There are 19 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: THEORY: Loss of allophonic variation
From: BPJ
1b. Re: THEORY: Loss of allophonic variation
From: Dirk Elzinga
2. Neoslavonic language tutorial
From: Vojtěch Merunka
3a. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
3b. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
3c. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
3d. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
From: Logan Kearsley
3e. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
From: George Corley
3f. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
From: Logan Kearsley
3g. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
3h. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
From: Padraic Brown
4a. Japanese Conlang: Arka
From: David Peterson
4b. Re: Japanese Conlang: Arka
From: George Corley
4c. Re: Japanese Conlang: Arka
From: Ph. D.
4d. Re: Japanese Conlang: Arka
From: David Peterson
5a. Punjabi Tonogenesis
From: Logan Kearsley
5b. Re: Punjabi Tonogenesis
From: Dirk Elzinga
5c. Fwd: Punjabi Tonogenesis
From: yuri
6a. Re: Happy New Year
From: Padraic Brown
Messages
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1a. Re: THEORY: Loss of allophonic variation
Posted by: "BPJ" b...@melroch.se
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 10:25 am ((PDT))
On 2012-03-23 23:38, Eric Christopherson wrote:
> How likely is it that the phonemes in question have*only* voiceless stop
> allophones?
That's a good question. One immediately thinks
"intervocalic lenition"! Then I remembered that the
historical voiced fricative allophones of Finnish /p t
k/ were actually not triggered by intervocalic
position, but by being the onset of a closed syllable.
Synchronically the picture is jumbled: [ɣ] was mostly
lost, [β] merged with /ʋ/ and [ð] merged with /ɾ l/zero
or (in the Swedish- influenced standard pronunciation)
became /d/, a new phoneme because the conditioning
environment was sometimes lost since final /k/ > [ʔ] > 0.
But more relevant: what about where there is an aspiration
distinction. IIUC Mandarin stops don't have voiced allophones,
do they?
/bpj
Messages in this topic (5)
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1b. Re: THEORY: Loss of allophonic variation
Posted by: "Dirk Elzinga" dirk.elzi...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 11:52 am ((PDT))
On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 4:38 PM, Eric Christopherson <ra...@charter.net>wrote:
> Let's say there's a language where where is no phonemic voicing
> distinction in stops, and little or no phonemic distinction between stops
> and corresponding fricatives.
>
> Question #1: How likely is it that the phonemes in question have *only*
> voiceless stop allophones? From what I've read, it appears that languages
> like that tend to have at least voiced stop allophones for those sounds;
> but I know I haven't read anything about allophones in Polynesian
> languages, which I think would be useful data.
>
> I also wonder how long the lack of voiced and/or fricative allophones
> would last. This *may* in fact be the same question!
>
> Then let's say those stop phonemes develop voiced and fricative allophones:
>
> /p/ [p b p\ B]
> /t/ [t d T D 4]
> /k/ [k g x G]
>
> #2: Now, how likely is it for the language to go back to a state where all
> (or most) of those non-voiceless stop allophones have dropped out of use?
>
> There's a philosophical issue here -- how would anyone know, later on,
> that the language had ever had allophones for the stops? Well, in the
> system I'm thinking of, there would be mergers (perhaps analyzable as
> hypercorrection) in some places between pre-existing* non-stop phonemes and
> stop ones. E.g. a pre-existing /w/ might merge in some words with /p/
> through the similarity to the latter's allophone [B], but in later years
> that /p/ would only be pronounceable as [p].
>
Something like this actually comes up in Central Numic comparative
phonology. The Central Numic languages, Timbisha, Shoshone, and Comanche
all have voiced fricative allophones of voiceless stops at at least one
place of articulation; e.g., /p/ -> [β] intervocalically, /p/ -> [b]
following nasals, and /p/ -> [p] elsewhere. The system is preserved more or
less intact in Shoshone and Timbisha for all places of articulationː
/p/ [b, β, p (ɸ)]
/t/ [d, ð, ɾ, t (θ)]
/ts/ [dz, ʒ, z, ts (s)]
/k/ [g, ɣ, k (x)]
/kʷ/ [gʷ, ɣʷ, kʷ (xʷ)]
but in Comanche only labials participate fully (but without [ɸ]; that's a
later development that Comanche didn't share in). Comanche /t/ has [ɾ] as
an allophone, but only intervocalically following a back vowel. How this
state of affairs came to be is a topic of some debate. Some feel that the
Proto-Central Numic situation was more or less like that found in modern
Comanche--i.e., limited allophony (if any), with Timbisha and Shoshone
independently developing a full set of allophones. The rest of us feel that
Comanche, which is geographically quite far removed from Shoshone and
Timbisha, contracted the allophony all by itself. I'm in the latter camp,
but I'm not sure that there will be a straightforward way to resolve the
issue, and I haven't really looked into it much. The existing documentation
on Comanche is rather sketchy, with only one really good reference grammar
available (Charney), and lots of questionable material out there. I have a
couple of friends who are actively engaged in work on Comanche, and who
*are* doing good work, so I suppose I could ask them. But after 20 years
with Shoshone/Goshute, I've moved on; I'm working on Ute now (Southern
Numic), which has problems all its own that I'm occupied with.
