-purpose this at least somewhat to get us to something I can call at least somewhat "germanic."

I'm thinking it's likely that the pre-nasalized stops might turn into homorganic nasal clusters... in the form of CN instead. But, I'm not sold on this. I think nasal consonants will be in some way significant in this language (though I don't know how). It is also integral that we keep the consonant count somewhat high, but it needn't be quite as big as it is, nor does it need to maintain all of the distinctions it has. However, a new distinction can be added, as I have done to death the idea of a voicing contrast in past conlangs, I don't think that's the way to go... and yet. Well, that kinda thing seems to be a must with anything you could call "germanic." I'm not sure how I feel about the pharyngealized series in a Germlang, but I think it might be kinda nifty too. Basically, I am very unsure what I am doing with this.

And I don't know if this detail means anything at all, but I would also like to make this language into a 3-CON, that likely doesn't impact the phonology much, if at all. And, of course, CN has to be a valid sequence in the final phonotactics, or I'd miss out on the name which starts with "gn."

I wonder, if you fine folks can help me out? Or, I guess, should I just keep it as is?

[shimobaatar]

Now, what I'd like to do, is re-purpose this at least somewhat to get us to something I can call at least somewhat "germanic."

Could you clarify what you mean by "Germanic" and "Germlang" here? I get the feeling you don't mean you want this to be an a posteriori language diachronically derived from Proto-Germanic or one of is real-world descendants.

[Thrice Xandvii]

Sure!

I absolutely am not looking for anything diachronically related or a posteriori. Just a language that gets at a somewhat Germanic aesthetic. I apologize if there was any confusion. Also, I realize that this will in no way be something anyone could confuse for German and don't really want it to be. Just a few nods here and there in form, sound choices, Romanization (maybe) and almost definitely in terms of some of the inflectional paradigms and such.

All I'm really asking is for a bit of a push here and there, some suggestions to make it different from what it was in the general direction I am aiming at.

[shimobaatar]

I absolutely am not looking for anything diachronically related or a posteriori. Just a language that gets at a somewhat Germanic aesthetic. I apologize if there was any confusion. Also, I realize that this will in no way be something anyone could confuse for German and don't really want it to be. Just a few nods here and there in form, sound choices, Romanization (maybe) and almost definitely in terms of some of the inflectional paradigms and such.

Oh, no need to apologize.

There doesn't seem to be much to go on in terms of the inflectional stuff, but I'll try my best to "Germanicize" the phonology and orthography somewhat. No promises that it'll be to your liking, though. For what it's worth, I think you'd be fine keeping it as it is, but if you really want to change it, this is what I'd do.

/b t (d) k (g) q (ɢ) (ʔ)/ <b t (d) k (g) q (ģ) (t~þ~s~c)>
/θ s~ʃ x/ <þ s h>
/t͡s~t͡ʃ (d͡z~d͡ʒ)/ <c j>
/m n (ŋ) (ɴ)/ <m n (m~n) (m~n)>
/ʋ l ʁ/ <w l r>

/i yː u/ <i ü u>
/ɛ øː (ə) o/ <e ö (e~o~a) o>
/ɑ/ <a>

/(m̩~n̩~ŋ̩~ɴ̩) (l̩)/ <m~n l>

/s t͡s/ are realized as [ʃ t͡ʃ] before front vowels (possibly only unrounded ones). Nasals becomes [ŋ] before /k/ (and possibly /x/). Likewise, they become [ɴ] before /q/. CN clusters are allowed, and /t t͡s k q/ become [d d͡z g ɢ] before nasals. Voicing possibly also occurs in NC clusters. The sequences /tt θθ ss t͡st͡s/ are allowed, and are typically realized as [ʔt ʔθ ʔs ʔt͡s], but possibly as something like [t' θ' s' t͡s']. The syllabic nasal assimilates in place to the preceding consonant. The syllabic nasal and lateral occur when those phonemes are not adjacent to a vowel. /e o ɑ/ merge as [ə] in certain unstressed positions.

Again, it's possible that most or all of this isn't what you're looking for. It's still not very Germanic.

[pbastronaut]

I've been playing around with a phonology for a new analytic language. And I've stolen a lot of the inventory from Mandarin. It's got a little ... velar? I'm also having some big trouble figuring out how to implement tones, because I can't actually consistently enunciate contour tones.

