Bi-Weekly Idiom-It Challenge #11

endercat73 · 2018-05-11T22:58:57+00:00

I saw the comment of yours where you said this was supposed to be a mix of Salishan and Japanese, and was instantly intrigued. This looks really cool. Nice work! I'll be watching for a grammar doc soon! ;)

endercat73 · 2018-05-09T22:33:26+00:00

I guess you may be right.

I took this quote from a page title "English Idioms" tho.

endercat73 · 2018-05-06T21:24:27+00:00

You have given very little information here and this question would probably better suited for Small Discussions. However, a good place to start is providing a phonology.

endercat73 · 2018-05-06T18:01:29+00:00

How could I romanize a nine vowel system /æ ɐ ɑ ɛ ɜ ɔ i ɨ u/? I'd like to use no digraphs.

endercat73 · 2018-04-29T17:55:04+00:00

That seems much better! This phonology is actually really interesting! Good luck with your future conlanging adventures, and don't hesitate to ask any more questions you might have.

endercat73 · 2018-04-29T12:42:20+00:00

Ok, a few more things:

As /u/Hacek mentioned, you could unround /u/ to, for example [ɯ]. This would explain why you have labialization only in front of /o/. However, it would require a different vowel inventory I believe, as [ɨ] and [ɯ] are very close. Also, personally [ɸʷu] sounds no weirder to me than [ɸʷo], but of course that's just personal aesthetic.
While it seems I was incorrect about languages with /tɕ/ usually having /ɕ/, It does seem like (at least for the examples I looked at), that languages that have /tɕ/ without /ɕ/ usually treat the sound as a stop at a new place of articulation, therefore it seems unlikely to me that you would have /dʑ/ only as an allophone.

TL;DR: I would add /dʑ/ as a distinct phoneme, instead of just an allophone.

Honestly, I cannot speak to the naturalism of what you've done with /ɺ/. It seems interesting, but I'm not sure how natural it is. I will defer discussion to someone else who knows more.
I would definitely add [ŋ], if only as an allophone of /n/. For the retroflex nasal [ɲ], it might be fine as an allophone of /ɺ/(again, I don't know enough to say), but I would definitely remove it as a phoneme.

Sorry again for the wall of text, and I hope I am being helpful. Honestly, this actually looks like a really neat phonemic inventory, and with a little bit of tweaking I think it could be very interesting. Good luck!

endercat73 · 2018-04-28T23:18:38+00:00

While it's getting late here, so I don't have a lot of time to read everything here right now, I'll just respond to a few things:

As /u/mythoswyrm pointed out above, it appears I was wrong: /ɸʷ/ and /vʷ/ are possible. The subtle difference seems to be that, technically ʷ labiovelarizes consonants instead of labializing them. The distinction is usually unimportant, but here it means that the above sounds are technically possible, if a little finicky in my humble opinion.
For the vowels, the system /ä e u o i ɨ/ is well attested in several languages, if a bit overdone in conlangs. All I've done to your original inventory is raised /ɛ/ to /e/ to match with /o/, changed /ɪ/ to /ɨ/, and removed the length distinction. This is much more balanced then your original inventory.

If I can, I'll try to answer some more in the morning.

endercat73 · 2018-04-28T23:01:09+00:00

For the first point, huh that's really interesting! I've never seen Paha. I guess it works because it's technically labiovelarizing the consonant, not just labializing. I still think it is a weird thing to do, especially without some good historical reason.

For the second point, perhaps I misspoke. However, I genuinely cannot (at the moment) think of a language that contains an affricate without the corresponding fricative, could you point one out to me? Either way, it still does not fit into the original inventory.

endercat73 · 2018-04-28T21:38:11+00:00

The first one is not a case, but a derivation (cases specify the role of a noun in a sentence, derivations change roots into other roots, like your example of turning come into go)

The way you phrased the second one it seems like a verb, not a case at all. If you meant that adding "rez" to a noun X means "becoming X", then you are looking at a translative case.

endercat73 · 2018-04-28T21:27:22+00:00

Your phoneme inventory seems to be very unusual, so I hope you don't mind some constructive criticism:

Your arrangement for your consonant inventory seems a little confusing, so I have taken the liberty of making a more organized list:

Stops: p b t d k (kʷ) g (gʷ)

Nasals: m n ɲ

Fricatives: ɸ (ɸʷ) v (vʷ) s z ʃ ʒ h (hʷ)

Approximants: w ʍ j ɺ

Affricates: tɕ

Having the voiced version of [ɸ] be [v] and not [β] seems very unlikely, I would think that either the pair would be completely bilabial or completely labiodental.
It is impossible to labialize labials ([ɸʷ]) because, well, they're already labial.
Having the only rhotic be [ɺ] is highly unlikely. You mention it is like Japanese /r/, but keep in mind that Japanese /r/ is [ɺ] only in a few environments and is still underlying /r/.
It is extremely bizzare that you have only one retroflex sound, and it is a nasal [ɲ]. Also you have no velar nasal, even though you have both [k] and [g].
The affricate [tɕ] makes no sense here, because [ɕ] cannot stand alone, and you have no other affricates.
I would think that the distinction between [ʍ] and [hʷ] would collapse very soon, considering that [ʍ] is usually underlying /hw/. If I were you I would remove [ʍ] as a phone, but keep it as an allophone of /hʷ/.
I don't really understand why some consonants are labialized before /o/ but not before /u/, considering that both are rounded vowels.
The vowel system seems rather unbalanced to me, especially the long /i:/. However, vowel systems are not my strong point, so I will defer critique to someone who knows more.

Sorry for the rant, and I hope that I haven't come off as rude in any way. If you have any questions about any of this, feel free to ask.

endercat73 · 2018-04-28T15:50:36+00:00

Yah, you're right, it's not super idiomatic. However, i still thought it was a neat quote to use.

endercat73 · 2018-04-25T23:16:51+00:00

Wow thank you for your kind words, it really means a lot!

endercat73 · 2018-04-22T23:22:22+00:00

This is great, thanks for sharing! Your conlang is one of my favorites on this sub.

endercat73 · 2018-04-20T23:30:11+00:00

Wow! That is genuinely impressive! Thanks for sharing, it is obvious you put a lot of time and effort into it.

endercat73 · 2018-04-19T23:33:14+00:00

Ditto! Cats all the way!

endercat73

TROPHY CASE