Dirk
Messages in this topic (5)
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2. Neoslavonic language tutorial
Posted by: "Vojtěch Merunka" vmeru...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 10:49 am ((PDT))
Hello conlangers!
This is the on-line English tutorial of the Neoslavonic language (NS),
which is a non-commercial project made for the Interslavic community.
Neoslavonic is a zonal constructed language made to facilitate direct
communication between speakers of Slavic languages group.
http://tutorial.neoslavonic.org
regards
Vojta Merunka
Messages in this topic (1)
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3a. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" joerg_rhieme...@web.de
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 10:53 am ((PDT))
Hallo conlangers!
On Fri, 23 Mar 2012 21:36:12 +0100 Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:
> Hi everyone!
>
> It's time to celebrate! Not only is it my birthday on Sunday, but I've done
> something I never thought possible: my Moten dictionary has reached 200
> lexical items! That may not seem much, but for someone who finds it so
> difficult to create words, it's quite the achievement! By the way, that's
> 200 different lexical stems, corresponding to 343 English glosses (thanks
> to a healthy level of polysemy :P).
Best wishes for your birthday! I also find it difficult to create
words that "sound right", and do not use lexicon generators because
they just spit out random junk that sounds "wrong" most times.
So far Old Albic has about 1500 dictionary entries, though the number
of roots is smaller. Lexicon is growing only slowly.
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Êm, a Êm atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Êmel." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (12)
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3b. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 12:40 pm ((PDT))
On 24 March 2012 05:39, Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- On Fri, 3/23/12, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > It's time to celebrate! Not only is it my birthday on
> > Sunday, but I've done
> > something I never thought possible: my Moten dictionary has
> > reached 200
> > lexical items! That may not seem much, but for someone who
> > finds it so
> > difficult to create words, it's quite the achievement!
>
> Félicitations! Well, my friend, congratulations on the momentous
> achievement! Anyway, it's never just the quantity, but the quality and
> amount of attention that goes into the words.
Oh, I know that, but it still doesn't help feeling inadequate when others
complain of their "small" vocabulary and quote 4-figure numbers :/ .
> 5000 words that are spat out
> of a random "word" generator don't quite equate to 5 words well crafted,
> deeply considered and lovingly brought forth.
>
>
True. That kind of makes up for the pain :) .
> Though snipped, from the examples, it is extremely clear that Moten is Art
> nicely done!
>
>
Well, this iteration of the vocabulary is. The previous vocabulary was
created very haphazardly. This update does mean that my Relay text isn't
correct Moten anymore. Not a big loss, as I was unsatisfied by that
translation anyway (it felt so plain compared to the text you'd sent me!).
I'll have to come back to it once the vocabulary has grown a bit more...
> Bouonne santé!
>
Thanks!
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (12)
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3c. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 12:53 pm ((PDT))
On 24 March 2012 18:53, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhieme...@web.de> wrote:
> Hallo conlangers!
>
> Best wishes for your birthday!
Thanks!
> I also find it difficult to create
> words that "sound right", and do not use lexicon generators because
> they just spit out random junk that sounds "wrong" most times.
>
Actually, I sometimes use Wordo (
http://wordgenerator.wakayos.com/Default.aspx) to generate correct Moten
roots, so as to give me some inspiration. Without it, I tend to only think
up roots that all look alike (and tend to be CVCV(C) or CVCCV(C)) with lots
of _l_s and _t_s. Using a word generator forces me to look at other
possibilities that the phonotactics allow.
