Languary Day Two: Phonotatics, Feet, and a bit of history

[aldersprig]

Conlang didn't get picked in yesterday's rotation, so I'll start with yesterday's post today: phonetics and feet.

Note: Everything in Language of Whispers is subject to lots and lots of change, as it's a work in progress. For instance, I've already added two more consonants.

I've been playing with zompists's generators. What I've decided is that the Language of Whispers is, ah...

(C(L))V(C)

With CV being the most common syllable construction.

Certain consonants do not start a word - r, l, ch.

I'm still working out consonants that just don't go together; I'm sure there's actually a rule there. jl in that order, pd, tp, ssr.

English leans towards iambic foot (In very rough generalizations, no need to pedant on this one ;-); Whispers leans towards trochee and dactyl feet.


The origins of the Language of Whispers are lost in the deep, dark annals of history. There are those, especially in the secretive reaches of the Institution, who believe that the language was first spoken to mankind by demons or by angels. Since most of the Institution doesn't believe in demons, this is considered more of a fanciful belief than a real one.

Over the centuries, the language has shifted - three separate dialects, various loan-words, and so on - and has suffered heavily from disuse at times. Only in small, hidden enclaves is it spoken as a casual language, and thus it often ends up using loan words for everyday items.

Comments

[inventrix]

I don't think I've ever seen anyone describe a language's accent pattern with poetic meter. o.o *ponders this*

[aldersprig]

Hunh. It's the way I know to handle accents.

[aldersprig]

I may look up how accents are normally handled at some point! I mean, I know one will say "stressed syllable, unstressed," etc. (lightly stressed).

[inventrix]

Interesting! The way I know is positional within a given word; first syllable accent, penultimate syllable accent, etc.

Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[thnidu]

It's not customary but there's nothing wrong with it. "No need to pedant on this one -)" You can say "initial stress", but if you've got a frequent pattern of four-syllable words ´˘´˘, that would be inadequate. For that you could say something like

"Syllables are alternately stressed and unstressed, with the first syllable stressed. If there are an odd number of syllables, the last two are unstressed."

That gives you a dactyl on the last three. Of course that's only an example; I don't know else what you have in mind. Then there's secondary stress, but you may not want to go into that, and I certainly won't go into it here, knowing so little about the language.

In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like /m/ and /l/: approximants, nasals, flaps or taps, and most trills. (Wikipedia)

I'm pretty sure you don't want to allow /bm-/ (CR) or /tue-/ (CVV). R is the symbol for resonants; liquids (basically /l/ and /r/) are L. If you want to allow initial clusters such as /kl-/ and /br-/, consider (C(L))V(C). It specifies

• optionally,
    • consonant + optional liquid (/l/ or /r/)
• one vowel
• optional consonant

The nested parentheses make it so that the liquid can only occur if preceded by another consonant; (C)(L) would allow both, either, or neither.

Then you would use more specific rules to carve out exceptions. If you're excluding /pd/ and such at the beginning of a syllable but allowing them across a syllable boundary, as in "update", this will do it, because /d/ isn't a liquid. If you don't want them anywhere, you'll need further rules. And you'll also need to specify separately that liquids can't be syllable-initial, since liquids (L) are a subset of consonants (C).

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[aldersprig]

Okay, I was led astray on R/L, got it. Thanks!

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[thnidu]

You're hardly the first and won't be the last. I had to stop and think a moment.

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[inventrix]

Good lord, son, proofread your posts BEFORE hitting submit!! *deletes inbox full of edit notifications*

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[thnidu]

Huh?

DW emails me comments as well as putting them online. I often reply by email, as DW says I can, being sure to put my comment at the very top; I assume the DW sw truncates after it, and I've never seen anything to the contrary, such as quotes of previous material in the web-posted comments. Are generations of (re)quoted predecessors showing up in my replies in your mailbox?

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[aldersprig]

Every time you edit my comment, it shows up as a new message in my inbox.

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[thnidu]

Wait, WHAT? I can't edit your comments. Do you mean edit my own?

Ach, see below. I have to go now. I'm sorry about any such foul-up, but I have never known it to happen before.It seems more likely to be some problem at Dreamwidth, or *possibly* my new phone.

À plutôt, mesdames.

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[aldersprig]

Apologies, a typo, yes, edit your own.

It happens quite frequently, actually; I can watch you go through your edits in my e-mails.

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[inventrix]

Presenting evidence to the court, your honor

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[thnidu]

Oh dear me! I AM sorry! Yes, I see what's happening. I've gotten used to multiple edits of my own posts, but of course those don't show in other people's inboxes, just my own. I promise to be more careful in future and do as much as possible of my editing offline. (Steals quietly away with head lowered.)

