Conlangery #38: Derivational Morphology

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Today we talk all about derivational morphology and what can be done with it.  We also spend some time talking about Proto-Deithas

Top of Show Greeting: Sindarin (translation by Roman Rausch)

Links and Resources:

Featured Conlang: Proto-Deithas

No Responses to “Conlangery #38: Derivational Morphology”

  2. Anthony Miles

    The Thai nominalization document is very interesting: not only is it a cure for automatic agent nominalization, but also it provokes some thought on linguistic registers and Thai prescriptivist grammarians.

  3. Gildoff

    Having a distinction between retroflex and post-alveolar isn’t that bad. Ubykh has a distinction between post-alveolar, alveolo-palatal AND retroflex also, they contrasy voiced, voiceless and ejective affricates.

    Ubykh also has one of the weirdest sound-systems. Pharyngealised and labialised consonants? Yup. 3 of them. What about an ejective? Yup. It has that too. /qˤʷ/ /qˤʷʼ/ /χˤʷ/ /ʁˤʷ/

    HOORAY FOR 84 CONSONANTS AND TWO (TWO!!!! >.<) PHONEMIC VOWELS! (/a, ə/ [a common 2 degree vertical vowel system] but soooo much allophony occurs linguists disagree about what is a vowel and what isn't.)

    • Mike Yams

      My first serious conlang (still a nooblang though) had the same three-way post-alveolar, alveolo-palatal, and retroflex distinction in fricatives and affricates. (Not that I knew of Ubykh at the time.)

      Polish and Mandarin contrast alveolo-palatal and laminal retroflex fricatives and affricates. (Actually, I’m not entirely sure Mandarin’s retroflex obstruents are laminal.) In any case, post-alveolars sound (impressionistically) somewhere between those two.

      Anyway, I find Ubykh to be especially euphonious and mellifluous.

      • admin

        I was taught to pronounce the Mandarin retroflexes as apical. Though sometimes it’s hard to be sure of these things without X-rays or ultrasounds of native speakers.

  4. Mike Yams

    Now that Gary Shannon’s site is apparently down, do you know of any other place one could find the resource that was linked to?

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