Still, I only use it for inspiration, and out of every 1000 forms it spits
out I may use one or two, and usually I modify them first to better fit
what I feel. I find this way of using a word generator to be quite useful
and responsible :) .
> So far Old Albic has about 1500 dictionary entries, though the number
> of roots is smaller. Lexicon is growing only slowly.
>
>
It still makes me jealous! I don't even have the excuse that Moten is new:
Moten has existed in basically the same form for nearly 20 years!
And like you, those 200 lexical items are not 200 separate roots (although
I think the actual number of roots should be around 180 or slightly more).
I have a few derived forms that I treat as separate lexical items due to
semantic drift (for instance the noun _poltuz_: "door" is originally the
participle of the verb _ipolti_: "to open") as well as a few compounds that
I feel are worth an own entry (like _izunla|leki_: "to find, to locate",
which is a compound of _zunla_: "location" and _ja|leki_: "to find out, to
discover").
Also, I've included interjections in the count. I feel they belong to the
lexicon as much as any other word, but others might disagree.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (12)
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3d. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" chronosur...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:01 pm ((PDT))
On 23 March 2012 22:59, George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't know. I have come to like random word generators in order to get a
> giant list of roots I can then cherry-pick from as I need words.
Using a word generator to produce a list from which you can
cherry-pick words to put into a dictionary is rather a different
prospect from using a word generator to populate a dictionary
directly. I think that still counts as "deeply considered and lovingly
brought forth", just with a little technical assistance to the
creative process.
-l.
Messages in this topic (12)
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3e. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:08 pm ((PDT))
Of course. And, certainly I would never completely populate a dictionary
with generated words -- at least not to the level of automatically
assigning meaning. That would just give me a relex, anyway -- I want to
play with semantic fields a bit.
On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 5:00 PM, Logan Kearsley <chronosur...@gmail.com>wrote:
> On 23 March 2012 22:59, George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I don't know. I have come to like random word generators in order to
> get a
> > giant list of roots I can then cherry-pick from as I need words.
>
> Using a word generator to produce a list from which you can
> cherry-pick words to put into a dictionary is rather a different
> prospect from using a word generator to populate a dictionary
> directly. I think that still counts as "deeply considered and lovingly
> brought forth", just with a little technical assistance to the
> creative process.
>
> -l.
>
Messages in this topic (12)
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3f. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" chronosur...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:25 pm ((PDT))
On 24 March 2012 15:08, George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Of course. And, certainly I would never completely populate a dictionary
> with generated words -- at least not to the level of automatically
> assigning meaning. That would just give me a relex, anyway -- I want to
> play with semantic fields a bit.
Y'know, I've actually pondered playing with semantic fields *and*
automatically populating a dictionary. Or more specifically,
auto-populating a dictionary as a way to force playing with semantic
fields. The trick would be to apply one's artistic loving care to
creating basic roots and then the rules to a fully productive system
of derivational morphology. Code up the rules, and then feed in the
basic roots and their meanings and have the program spit out a
dictionary with basic literal definitions for all the possible derived
words, which one could then go through and explicate and irregularize.
That way, if you have a good system of derivations, you should end up
with lots of inspirational auto-generated dictionary entries for words
that cover regions of semantic space that one wouldn't've come up with
on one's own otherwise due to cognitive bias.
-l.
Messages in this topic (12)
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3g. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 5:17 pm ((PDT))
On 24 March 2012 22:25, Logan Kearsley <chronosur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Y'know, I've actually pondered playing with semantic fields *and*
> automatically populating a dictionary. Or more specifically,
> auto-populating a dictionary as a way to force playing with semantic
> fields. The trick would be to apply one's artistic loving care to
> creating basic roots and then the rules to a fully productive system
> of derivational morphology. Code up the rules, and then feed in the
> basic roots and their meanings and have the program spit out a
> dictionary with basic literal definitions for all the possible derived
> words, which one could then go through and explicate and irregularize.
> That way, if you have a good system of derivations, you should end up
> with lots of inspirational auto-generated dictionary entries for words
> that cover regions of semantic space that one wouldn't've come up with
> on one's own otherwise due to cognitive bias.
>
>
That would work only if your language had indeed a productive derivational
system. But for instance Moten, by design, doesn't. It has only a few
productive derivational suffixes (but for instance no affix to form
opposites, not even an unproductive one!), and handles the rest with
zero-derivation (which isn't systematic), compounding (which is somewhat
more systematic but not that much), and surdéclinaison (treating inflected
forms as lexical items). So no way to automate a derivational process.
