Post your conlang's phonology

[Ser]

This is just nitpicking, but for this rule:

-/e/ is realized as [e] when stressed and as [ɛ] otherwise; some dialects condense the two together into a pure mid vowel, [e̞]. There are also some rather complex rules regarding an epenthetic "e" and consonant-based affixes, but I don't really know how to describe the rules properly.

I'd expect the opposite, I don't have a solid explanation, but maybe I have this impression because stressed syllables tend to be open in the languages I speak, so [ɛ] for stressed and [e] for unstressed appears more natural to me. I'd like a second opinion on this though.

And once again, Tomás Navarro Tomás describes standard Castilian /e/ as closer in an unchecked syllable, but more open in a checked one.

[Herr Dunkel]

What Shihali is trying to say is "higher" and "lower"...

[tezcatlip0ca]

Rovaei (rawāʼai)
/m n ŋ/ m n ŋ
/p t ts tʃ tɬ k kʷ q qʷ ʔ/ p t c č tl k kw q qw ʼ
/pʼ tʼ tsʼ tʃʼ tɬʼ kʼ kʷʼ qʼ qʷʼ/ b d z ž dl g gw gh ghw
/θ s ʃ ɬ x xʷ χ χʷ/ th s š ł x xw xh xhw
/ð̞ l r j w/ dh l r y w
/iː ɪ uː ʊ aː ə aːɪ ɛɪ ɜʊ/ ī i ū u ā a āi ai au

Allophony:
/ð̞/ is pharyngealized.
/iː ɪ ə ɛɪ ɜʊ/ are realized as [ɪ̈i ɯ̽ ʌ ʌɪ ɔʊ] after a uvular.
/iː ɪ ə aːɪ ɛɪ/ are realized as [ɪə ɯ̽ ʌ aːə ɛə] before a uvular or /ð̞/.
Unstressed /ə/ is rounded before /w/.

Syllable structure is CVC, but medial clusters are restricted to nasal-plosive, nasal-ejective (and these must be homorganic), two plosives, two ejectives, fricative-plosive, fricative-ejective, or /ð̞/ with any consonant except /m n ŋ ð̞ θ/. A long vowel or any diphthong can not be followed by a consonant cluster.

Stress falls on the third-from-last mora. A long vowel or a short diphthong counts as two morae, /aːɪ/ counts as three, and a word-final consonant counts as one, but clusters do not.

[Thry]

And once again, Tomás Navarro Tomás describes standard Castilian /e/ as closer in an unchecked syllable, but more open in a checked one.

O_o

Is this the 20-allophone guy?

[Nortaneous]

Started wondering what another lang from the same general linguistic area as Kannow would look like. Here's an inventory that could come from around there.

Code: Select all

pʰ t̪ʰ tsʰ tɬʰ ʈʂʰ tɕʰ kʰ qʰ      <p  t  s  ł  ř  c  k  q   >
b  d̪  d   dɮ                     <b  d  z  l               >
pʼ t̪ʼ tsʼ tɬʼ ʈʂʼ tɕʼ kʼ qʼ ʔ    <pʼ tʼ sʼ lʼ rʼ cʼ kʼ qʼ ʼ>
m  n̪  n       ɳ   ɲ   ŋ          <m  ṋ  n     ň  ñ  ņ      >
      r        ɽ   j         h    <      ŗ     r  j        h>

i ɨ u     <i y u>
e   o     <e   o>
  a       <  a  >
  
ui uɨ iu  <ui uy iu>
oi    eu  <oi    eu>
ai aɨ ɒu  <ai ay au>

[Solarius]

I don't see anything egregiously bad with that, ZMoring
You don't need a digraph for [ʃ] since you have a bunch of unused glyphs, you could do something along the lines of [s ʃ] <c s>
Why do you only have a voiced bilabial stop, and only a devoiced dental and velar stop?
Also your bits with 'depending on the speaker' could be refined to '<n> varies between [n] or [ŋ], depending on the surrounding syllable' and create some rules that add in some allophones if you want a broader inventory

I tend to avoid "c" because it has about a billion different pronunciations, but I like your idea.

You could use <x>.

