Talk:Conlang/Intermediate/Sounds

Untitled
I've copied Ran's phonology article over from the Conlangresource and made a few changes in it. --Ingolemo 19:51, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Hmm, the line at the end right now looks a little 'stupid' to me (no offense meant, but it should be reworded): "Consonants are sounds that, well, aren't vowels" (or something like that). Consonants are sounds made by blocking airflow in the vocal tract. And besides, in some places the line between consonant and vowel can be blurred, with sounds in American English like [r\=, 5=, n=], etc. *edits* -- Maknas 14:51, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I simply copied Ran's article and had no time to think of a better ending. But I do agree. The consonants section needs a lot more alaboration (especially given the size of the vowel section). I'll try and add a little more now. --Ingolemo 16:27, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Okay, I'll take over fixing up this article. I've just elaborated on phonemes, and I'll add/elaborate more sections soon. -- Maknas 18:46, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I added a section on manners of articulation. Feel free to correct what I wrote about taps and flaps. I'll try completing the other sections on consonnants later. I think we should dedicate 2 different pages into describing how vowels and consonnants can contrast, though. We could also link to eddy,s great page about vowel systems, or at least describe some ourselves. --Circeus 20:55, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Hey, I said I'll take over this page! ;-) Anyways, yeah, I've changed what you wrote on the taps. Also, remember, it's "trill", not "thrill" ;-) I don't think we need seperate pages for consonants and vowels, but I'll finish up the rest here. -- Maknas 21:39, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * "I don't think we need seperate pages for consonants and vowels" Well, I meant about complex things like phonemic pharingealization, nasalizations, velarization, labialization, aspiration etc. Along with Allophony, it's quite complex (there's easily a whole page to be written about allophony and variation in english!), so i though a separate page would make things easier to control.--Circeus 18:01, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Don't forget that we have an "Expert Sounds" page where we can go into all that extra detail. We only need to cover the intermediate stuff here. --Ingolemo 18:54, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Oh, good point. --Circeus 17:09, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I ended up bored, and I just wiped out a voicing section. I don't know enough about things like creaky or breathy voicing to put them in, left a comment about it. If I really cause problem, just tell me and I'll stop, but I don't believe it's such a big deal. Anyway, also corrected little bits here and there in the page. "Fricatvies" annoyed the heck out of me XD. --Circeus 19:45, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I'm almost done doing the POA section, but can somebody please take on explaining the pharyngeal, epiglottal and glottal POAs?--Circeus 23:36, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

HEY, Vladisdead? There's a reason we chose to use X-SAMPA and not IPA in these. Please do not make such radical changes without asking first.--Circeus 23:13, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A need for restructuring?
I think that this article is getting too long (especially given the current lack of content in most other Conlang articles) and is overloading the intermediate with too much information at once. I think that we all need to just sit down and decide what exactly we want this article to say, what we want to save for another article, and what we want to leave for the experts. -- Ingolemo 12:11, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've come up with a structure that I think would be more accessable to readers;
 * Introduction to phones
 * The phoneme/allophone distinction
 * The vowel/consonant distinction
 * Introduction to syllables
 * Syllable structure
 * Introduction to phonotactics
 * Viable consonant clusters
 * Sonority scale

Any suggestions for improvements? - Ingolemo 19:08, 17 August 2005 (UTC)


 * That sounds pretty good. I would keep the phonotactics section very short and leave most of the detail to the advanced phonology chapters. --Jim Henry 15:29, 22 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Ok, this restructuring will take a little time for me to do, mainly due to the work needed to compress the "what are vowels" and "what are consonants" sections to something more succinct. I'm going to drop the "Sonority scale" section and add a little on stress instead, so the phonotactics section should grow only a little larger than what it is now. - 84.92.170.120 18:45, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, this was me. I forgot to log in. - Ingolemo 18:46, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I finally submited it. I simplified a lot of the concepts, but I'm worried that I may have simplified some parts too much. Opinions anyone? (the pre-revision page is here) - Ingolemo 18:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Ng - one sound
''Note that the "ng" is one sound! It's not an "n" sound followed by a "g" sound.'' You ought to be careful with statements like this. There are some dialects where 'sang' is pronounced [s{Ng], and they would probably consider that [N] to be an allophonic variant of /n/. Curlyjimsam 06:25, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Would you like to write a better example (perhaps involving the digraphs &lt;th&gt; or &lt;sh&gt;)? - Ingolemo 14:20, 30 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Merging syllables with phonotactics
In my opinion, the structure of syllables is too much defined by phonotactics to discuss them on separate pages. So, I propose a merge of them. Columbus240 (discuss • contribs) 14:28, 23 August 2015 (UTC)


 * @Columbus240: On the other hand, a plausible case might be made for the intermediate level to present them separately. The beginner and intermediate levels of the book are defined by the limits on how much complication they introduce; so one ought to resist creep of each earlier level into compliations that ought to be left for a later level, otherwise the earlier levels start to lose their identity.  The beginner level tries to introduce the basic elements of language without fancy terms; the word "syllable" barely arises, let alone "phototactics".  The intermediate level tries to introduce the internal structure of those basic elements, and basic terminology for discussing them; but perhaps the need to treate syllables and phonotactics together is an advanced-level thing?  The advanced level of the book has been under-attended, which one suspects was partly because during the first flurry of activity on the book there was a weakness on distinguishing the three levels, and part of later effort has gone into strenghthening divisions between levels.


 * If we do want to shift a bit more of the burden here onto the intermediate level, we should try to more clearly define at the same time what goes in the advanced level, so we don't end up piling everything into intermediate. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 12:22, 24 August 2015 (UTC)


 * @Pi zero: So maybe do some stuff on 'proper' phonotactics and syllable building in the advanced level, because the intermediate is (in my opinion) fine like that. I myself don't have experience with linguistics, I just had a look into it since last week, and haven't created a conlang yet(but many ideas), so I won't propose myself as writer of advanced level pages.