Yeah, I know, for someone who doesn't like vocabulary building, I sure made
it difficult for myself to create vocabulary for my favourite conlang! :P
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (12)
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3h. Re: Time for a Party! Teoskananvoti Dabolnea!
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 7:32 pm ((PDT))
--- On Sat, 3/24/12, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Sunday, but I've done something I never thought possible: my Moten
> > > dictionary has reached 200 lexical items!
>
> > Félicitations! Well, my friend, congratulations on the momentous
> > achievement! Anyway, it's never just the quantity, but the quality and
> > amount of attention that goes into the words.
>
>
> Oh, I know that, but it still doesn't help feeling
> inadequate when others
> complain of their "small" vocabulary and quote 4-figure
> numbers :/ .
(: Well, unless I'm mistaken, Moten is not an IE or Romance language (for
example), which makes word generation an almost trivial matter in many
instances.
> > Though snipped, from the examples, it is extremely
> > clear that Moten is Art nicely done!
>
> Well, this iteration of the vocabulary is. The previous
> vocabulary was
> created very haphazardly. This update does mean that my
> Relay text isn't
> correct Moten anymore. Not a big loss, as I was unsatisfied
> by that
> translation anyway (it felt so plain compared to the text
> you'd sent me!).
> I'll have to come back to it once the vocabulary has grown a
> bit more...
I'd quite forgotten about that one! (I had to look back through every
relay page I could find, only to discover that twas Relay #1!) I recall
now, the poetry without verbs. Kind of fill in the blank verse.
Jemnon, lovely!
Hopefully, as Moten's lexicon increases, its penchant for metaphor won't
decrease!
> > Bouonne santé!
> >
>
> Thanks!
Guess I should also add bouôn annivèrsaithe!
Padraic
> --
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
>
Messages in this topic (12)
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4a. Japanese Conlang: Arka
Posted by: "David Peterson" deda...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 1:42 pm ((PDT))
Unless I've been the only one in the dark, we appear to have missed something
(allegedly) big in Japan.
The conlang Arka was created (allegedly) in 1991, and has been used by its
creator steadily ever since then in a wide range of publications: a nonfiction
book on conlanging and Arka; a novel; several manga series; a video game; a
host of websites, etc. Here's an introductory YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b4slYROUc8
I say "allegedly" because I can't find anything that talks about this language
that occurs before 2011. Both books were published in 2011; the Wikipedia page
was created in 2011; its official page was created in 2011; the YouTube account
goes back only to 2011, etc.
If this is a hoax, though, it's an elaborate one. It would take some serious
time and effort to fake a lot of the stuff in the video, at the very least.
So, is there anyone here who reads Japanese? Can anyone either confirm or deny
any of this, or give us more background�or at least figure out what's going on
with the site? The home page is here:
http://constructed-language.org/arka/
David Peterson
LCS President
presid...@conlang.org
www.conlang.org
Messages in this topic (4)
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4b. Re: Japanese Conlang: Arka
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 1:58 pm ((PDT))
I don't read Japanese, but the Arka is being translated into English.
There is a ZBB thread about it:
http://www.incatena.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=37256
On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 4:42 PM, David Peterson <deda...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Unless I've been the only one in the dark, we appear to have missed
> something (allegedly) big in Japan.
>
> The conlang Arka was created (allegedly) in 1991, and has been used by its
> creator steadily ever since then in a wide range of publications: a
> nonfiction book on conlanging and Arka; a novel; several manga series; a
> video game; a host of websites, etc. Here's an introductory YouTube video:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b4slYROUc8
>
> I say "allegedly" because I can't find anything that talks about this
> language that occurs before 2011. Both books were published in 2011; the
> Wikipedia page was created in 2011; its official page was created in 2011;
> the YouTube account goes back only to 2011, etc.
>
> If this is a hoax, though, it's an elaborate one. It would take some
> serious time and effort to fake a lot of the stuff in the video, at the
> very least.