[Click]

A quickly done,uninteresting phonology for a language that is spoken very fast.
Phonemic inventory

Code: Select all

/m n      <m n
 p t k     p t c
 b d g     b d g
   s       s
 v z       v z
     j         y
   l         l
   ɾ/        r> 
 
/i   u    <i   u
 e   o     e   o
   a/        a>

/ɾ/ is in a free variation with /ɹ/.

Allophony
/n t ɹ~ɾ k g/ are [nʲ c j kʲ gʲ] before front vowels.
/e o/ are [ɛ ɔ] word-finally and before a vowel.
/i a u/ are [ɪ ɐ ʊ] between stops in unstressed syllables.

Syllables
The syllable structure is (C)V.
Stress is irregular and thus the vowels in stressed syllables are marked with acute accent.

[finlay]

A quickly done,uninteresting phonology for a language that is spoken very fast.
Phonemic inventory

Code: Select all

/m n      <m n
 p t k     p t c
 b d g     b d g
   s       s
 v z       v z
     j         y
   l         l
   ɾ/        r> 
 
/i   u    <i   u
 e   o     e   o
   a/        a>

/ɾ/ is in a free variation with /ɹ/.

brackets, young man. tututut.

basically, view brackets as the default, and slashes are reserved for theoretically distinct sounds. also, we would generally call this /r/ because all the special symbols get too complicated, and we would say that it is either [ɾ] or [ɹ]. theoretically, there's no difference between "allophony" and "free variation" except that the first has conditions.

[Ser]

And once again, Tomás Navarro Tomás describes standard Castilian /e/ as closer in an unchecked syllable, but more open in a checked one.

O_o

Is this the 20-allophone guy?

14 allophones, 14. Yeah. And his many followers to this day.

It's probably common in languages though. French also does have a tendency to make checked vowels more open than when unchecked. The distinction between jeûne /ʒøn/ and jeune /ʒœn/ is dying, both getting pronounced with [œ]. (Part of an ongoing merger of /ø/ and /œ/.)

[communistplot]

So like here's the phonology for Bang Dlúé (A revived and revised Avang):

Consonants
Nasal
/m n ɲ ŋ/ <m n nh ng>
Stop
/p pʰ b t tʰ d c k/ <p pp b t tt d q k>
Affricate
/t͡s t͡sʰ d͡z c͡ç/ <c cc z x>
Fricative
/v θ ð s ç x h/ <bh th dh s qh kh h>
Liquid/Glide
/ɾ l ɥ ɰ/ <r l y w>
Lateral Fricative
/ɬ ɮ/ <tl dl>

Vowels
/ɐ ə i ɔ u/ <a e i o u>
/iə uə ɐi ɔi iu/ <ie ue ai oi iu>

Tones
Rising <é>
Falling <è>
Level <e>
Peaking <ê>
Dipping <ě>

Tones in Bang Dlúé are lexical tones used to distinguish between differing lexemes, take for example <bang>, "common, ordinary, farmer", & bâng, "spear (used for hunting)" or báng, "sweet bread (served at festivals/ceremonies)".

In addition to tones the vowels also have three phonation types, plain, breathy & creaky which are shown orthographically as V, V+h & V+itself respectively.

Also in this phonology is a system of initial consonant mutations ala insular Celtic (Brythonic, Goidelic) there are three types of consonant mutation Soft, Hard & Nasal which are outlined briefly.

Soft mutation (known in language as mǎǐh dóí) causes certain initial consonants to lenit into "softer forms" this occurs if the previous morpheme ends in a breathy voiced vowel such that bang /bɐ̄ŋ/ becomes bhang [vɐ̄ŋ] after the direct particle éh /ə̤́/.

Hard mutation (sér tóí) causes initial consonants to fortit into stronger forms after plain & creaky voiced vowels & the consonant sounds ɾ & l, using the previous example we get the form pang [pɐ̄ŋ] after the ergative particle û /û/.

The third mutation is the Nasal Mutation and affects the least amount of consonants, this mutation turns an initial voiced plosive or fricative into a nasal and /l/ into /ɮ/ after a nasal consonant, using the previous example we get mang [mɐ̄ŋ] after the preposition pim /pīm/, "around, over, under".

