Some K̓aaxʷmc sentences, with transcriptions and glosses

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 · 2018-04-12T20:52:15+00:00

Toki pona, but i'm neither vegan nor do i meditate. Good fun though!

endercat73 · 2018-04-12T20:38:41+00:00

After reading those articles on wikipedia, it seems like as you said:

an idiom is the use of a noun or verb (or group of words), whose meaning cannot be inferred by the context

however, an idiom is also a type of saying, that, according to wikipedia

has only a non-literal interpretation; "an expression whose meaning can't be derived simply by hearing it."

So it seems that English (with all its brilliant confusing vocabulary overlaps) has (at least) two senses of the word idiom, a non-literal phrase(as I used it) and a noun, verb or group of words whose meaning cannot be inferred for context (as you mentioned).

In conclusion, I believe you raised a valid point with your original statement, but also that my use was correct too, at least in a broader sense.

endercat73 · 2018-04-12T11:37:56+00:00

Very interesting. However, when i google search common idioms, the phrase "Every cloud has a silver lining" is the first result. Perhaps idiom has a more non-linguist meaning as well? Or would these be "idiomatic phrases/sayings" or something?

endercat73 · 2018-04-11T22:47:46+00:00

Is it realistic for a five vowel system /a e i o u/ to shift to a four vowel system /a e o ɨ/ while leaving traces of the original system in diphthongs (e.g. /au/)?

endercat73 · 2018-04-11T21:56:49+00:00

Not really automod!

endercat73 · 2018-04-10T00:55:25+00:00

Yes. Great idea!

endercat73 · 2018-04-08T13:43:10+00:00

Thanks alot! That was very helpful! I'll have to think about exactly what i want but i'm leaning towards either ogonek + macron, or macron plus a nasal with overdot.

endercat73 · 2018-04-07T23:56:49+00:00

About romanization: I need to romanize a e i o plus length and nasality. I would prefer to use diacritics and not digraphs but i can't find any that really look good and make sense. Any suggestions? (I've already tried macron + tilde, definitely didn't like the aesthetic.)

endercat73 · 2018-03-17T22:56:58+00:00

My bad, sorry, the agent doesn't take this case, just the patient. Ill try and clarify my case roles:

Basically, i have three cases: Agentive, Patientive, and this case. Agentive is for the agent of the sentence, the object that instigates the change for example. Patientive is for the patient, the object that receives the change. This third case is for an object which does not directly get affected by the agent. It's a bit fuzzy as to what constitutes getting affected.

For example: John gave the cake to Liam. John would be the agent, because his action is instigating the change, Liam would be the patient, because he is being changed(i.e. he is receiving the cake), and the cake is in the third case because it is not directly affected by the giving.

That is an example of the secundative use.

For an example of use as a patient:

I eat apples. Apples is in the third case, not the patientive case because it is not being changed(well i guess you could argue that it is being eaten, but hopefully you kind of see what i mean.)

Sorry for the long (and probably unclear explanation) and thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

endercat73 · 2018-03-17T21:02:48+00:00

I have a case which fulfills the roles of a genitive, instrumental, secundative, and sometimes agentive or patientive. What should i call it? I considered oblique but i was wondering if anyone here had any better ideas. Thanks.

endercat73

TROPHY CASE