/m, n, ŋ/
/p, pʰ, b, bʰ, t, tʰ, d, dʰ, k, kʰ, g, gʰ/
/s, ʃ, ʂ, x, h/
/t͡s, t͡sʰ,t͡ʃ t͡ʃʰ, ʈ͡ʂ, ʈ͡ʂʰ, k͡x, k͡xʰ/
/l/
/ɻ/

Glides: /j, w, ɥ/

/i, ḭ, ɯ, ɯ̰/
/e, ḛ, o, o̰/
/a, a̰/

I'm a little concerned about the mess that is /k, kʰ, g, gʰ, x, k͡x, k͡xʰ, h/, which are all meant to be phonemically distinct. I think /k͡xʰ/ is better realised as [k͡xʔ] or [k͡xəʔ].

I was thinking maybe a high tone and a neutral tone, combining with the normal/creaky distinction in the vowels to create four kinda-tones.

[Thrice Xandvii]

There doesn't seem to be much to go on in terms of the inflectional stuff, but I'll try my best to "Germanicize" the phonology and orthography somewhat. No promises that it'll be to your liking, though. For what it's worth, I think you'd be fine keeping it as it is, but if you really want to change it, this is what I'd do.

/b t (d) k (g) q (ɢ) (ʔ)/ <b t (d) k (g) q (ģ) (t~þ~s~c)>
/θ s~ʃ x/ <þ s h>
/t͡s~t͡ʃ (d͡z~d͡ʒ)/ <c j>
/m n (ŋ) (ɴ)/ <m n (m~n) (m~n)>
/ʋ l ʁ/ <w l r>

/i yː u/ <i ü u>
/ɛ øː (ə) o/ <e ö (e~o~a) o>
/ɑ/ <a>

/(m̩~n̩~ŋ̩~ɴ̩) (l̩)/ <m~n l>

/s t͡s/ are realized as [ʃ t͡ʃ] before front vowels (possibly only unrounded ones). Nasals becomes [ŋ] before /k/ (and possibly /x/). Likewise, they become [ɴ] before /q/. CN clusters are allowed, and /t t͡s k q/ become [d d͡z g ɢ] before nasals. Voicing possibly also occurs in NC clusters. The sequences /tt θθ ss t͡st͡s/ are allowed, and are typically realized as [ʔt ʔθ ʔs ʔt͡s], but possibly as something like [t' θ' s' t͡s']. The syllabic nasal assimilates in place to the preceding consonant. The syllabic nasal and lateral occur when those phonemes are not adjacent to a vowel. /e o ɑ/ merge as [ə] in certain unstressed positions.

Again, it's possible that most or all of this isn't what you're looking for. It's still not very Germanic.

There's definitely some food for thought in there, unfortunately a bunch of it was changed after I posted it on Discord, and so some of your comments end up being about things that are no longer current.

However, you DID remind me that I had forgotten to use <w> as you suggested above, so thanks for that! Also, I may just use the geminated to pharyngealized idea as a way to generate some more of those phonemes as well since I was toying with phonemic consonant length and this little gem might be well useful for the coronals, anyway.

Thanks for the thought and assistance!

[Parlox]

The phoneme inventory and orthography of my conlang, Oochocreek.

/n ŋ/ n ŋ
/b t k ʔ/ b t k '
/tʃ/ ch
/s ʃ/ s sh
/w f-v ɹ j h/ w v r y
/t͡ɬ/tł

/i iː u uː/ ı íí u uu
/e eː ə o oː/ e ee o ǫ ǫǫ
/a aː/ a aa

[Thrice Xandvii]

No /m/ is an interesting and noticeable thing... also, why do you use ogonek-o for /o/ wouldn't it make more sense for it to have its natural meaning and give the ogonek to schwa (in this case)?

An interesting inventory, to be sure.

[shimobaatar]

I've been playing around with a phonology for a new analytic language. And I've stolen a lot of the inventory from Mandarin. It's got a little ... velar? I'm also having some big trouble figuring out how to implement tones, because I can't actually consistently enunciate contour tones.

