Random Conlang Questions

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Luís
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Re: Random Conlang Questions

Postby Luís » 2017-12-06, 22:44

linguoboy wrote:
Luís wrote:Has anyone read Mark Rosenfelder's books? (The Language Construction Kit and Advanced Language Construction).

I've proofread one of them. Did you have a question regarding them?


I'm just trying to figure out if they're something I'd enjoy reading or if they're mostly aimed at people with no prior knowledge of linguistics (particularly the first volume).
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Re: Random Conlang Questions

Postby linguoboy » 2017-12-06, 22:52

Luís wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Luís wrote:Has anyone read Mark Rosenfelder's books? (The Language Construction Kit and Advanced Language Construction).

I've proofread one of them. Did you have a question regarding them?

I'm just trying to figure out if they're something I'd enjoy reading or if they're mostly aimed at people with no prior knowledge of linguistics (particularly the first volume).

The first is intended to be read by those with no background in linguistics, but there's still plenty of sound advice to be gleaned from it. Knowing about linguistics isn't the same as knowing about conlinguistics. Mark has years of practical experience creating languages and he's particularly good at explaining things. A sizable chunk of the second volume is taken up with a grammatical sketch of a particular conlang and it's a terrific example of both what to include in such a treatment and the range of creative possibilities.
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Luís
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Re: Random Conlang Questions

Postby Luís » 2017-12-07, 11:31

Thanks! I might give it a try then.
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Re: Random Conlang Questions

Postby Luís » 2018-01-15, 9:53

I read the first volume over Christmas and it was actually quite interesting, even if I already knew most of the stuff he covers.
(I'll try to ignore the fact that almost all Portuguese examples in the book seem to be incorrect :P)

I got a copy of the second volume and I'm planning on reading it sometime this year. And of course, now I'm wanderlusting for conlangs... :|
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Re: Random Conlang Questions

Postby linguoboy » 2018-01-15, 16:02

Luís wrote:(I'll try to ignore the fact that almost all Portuguese examples in the book seem to be incorrect :P

Message him. He's always willing to hear corrective criticism.
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Re: Random Conlang Questions

Postby Sadedfh » 2021-06-09, 20:57

The vaxapu language is completely phonetic with it's own writing system (abugida, devanagari based) which has a huge deal of consonants which are really easy to pronounce but are simply absent in English and Hindi. The devanagari as well as Roman alphabet transcriptions are very much rough. This makes is making it impossible for me to record it digitally. How do I do it?

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Re: Random Conlang Questions

Postby Dormouse559 » 2021-06-09, 23:55

Sadedfh wrote:The vaxapu language is completely phonetic with it's own writing system (abugida, devanagari based) which has a huge deal of consonants which are really easy to pronounce but are simply absent in English and Hindi. The devanagari as well as Roman alphabet transcriptions are very much rough. This makes is making it impossible for me to record it digitally. How do I do it?

The International Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA, is always a good place to start. At the very least, it can be useful because it would allow you to tell us vaxapu's phoneme inventory. Do you have experience with IPA?
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Re: Random Conlang Questions

Postby Rí.na.dTeangacha » 2021-12-13, 13:11

It occurred to me as I was thinking about the difference between a diphthong and two separately pronounced adjacent vowels that breaking a diphthong into its constituent pure vowels could be used as a mechanic for a conlang's grammar, e.g. "mai" = "day", "ma.i" = days or "teis" = "go", "te.is" = "went" etc...

I was wondering if any such thing has a precedent in natlangs?
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Re: Random Conlang Questions

Postby Dormouse559 » 2021-12-15, 18:48

Rí.na.dTeangacha wrote:It occurred to me as I was thinking about the difference between a diphthong and two separately pronounced adjacent vowels that breaking a diphthong into its constituent pure vowels could be used as a mechanic for a conlang's grammar, e.g. "mai" = "day", "ma.i" = days or "teis" = "go", "te.is" = "went" etc...

I was wondering if any such thing has a precedent in natlangs?

Spanish has this to an extent, but with rising diphthongs instead of falling ones: kontinuó /kon.tiˈnu̯o/ "he/she/it continued" vs. kontinúo /kon.tiˈnu.o/ "I continue". Something like your example sounds quite plausible.
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Re: Random Conlang Questions

Postby mōdgethanc » 2022-03-13, 23:34

I think the difference between a diphthong and two vowels in hiatus is too slight to be found with a grammatical function in a natural language. This is because (especially in fast speech) two vowels tend to come together and form a diphthong rather easily. Maybe though if you put a glottal stop between them (like an infix of a kind) that would work better. Quite a few languages break up vowels with a glottal stop so that's more naturalistic.

That Spanish example is quite interesting though, but there are other things that help distinguish those words, like the stress being different.
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