Conlangery #37: Phonological Processes

No Responses to “Conlangery #37: Phonological Processes”

1. 

   Anthony

   everyone loves Bianca!

   also, this is a great podcast. not sure why you’d stop it at 52, though…42 might make a certain amount of sense (it’s the universe and everything, after all)…but what is 52?

   >did we lose somebody?
   probably the fault of that bus a few episodes back.

   February 13th, 2012
   • 

     Ossicone

     52 weeks in a year. 😉

     February 13th, 2012
     • 

       Anthony

       i always miss the obvious things. and the not-so-obvious.

       thank you – and sorry.

       February 14th, 2012
2. 

   Anthony Docimo

   Could part of Novegradian be described as reconstructing? In the same way that a form of Hebrew was revived in the 20th Century, built upon the Torah and Talmud primarily; Novegradian was revived in teh conlang, built upon historical materials from/relating to medieval Novegradian.

   or is my mind seeing a paralel/connection that isn’t there?

   February 14th, 2012
3. 

   Carsten B.

   From my occasional reading of Conlang-L I remember that Roger Mills’ Kash language uses metathesis as part of sandhi processes for affixes and compounds. See his page on the language’s phonology: http://cinduworld.tripod.com/kashphon.htm

   February 19th, 2012
4. 

   Bryn LaFollette

   Reduplication is a great source of potential for cool phonological outcomes, since, depending upon the redplication morpheme’s size and your syllable structure, you can have such a wide range of consonants coming into contact with.

   The example that I think is probably the most iconic (like vowel harmony in Turkish) is Ponapean reduplication. Another related micronesian language that’s interesting to look at is Mokilese reduplication, though it’s harder to find easily accessible data online.

   March 1st, 2012
5. 

   Bryn LaFollette

   One example of synchronic metathesis in Standard English is the common casual pronunciation of “comfortable” as [ˈkʌmf.tɹ̩.bl̩] as opposed to [ˈkʌm.fɹ̩.ˌtə.bl̩] of more careful speech. When people talk about ease in relation to examples like this, what they’re really talking about is “ease of articulation” balanced against “maximizing contrast”. The former is easier in terms of syllable count (3 vs 4) and hence a single prosodic foot (instead of two, with corresponding secondary stress). Of course, alternations like Old English græs~gærs ‘grass’ or acsian~ascian ‘ask’ are, I think, just a matter of free variation that became stabilized in a particular form in a particular dialect. It’s not ease of articulation, just the dialect’s preferences regarding syllable structure (complex onset > codas, or complex coda > coda + appendix).

   March 1st, 2012
6. 

   Bryn LaFollette

   I think the framework Bianca was trying to recall is Autosegmental Theory. The concept of Feature Geometry it introduced as an approach to the structural interrelation of phonological features is well worth a look. It’s essentially the current model for articulatory representation of distinctive features, and has been since the 80s.

   March 2nd, 2012
7. 

   MBR

   A word or two about French singing….

   French is my least favorite singing language, partly because of all the blasted allophony and those horrible nasal vowels. But word-final e is not the only strange thing about it; /r/ shifts from [ʁ] to the “Italian” [ɾ] and [r] (it does this with German as well).

   Regarding word-final e, the only time it is pronounced is when the composer sets it apart. For instance, in the Bizet aria “Quand la flamme de l’amour”, every word-final e is pronounced *except* for the one in the line “quand regard de femme humilie”. I don’t care what IPA Source says; there is no way to fit that [ə]. From what I hear, this word-final e is omitted quite a bit, though I’ve sung only two songs in French, and for good reason. I much prefer German for a “strange-sound” language (though singing in German presents other problems, most notably Richard Wagner).

   July 25th, 2012
   • 

     Wm Annis

     No, no, no. How can anyone hate this, Le palais de nos chimère?

     July 25th, 2012
8. 

   Trebor

   I was re-listening to this episode yesterday and a couple things came to mind re: metathesis.

   1) For a subset of Arabic nouns, it is notable that metathesis is used as a pluralization strategy, of which many others exist:

   -> ‘state’ (as in ‘a member state of the UN’)
   -> ‘opportunity’
   -> ‘room’ (as in ‘living room’)
   -> ‘photograph’
   And at least one case exhibiting either minimal productivity or analogy:
   -> ‘room’ (as in ‘living room’; borrowed, I’ve read, from Turkish)

   One wrinkle might be that these words end in a special Arabic letter, tā marbūṭa, where the root ends in -/a/ in isolation but a /t/ appears if a suffix is added or more words follow (the only case of laison in the language–cf. French [nu sɔm] ‘we are’ vs. [nuz avɔ̃] ‘we have’).

   2) The Rotuman language of Fiji uses metathesis–and not marginally. I hope it can be mentioned in a future episode.

   May 12th, 2016
9. 

   Trebor

   (The material between lesser and greater signs did not appear, so this post had to be submitted again.)

   I was re-listening to this episode yesterday and a couple things came to mind re: metathesis.

   1) For a subset of Arabic nouns, it is notable that metathesis is used as a pluralization strategy, of which many others exist:

   dawla(t) -> dūal ‘state’ (as in ‘a member state of the UN’)
   furṣa(t) -> furaṣ ‘opportunity’
   ḡurfa(t) -> ḡuraf ‘room’ (as in ‘living room’)
   ṣūra(t) -> ṣūar ‘photograph’
   And at least one case exhibiting either minimal productivity or analogy:
   ʼūḍa(t) -> ʼūaḍ ‘room’ (as in ‘living room’; borrowed, I’ve read, from Turkish)

   One wrinkle might be that these words end in a special Arabic letter, tā marbūṭa, where the root ends in -/a/ in isolation but a /t/ appears if a suffix is added or more words follow (the only case of laison in the language–cf. French nous sommes [nu sɔm] ‘we are’ vs. nous avons [nuz avɔ̃] ‘we have’).

   2) The Rotuman language of Fiji uses metathesis–and not marginally. I hope it can be mentioned in a future episode.

   May 12th, 2016
10. 

    Teal Briner

    An example of metathesis from my textbook: In Leti, when three consecutive consonants occur, the first consonant trades places with the preceding vowel. So /danat + kviali/ (“millipede”) changes to [dantakviali]. It’s a great example for any language that has compound words and/or affixes but is also strict about sounds what can occur next to each other.

    January 11th, 2017
11. 

    wolf

    I wonder if, for the Kiowa-Tanoan languages, perhaps at least those nouns that take default dual number, would refer to dual body parts? I know that Hebrew has dual number for dual body parts (like eyes, legs, arms, that come in pairs), so maybe this would also apply here? That is, that we expect, when talking about eyes, we’re talking about 2, because that’s how many a person has.

    October 30th, 2017

Comments are closed.