Spoiler:

/m, n, ŋ/
/p, pʰ, b, bʰ, t, tʰ, d, dʰ, k, kʰ, g, gʰ/
/s, ʃ, ʂ, x, h/
/t͡s, t͡sʰ,t͡ʃ t͡ʃʰ, ʈ͡ʂ, ʈ͡ʂʰ, k͡x, k͡xʰ/
/l/
/ɻ/

Glides: /j, w, ɥ/

/i, ḭ, ɯ, ɯ̰/
/e, ḛ, o, o̰/
/a, a̰/

I'm a little concerned about the mess that is /k, kʰ, g, gʰ, x, k͡x, k͡xʰ, h/, which are all meant to be phonemically distinct. I think /k͡xʰ/ is better realised as [k͡xʔ] or [k͡xəʔ].

I was thinking maybe a high tone and a neutral tone, combining with the normal/creaky distinction in the vowels to create four kinda-tones.

Looks good to me! I can definitely see the Mandarin influence, but if you hadn't explicitly said that was a source of inspiration for you, I don't know if I would have picked up on it. I personally don't feel like you have too many velar consonants. You have even more coronals. If you want to realize /k͡xʰ/, for example, in a certain way, though, that's also fine, but why would it be realized as [k͡xʔ] or [k͡xəʔ] instead of [k͡xh] or [k͡xəh]? Where's the glottal stop coming from? As for your tone idea, I'd say go for it! What are the phonotactics for this language like, if you've gotten that far yet?

---

However, you DID remind me that I had forgotten to use <w> as you suggested above, so thanks for that! Also, I may just use the geminated to pharyngealized idea as a way to generate some more of those phonemes as well since I was toying with phonemic consonant length and this little gem might be well useful for the coronals, anyway.

Glad that I could be of some assistance!

[Parlox]

No /m/ is an interesting and noticeable thing... also, why do you use ogonek-o for /o/ wouldn't it make more sense for it to have its natural meaning and give the ogonek to schwa (in this case)?

An interesting inventory, to be sure.

My justification of <ǫ> for /o/ is that it once represented /õ/, and <o> represented /o/. But due to sound change the pronunciation changed.

[pbastronaut]

Looks good to me! I can definitely see the Mandarin influence, but if you hadn't explicitly said that was a source of inspiration for you, I don't know if I would have picked up on it. I personally don't feel like you have too many velar consonants. You have even more coronals. If you want to realize /k͡xʰ/, for example, in a certain way, though, that's also fine, but why would it be realized as [k͡xʔ] or [k͡xəʔ] instead of [k͡xh] or [k͡xəh]? Where's the glottal stop coming from? As for your tone idea, I'd say go for it! What are the phonotactics for this language like, if you've gotten that far yet?

Thanks for taking a look. It's really helpful to get an outside opinion on this one. As for /k͡xʰ/, I was mostly thinking of that glottal realisation because I seem to pronounce it that way, but now I think about it, I guess it's because my dialect of English doesn't really, you know, do an intervocalic /h/. [k͡xəh] really does make more sense.

I'm going for (C)(J)V(C), where J is any glide. Onsets can be any any consonant but /ŋ/, and codas can be any nasal or stop. I'm still working out which glide-vowel combinations are allowable, but it's particularly limiting for back vowels.

[Shemtov]

An Isolate spoken on the same island as 'ohtęk'r̄tṛm'm̄tłeš:
/p t k ʔ/ <p t k '>
/pʰ tʰ kʰ/ <ph th kh>
/tʼ kʼ/ <t' k'>
/b d/ <b d>
/bʱ dʱ/ <bh dh>
/ɓ ɗ/ <b' d'>
/t͡s ʈ͡ʂ t͡ʃ/ <c tx č>
/t͡sʰ ʈ͡ʂʰ t͡ʃʰ/ <ch txh čh>
/t͡sʼ ʈ͡ʂʼ t͡ʃʼ/ <c tx č>
<d͜z ɖ͜ʐ d͡ʒ><dz dž ǰ>
<d͜zʱ ɖ͜ʐʱ d͡ʒʱ><dzh džh ǰh>
<θ s ʂ ʃ h> <+ s x š h>
<z ʐ ʒ> <z ž j>
/m n ŋ/ <m n ŋ>
/r r̝/ <r ř>
/l j w/ <l y w>

/i e u o a/ <i e u o a>
/ai au eu əɨ/ <ai au eu &>

/˥ ˧ ˩/ <V́ V V̀>

Phonotactics: (C)(C)V(C)
Permited initial clusters: /sp st sk spʰ stʰ skʰ stʼ skʼ zb zd ps pʂ pʃ ks kʂ kʃ/