>
> So, is there anyone here who reads Japanese? Can anyone either confirm or
> deny any of this, or give us more background�or at least figure out what's
> going on with the site? The home page is here:
>
> http://constructed-language.org/arka/
>
> David Peterson
> LCS President
> presid...@conlang.org
> www.conlang.org
>
Messages in this topic (4)
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4c. Re: Japanese Conlang: Arka
Posted by: "Ph. D." p...@phillipdriscoll.com
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 1:59 pm ((PDT))
David Peterson wrote:
>
> So, is there anyone here who reads Japanese? Can
> anyone either confirm or deny any of this, or give
> us more background�or at least figure out what's
> going on with the site? The home page is here:
> http://constructed-language.org/arka/
The first link under "Contents Menu" on the left
seems to go to an English version of the site.
--Ph. D.
Messages in this topic (4)
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4d. Re: Japanese Conlang: Arka
Posted by: "David Peterson" deda...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:10 pm ((PDT))
+1 on that link. If you follow the thread, there are a *ton* of links to a
*lot* of content. I'm starting this language is as big as Seren says it is...
It looks pretty regular and morphemic, but it's (according to its Wikipedia
page) intended to be an auxlang within its conworld, so I suppose that's to be
expected.
David Peterson
LCS President
presid...@conlang.org
www.conlang.org
On Mar 24, 2012, at 1:58 PM, George Corley wrote:
> I don't read Japanese, but the Arka is being translated into English.
> There is a ZBB thread about it:
> http://www.incatena.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=37256
>
> On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 4:42 PM, David Peterson <deda...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Unless I've been the only one in the dark, we appear to have missed
>> something (allegedly) big in Japan.
>>
>> The conlang Arka was created (allegedly) in 1991, and has been used by its
>> creator steadily ever since then in a wide range of publications: a
>> nonfiction book on conlanging and Arka; a novel; several manga series; a
>> video game; a host of websites, etc. Here's an introductory YouTube video:
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b4slYROUc8
>>
>> I say "allegedly" because I can't find anything that talks about this
>> language that occurs before 2011. Both books were published in 2011; the
>> Wikipedia page was created in 2011; its official page was created in 2011;
>> the YouTube account goes back only to 2011, etc.
>>
>> If this is a hoax, though, it's an elaborate one. It would take some
>> serious time and effort to fake a lot of the stuff in the video, at the
>> very least.
>>
>> So, is there anyone here who reads Japanese? Can anyone either confirm or
>> deny any of this, or give us more background�or at least figure out what's
>> going on with the site? The home page is here:
>>
>> http://constructed-language.org/arka/
>>
>> David Peterson
>> LCS President
>> presid...@conlang.org
>> www.conlang.org
>>
Messages in this topic (4)
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5a. Punjabi Tonogenesis
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" chronosur...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:19 pm ((PDT))
I just saw a highly interesting presentation on the Punjabi system of
lexical tone at a graduate student research symposium.
Apparently, previous research on Punjabi tones has been very sketchy,
which may be partially due to native speakers of the language not
being aware of their tone system as a tone system, but rather
interpreting it as a variation in consonants, which is how it's
written. In what seems like a reversal of how Russian indicates
palatalization of consonants via different sets of following vowel
letters, tones on Punjabi vowels are deterministically deduced from
adjacent consonant letters.
In an older stage of the language, it had an extra series of voiced
aspirated consonants, which no longer actually exist on a phonetic
level but are still reflected in the orthography. The presence of
voiced aspirated consonants triggered a allophonic tone variations in
adjacent vowels, which now are the only remaining phonetic
distinctions between former aspirated-unaspirated minimal pairs where
the original aspiration distinction has been lost. The field worker
discovered this while learning Punjabi from natives because that extra
series of consonant letters is still described as being the voiced
unaspirated series, which description caused her to pronounce it wrong
and be corrected by the native Punjabi speakers.
So, we've got tonogenesis on a phonetic level, but not at the phonemic
level, where same consonant + different tone is psychologically
interpreted as different consonant + same vowel.
Perhaps given another few generations and/or contact with more
explicitly tonal languages, the existing phonetic distinction could
rise to the level of an actual phonemic split.
Just thought somebody might be able to glean some inspiration from that.
-l.
Messages in this topic (3)
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5b. Re: Punjabi Tonogenesis
Posted by: "Dirk Elzinga" dirk.elzi...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Mar 24, 2012 6:27 pm ((PDT))
On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 3:19 PM, Logan Kearsley <chronosur...@gmail.com>wrote:
> I just saw a highly interesting presentation on the Punjabi system of
> lexical tone at a graduate student research symposium.