YHWH, I wrote a bunch. >.>

[Nortaneous]

"ah, yes, initial consonant mutation, that sounds like an interesting feature to steal right from celtic with hardly any modifications, because it is completely exclusive to that family and therefore must work almost exactly the same in my conlang" ~ every conlanger ever

[communistplot]

"ah, yes, initial consonant mutation, that sounds like an interesting feature to steal right from celtic with hardly any modifications, because it is completely exclusive to that family and therefore must work almost exactly the same in my conlang" ~ every conlanger ever

Sarcasm noted. It's not as if I'm not open to suggestions on how to improve y'know, besides this is just a sketch and as Celtic was the main influence for including it (I do realise that there are other languages with consonant mutations), initial mutation, especially the way Celtic languages handle it, is
an interesting feature for me, and I shan't give more justification than that. Next and final stop, constructive criticism, kthnx.

[Nortaneous]

of course it is Interesting To You, it is by far the best-known example

here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonant_mutation

[Thry]

"ah, yes, initial consonant mutation, that sounds like an interesting feature to steal right from celtic with hardly any modifications, because it is completely exclusive to that family and therefore must work almost exactly the same in my conlang" ~ every conlanger ever

incipit Tolcienustra.

[Click]

A phonology of Kàìrá

Phonemic inventory [->]
/i ə a o/ <i ı a o>
/m n p t k b d g ʔ s ʃ ɕ x w r/ <m n p t k b d g ' s z c h w r>
All vowels except /ə/ have 3 tones: high, mid and low.
High tone is marked with an acute accent, mid tone is unmarked and low tone is marked with a grave accent.

Allophony [->]
/p t k b d g s ʃ ɕ x/ become [b d g β d͡z ŋ z ʒ ʑ ɣ] between vowels.
/p t k/ become [pʰ tʰ kʰ] word-initially.
/a a˦ a˨ o o˦ o˨/ become [ja˧ ja˦ ja˨ wo˧ wo˦ wo˨] word-initially.

Syllables [->]
Syllable structure is (C)V. Any consonant can be the onset and any vowel can be the nucleus.
There is no stress.

Sandhi [->]
The only sandhi present is tone sandhi.
1. high tone + low tone > mid tone and low tone
kí + ò > kiò
/ki˦/ + /o˨/ > /ki˧o˨/
2. low tone + high tone > mid tone and high tone
pónò + á > pónoá
/po˦no˨/ + /a˦/ > /po˦no˧a˦/
3. mid tone + high tone > high tone and high tone
zíasa + á > zíasáá
/zi˦a˧sa˧/ + /a˦/ > /zi˦a˧sa˦a˦/
4. mid tone + low tone > low tone and low tone
zíasa + ò > zíasàò
/zi˦a˧sa˧/ + /o˨/ > /zi˦a˧sa˨o˨/

The tone sandhi doesn't affect /ə/.

Sample words [->]
kí
pónò
cóza
pıcà
bí
zíasa
ná
ní
wó
nànáà
sìcizò
hí
wi
hòi
bío
zò
ósá
tó
síapìa
kàìrá
sìgida
hòzò
'iwà
káso
'àwo
bàrı
hámi
áhózòpí
inòpá
cábá
waró
'áacu

[Herr Dunkel]

Batshit consonant inventory I thought up after getting laid with twins whilst drunk with the Artsy Hunter Drink (Jägermeister, for those who don't understand Darkgamma-speek):

/t tˤ k kˤ/
/θ θʷ s z x xʷ ħ ħʷ/
/t͡θ t͡θ' t͡s t͡z k͡x k͡x'/
/n nˤ ŋ/
/r rˤ ɣ ɣˤ/
/ɬ ʟ̥/
/t͡ɬ t͡ɬ' k͡ʟ̥ k͡ʟ̥'/

I just lack an equally asskicky vowel inventory, and when I get one, I'll begin making demon-speek.

[communistplot]

of course it is Interesting To You, it is by far the best-known example

here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonant_mutation

^This has so many things wrong with it, being best known has nothing to do with it being interesting to me. I've been to this wiki page when I was shopping around, I like Celtic style mutations as they fit the lang and what I'm trying to accomplish, when I decided to create the language the influences were Welsh & Mandarin and it was far more a Euroclone with tones and was really a blatant rip-off of Welsh then. Anywho, it's whatever I guess.