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[inventrix]

I do believe the (R) was taken straight from the zompist generator, where the default sample has C=[consonant list] and R=rl as a letter category, and was not necessarily intended to be representative of a linguistic category. See: inclusion of ch

Additionally, I don't see why bm shouldn't be allowed if she doesn't want it to be. Is there some presumption you're using about her listed rules that leads you to conclude she won't want it?

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[thnidu]

I've never used zompist and am not familiar with it, though I have heard of it. If our hostess intends to post phonological rules for her conlangs, she should IMHO use the standard symbols rather than those of a particular program, or else include (or at least link) a complete guide to them.

Of course she can use syllable-initial /bm-/. But it's difficult to articulate and I believe fairly rare. And anyhow, she's just told us that her R stand for a liquid, not a resonant, so she wasn't proposing it anyway.

I see that a couple new messages have come in in this thread, but I have to go out. Later, ladies, eh?

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[inventrix]

I would like to remind you that this is not a linguistics blog and is not being written by a professional linguist, and such our hostess can use whatever terminology she deems best, particularly since she is defining its use as she does. 8)

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[thnidu]

Our hostess has asked me for linguistic advice. To date she has not complained to me about my professional comments here in her blog. If she asks me to modify them, of course I will.

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[inventrix]

I didn't ask you to do anything; I disagreed with your opinion of what Lyn should do. ;P

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[thnidu]

Again: If she has a problem with it I will certainly comply with her wishes. If you think my style or content inappropriate, she is the one you should go to.

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[inventrix]

...Why would I talk to HER about my opinion of YOUR actions?

As it stands, I provided my disagreement to your stance as an alternative opinion in a venue which she has access to, since the original content is advice to her. Since it was a disagreement with you, it is only sensible to present it as such to you, the speaker, in case you have some additional input on the matter.

Nowhere have I critiqued you, nor told you to stop doing anything. Please stop being defensive about something I have not done.

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[thnidu]

Nowhere have I critiqued you, nor told you to stop doing anything. Please stop being defensive about something I have not done.

Perhaps we have different standards of conversation. These certainly sounded hostile and critical to me, and still do:

• I would like to remind you that this is not a linguistics blog and is not being written by a professional linguist,...

• Additionally, I don't see why bm shouldn't be allowed if she doesn't want it to be. Is there some presumption you're using about her listed rules that leads you to conclude she won't want it?

When you ask your dinner partner "Could you pass me the salt?", you don't expect them to look at where it is and say "Yes, I could", and continue eating. There's a conversational implicature there that you are requesting an action. Similarly, "I would like to remind you that this is not a linguistics blog" implies that you think that (1) I have been treating it as one and (2) I should stop doing so; and "Is there some presumption ... ?" implies that you think I'm making an unwarranted presumption about her rules, and should stop doing so.

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[inventrix]

Regarding (1): You have been. The implication of (2) is entirely your interpretation.

I believe the appropriate response here regarding the question about "bm" is to apologise, since it was intended as an actual question and not as an attack and you evidently read it differently from how I intended. I did, in fact, want to know if there was a particular reason you thought "bm" should not be allowed, since her post didn't indicate anything to me that would rule it out. So, I apologise that my request for information was taken as a hostile attack. Sadly, I cannot promise it will not happen in the future.

This does clear up at least a little bit why you seemed to get up in arms about what I had initially thought was a friendly conversation.

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[thnidu]

I didn't ask you to do anything; I disagreed with your opinion of what Lyn should do. ;P

That is, you asked or told me not to advise Lyn to do those things.

Re: Phonotac-tick-tock talk

[inventrix]

"I would like to remind you that this is not a linguistics blog and is not being written by a professional linguist"

This is an observation, or a reminder. Not telling OR asking you do to anything.

"and such our hostess can use whatever terminology she deems best, particularly since she is defining its use as she does."

This is a statement of what Lyn can do. It is not telling OR asking you to do anything.

"I didn't ask you to do anything; I disagreed with your opinion of what Lyn should do."

This is a statement about my own actions. It is not telling OR asking you to do anything.

Including your other reply, the only places I have criticised you or told you what to do are in your interpretation of my implications. I am not accustomed to speaking via subtext. Anything you perceive as being communicated that way is undoubtedly noise and I am in fact somewhat offended that you would take this imagined subtext as more accurate than the words I am actually saying.

I am not criticising you. I am not telling you to do anything. I am, at the most aggressive and hostile interpretation of my actions, defending my friend's choices. What I am doing by word and intent is disagreeing with your particular advice on what she should change in a place both you and she can see.