> Apparently, previous research on Punjabi tones has been very sketchy,
> which may be partially due to native speakers of the language not
> being aware of their tone system as a tone system, but rather
> interpreting it as a variation in consonants, which is how it's
> written. In what seems like a reversal of how Russian indicates
> palatalization of consonants via different sets of following vowel
> letters, tones on Punjabi vowels are deterministically deduced from
> adjacent consonant letters.
> In an older stage of the language, it had an extra series of voiced
> aspirated consonants, which no longer actually exist on a phonetic
> level but are still reflected in the orthography. The presence of
> voiced aspirated consonants triggered a allophonic tone variations in
> adjacent vowels, which now are the only remaining phonetic
> distinctions between former aspirated-unaspirated minimal pairs where
> the original aspiration distinction has been lost. The field worker
> discovered this while learning Punjabi from natives because that extra
> series of consonant letters is still described as being the voiced
> unaspirated series, which description caused her to pronounce it wrong
> and be corrected by the native Punjabi speakers.
> So, we've got tonogenesis on a phonetic level, but not at the phonemic
> level, where same consonant + different tone is psychologically
> interpreted as different consonant + same vowel.
> Perhaps given another few generations and/or contact with more
> explicitly tonal languages, the existing phonetic distinction could
> rise to the level of an actual phonemic split.
>
... and that, boys and girls, is what is known in the biz as a "displaced
contrast." :-) It is a genuine phonemic distinction since the original
voiced aspirates are now either voiceless unaspirated word-initially (and
thus collapsed with original voiceless unaspirates in that position), or
voiced unaspirated word-medially (and thus collapsed with original voiced
unaspirated in that position). True, the distinction isn't robust, but it's
there.
>
> Just thought somebody might be able to glean some inspiration from that.
>
(Not to toot my own horn, but I directed the thesis that this report was
based on. It is one of the niftiest things I've seen in quite a while, and
I was fortunate to be able to "midwife" the work.)
>
> -l.
>
Dirk
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
5c. Fwd: Punjabi Tonogenesis
Posted by: "yuri" yur...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Mar 25, 2012 1:50 am ((PDT))
Hi Malkiat,
Saw this on a discussion list I subscribe to.
As a native Punjabi speaker, what do you make of this?
Cheers,
Yuri
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Logan Kearsley <chronosur...@gmail.com>
Date: 25 March 2012 10:19
Subject: Punjabi Tonogenesis
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
I just saw a highly interesting presentation on the Punjabi system of
lexical tone at a graduate student research symposium.
Apparently, previous research on Punjabi tones has been very sketchy,
which may be partially due to native speakers of the language not
being aware of their tone system as a tone system, but rather
interpreting it as a variation in consonants, which is how it's
written. In what seems like a reversal of how Russian indicates
palatalization of consonants via different sets of following vowel
letters, tones on Punjabi vowels are deterministically deduced from
adjacent consonant letters.
In an older stage of the language, it had an extra series of voiced
aspirated consonants, which no longer actually exist on a phonetic
level but are still reflected in the orthography. The presence of
voiced aspirated consonants triggered a allophonic tone variations in
adjacent vowels, which now are the only remaining phonetic
distinctions between former aspirated-unaspirated minimal pairs where
the original aspiration distinction has been lost. The field worker
discovered this while learning Punjabi from natives because that extra
series of consonant letters is still described as being the voiced
unaspirated series, which description caused her to pronounce it wrong
and be corrected by the native Punjabi speakers.
So, we've got tonogenesis on a phonetic level, but not at the phonemic
level, where same consonant + different tone is psychologically
interpreted as different consonant + same vowel.
Perhaps given another few generations and/or contact with more
explicitly tonal languages, the existing phonetic distinction could
rise to the level of an actual phonemic split.
Just thought somebody might be able to glean some inspiration from that.
-l.
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6a. Re: Happy New Year
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Sun Mar 25, 2012 4:48 am ((PDT))
--- On Mon, 3/19/12, Anthony Miles <mamercu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Anthony Miles <mamercu...@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [CONLANG] Happy New Year
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> Date: Monday, March 19, 2012, 4:06 PM
>
> Indeed, sike suno sin pona! And perhaps "peya lukanehi pempu nimupuni."
And at long last: "gode merrey newyare daye, to thee Antoniam!" In the
World, it is now officially the first day of the Year of the Broken
Calendar, the 2012th year of the Agustan Golden Age.
Will remain to be seen how potentious the name turns out to be...
Padraic
Messages in this topic (13)
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