[Ars Lande]

Phoneme inventories for Kagraɗim and its descendant Simbri, reviewed with a slight alien quality.

Kagraɗim

Consonants:
POA: bilabial, laminal, apical, velar, uvular

Voiceless stops: p ts t k
Voiced stops: b z d g
Voiceless implosives: ƥ ƭ ƙ
Voiced Implosives: ɓ ɗ ɠ
Nasals m n ŋ
Fricatives f s x r

Vowels: i e a ɤ ɯ

Simbri

POAs are bilabial, lamino-dental, apico-alveolar, laminal front velar, back velar.

Voiceless stops: p ts t c k
Voiced stops: b z d j g
Fricatives: s š x
Nasals: m n
Flaps: r l
Approximant: f/w/v y

Vowels: i e ɛ a ʌ ɤ ɯ

[Pole, the]

Voiced Implosives: ɓ ɖ q̱

ɗ ɠ

[Ars Lande]

Voiced Implosives: ɓ ɖ q̱

ɗ ɠ

Fixed, thanks.

[Whimemsz]

Phoneme inventories for Kagraɗim and its descendant Simbri, reviewed with a slight alien quality.

(1) Is there a reason you list "r" among the fricatives in Kagraɗim's inventory? Does it pattern phonologically with the other fricatives, or does the character "r" represent some sort of fricative, rather than [r]?

(2) What do you have against rounded vowels?

(3) [this applies to 90% of the posts in this thread so it's not just aimed at you] Phoneme inventories are boring. Give me some phonotactics and allophony and free variation and morphophonemics and other phonological processes!

[Christopher Schröder]

I've been working on a Phonology which is more than a Phoneme Inventory for Illyrian.

[Herr Dunkel]

Phoneme inventories are boring. Give me some phonotactics and allophony and free variation and morphophonemics and other phonological processes!

You want it?

My main conlang, Kti, has the following phonology:

It has six cardinal vowel qualities, and twelve phonemic vowels:

/a aː ɛ ɛː i iː ɔ ɔː ɞ ɞː u uˑ/ - and yes those are mid-low vowels.
Vowels are divided into groups of {+Front}{-Front}, {+Long}{-Long} {High}{~Mid}{Low} for the sake of allophony.

Vowel qualities differ upon the vowel's position inside the phonological word, varying between initial, medial and final qualities (initial : medial : final) respectively:

/a/ [a] : [a] : [a]
/a:/ [ä:] : [ɐ:] : [ä:]
/ɛ/ [e] : [ɛ] : [ɛ]
/ɛ:/ [ɛ:] : [ɛ:] : [ɛ:]
/i/ : : [ɪ]
/i:/ [i: ~ j:] : [i:] : [i̟:]
/ɔ/ [ɔ] : [ɔ] : [ɔ̆]
/ɔ:/ [ɔ:] : [ɔ:] : [ɔ:]
/ɞ/ [ɞ͍] : [ɜ] : [ɜ]
/ɞ:/ [ɞ͍:] : [ɞ:] : [ɞ:]
/u/ [u̟] : : [ŭ]
/u:/ [u: ~ w:] : [u:] : [u:]


Then there are the diphthongs:

/ai/ = [ɒy]
/ui/ = [uy]
/ua/ = [uʌ]
/ia/ = [ya]
/iɞ/ = [yɞ]

And these are the triphthongs:

/ɛia/ = [eʉɑ]
/aie/ = [ɑɨɞ]
/uiɞ/ = [uʉɞ]


These are the consonant phonemes of Kti:

/t d k ʔ/
/s z ʃ ʒ x/
/m n/
/r/

The primary variations are these:

• - /x/ becomes [h] initially.
  - /k/ and /x/ are in free variation with [kʲ] and [xʲ] before front vowels (including /a(:)/ ), but /x/ is never so only initially.
  - Any voiceless consonant before /ʔ/ gets realised as an ejective.

