7
votes
Accepted
Is there a set of sound change rules that undoes Grimm's law?
Define categories for aspirated and unaspirated voiced stops, voiceless stops, and fricatives:
A=ḅḍġǵ
U=bdgɠ
V=ptkƙ
F=φþxẍ
(I’m forced to use strange characters for each of these phones due to the ...
- 612
6
votes
Accepted
What is the variety of ways one can deal with absorbing words from different languages in a conlang?
If you want to be strict, coerce them into your phonological rules.
Macy's: that would fit as macys; if /y/ is not a vowel, then macis
Outback: start with a consonant, so use one that is not too ...
- 3,933
5
votes
What are the most common sound changes in natlangs?
By far the most common changes are assimilation, one sound becoming more similar to a nearby sound, and lenition, a sound shifting to require less articulatory effort. These are both broad categories ...
- 2,601
5
votes
Are words based on acronyms treated differently when the language changes over time?
It depends on the word in question. Not that many English speakers would recognise laser as an acronym, so it has effectively become a 'normal' word. And it can be inflected, as in She was lasering ...
- 3,933
4
votes
What is the variety of ways one can deal with absorbing words from different languages in a conlang?
There must be rules of some sort to guide the transformation of any word, is that correct?
If you believe in optimality theory (OT), this comes down to the constraints on valid words in the language. ...
- 2,601
3
votes
What is the variety of ways one can deal with absorbing words from different languages in a conlang?
You can look at how it is done in real languages. What typically happens is that the word is phonologically morphed to match the phonotactics of the adopting language.
Japanese provides some obvious ...
- 691
3
votes
Are words based on acronyms treated differently when the language changes over time?
Acronyms are, for the most part, a relatively recent phenomenon (as they make the most sense with a high level of literacy), and so it's hard to really look at what's happened in natural languages.
...
- 426
2
votes
What are the most common sound changes in natlangs?
Things are probably hard to quantify, but some specific sound changes seem to be more frequent than others, most notably:
/h/ -> /∅/ (loss of /h/)
The consonant system often has gaps at /p/ and /g/:...
- 10.5k
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