Ktarh syllables are maximally CCVC, but minimally have one consonant and one vowel. Certain initial clusters count as two initial consonants:
/sʔmn/ /zʔmn/ /sʔn/ /zʔn/ /kʔn/
In some cases, syllables tend to share control over a non-obstruent, leading to bisyllabics such as /ara/ being essentially VC~CV, with the tilde showing the mixed ownership.
There are some rules as to which sounds can come together:

• /ʃ/ and /z/ cannot be next to any fricative but can be near other consonants
  /t/ cannot be prenasalised or followed by any plosive except the glottal stop
  /d/ can be followed by all consonants except alveolars
  /a(ː)/ cannot be next to /ɞ(ː)/ except when either vowel is a part of either a diphthonɡ or triphthonɡ.
  
  Two of the same phoneme cannot be consecutive in roots (this causes gemination)

All the rules except the last one, when violated, add vrddhi consonants or syllables - if inserting /x/ wouldn't break the said rules it tries to fix, and doesn't violate syllable structure, only /x/ is inserted. Otherwise, /ax/ is inserted.
The last rule is by its nature unbreakable as gemination can occur due to affixation and compounding.

Stress in Kti is based on syllable weight. This is where length comes in handy: syllables with short vowels are "light", and syllables with long monophthongs, sole diphthongs and sole triphthongs are "heavy".

Stress is always on the last three syllables.
When weight is equal (HHH or LLL), the stress is penultimate.
When there is only one heavy syllable (HLL, LHL or LLH), the stress is on the heavy syllable.
When there are two heavy syllables (LHH, HLH, or HHL), the stress is on the first heavy syllable.

In bisyllabic words, stress is initial.
Secondary stress occurs on every third syllable two syllables behind the last three (so in a heptasyllabic word, stress would be something like: OSOOXXX, where the three "X"s represent the last syllables, the "O"s the unstressed syllables and "S" the secondarily-stressed syllables). Secondary stress is never initial, even if it is supposed to occur there. Instead, it is shifted forward (so that, instead of: SOOSOOXXX, stress becomes: OSOSOOXXX; and instead of: SOOXXX, stress becomes: OSOXXX).

The language generally sounds very machine-gun-like and of level tone (meaning that stress is solely a feature of loudness), except in interrogative and negative sentences, where the primary stress also carries a creaky or broken falling tone.



This is only the beginning, but it's pretty sound, I believe. It's also somewhat speakable, which is quite strange for me.
Notes: There is no voicing assimilation (/zt/ and /ʃd/ are therefore perfectly allriɡht), no vowel or consonant harmony, and all the morphophonology is conditioned by morphology (the only cases where this isn't the case are probably the vrddhi insertions (though they're due to affixation, so... yeah) and stress shift (good luck finding a hexasyllabic root, I haven't become that desperate yet), but these aren't really the real deal (read the brackets) ).
There occur cases of /b/ in placenames, coming from stress-conditioned voicing of /p/, which was extraordinarily rare to begin with - all other instances of /b/ had shifted to /m/ before "p b / ETCETC..." took place

[Ars Lande]

Phoneme inventories for Kagraɗim and its descendant Simbri, reviewed with a slight alien quality.

(1) Is there a reason you list "r" among the fricatives in Kagraɗim's inventory? Does it pattern phonologically with the other fricatives, or does the character "r" represent some sort of fricative, rather than [r]?

(2) What do you have against rounded vowels?

(3) [this applies to 90% of the posts in this thread so it's not just aimed at you] Phoneme inventories are boring. Give me some phonotactics and allophony and free variation and morphophonemics and other phonological processes!

(1) In the standard dialect, it's a glottal fricative /h/ - or maybe uvular (I'm still undecided on the exact POA. An uvular fricative is too much like a French r, on the other hand I have trouble pronouncing /h/) I use "r" in the romanization for diachronic reasons. It derives in some cases from the original rhotic of proto-Calendar, which was lost in Kagraɗim; Simbri regained it, probably under the influence of another Calendar language which kept the original rhotic sound.

(2) They're actually compressed (as with Japanese u), not unrounded; true rounded back vowels are uncommon among the species' languages.

(3) Will post again when the good bits are done.

[Nortaneous]

/p t k k_> ?/ <p t c k '>
/p\ f T K X/ <fh f th lh h>
/m n/ <m n>
/r l j M\ gL\)/ <r l y g gl>
/a e i o U u/ <a e i o u w>

maximum onset is CCCCC, e.g. /pX?ngL\)/. cluster restrictions are pretty lax; onsets like /r?lj/ are allowed.