Least marked vowel?

And about the vowel harmony effect, could this also work with prothetic vowels only you use the one after it?

*Welsh? I like Welsh, so this is good. *


Ah! I understand it perfectly now! Thank you very much!

Markedness is rather difficult to explain, but it has to do with which features are the "default" for certain categories. In English, the least marked vowel is the shwa /ə/: it is neither high nor low, neither front nor back, and it is unrounded (roundedness being a marked feature for vowels in English). If you need to break up a difficult clusters, this is the vowel you will use. In many Romance languages, which lack /ə/ as a phoneme, the least marked vowel is /e/ or /a/.


Indeed it could, although I can't think of any examples from real languages.

I'll look at the link now!

So the least marked vowel is an unrounded, neither high/front or low/back vowel? And this least marked vowel could/would be used be used in the epenthetic/prothetic situation?


Alrighty then!

Thanks for helping me out linguoboy!

*Oh! One last thing about the prothetic/epenthetic rule, if I may ask it. How would I go about describing the prothetic/epenthetic in my language's rules for the "sk" etc etc situation? So everyone knows its there? *

Which vowel is least marked depends on the language. The mid-central-unrounded feature refers specifically to /ə/.

What Dan said: To determine the "least marked vowel" in your language, we have to know the full inventory of vowels as well as information on their occurrence. If you have, say, more rounded vowels than unrounded, it's possible that "umrounded" will be the more marked feature, and so forth.

Oh, and another note on vowel harmony: it can be incomplete. Your epenthetic vowel could be specified for, say, height and then take its frontness/roundedness/tenseness/etc. from the adjoining vowel. So, for instance, it might be /e/ next to /e/ or /i/ and /o/ next to /a/, /o/, or /u/. And features can spread to vowels from consonants as well; it could be rounded next to labial consonants and unrounded otherwise, among myriad other possibilities.

So how best to express the rule will depend on how it actually functions.

Rule writing is one of those things that is really simple but also takes forever to get used to. The basic format of a rule is X→Y / ____. Everything to the left of the backslash describes what change is going to occur and everything to the right of the backslash shows the environment in which that change occurs. So, a simple epenthesis rule would be Ø→V/C___C. Written out, this would say null becomes a vowel when it comes between to consonants. You can further specify which vowel or consonants.

There are several ways you could write an epenthetic rule depending on the circumstances. But say that you want to make *renskal into *renoskal the rule would be Ø→o/C___sC What this says is, /o/ is inserted between C and any sC cluster. You would need to write additional rules for vowel harmony if you wanted.

This rule only works if *ren is prefixed to *skal. If you want them to remain separate words and you want some form of epenthesis to occur, then you would need to write different rules for that.

@ Dan_ad_nauseam & linguoboy:

Oh, thanks for clearing it up! I'll read over the posts now.



I double checked my conlang's vowel inventory and I have more unrounded than rounded. So my inventory's unrounded vowels are marked and my inventory's rounded vowels are the least marked? Any it can be any of those in the "least marked vowels"?



Adjoining vowel? If its an epenthetic vowel being applied, how would this work if its after a consonant and before another consonant? What I mean is, if I'm being confusing, what about in this situation: renoskal.

I understand the consonant possibilities though!

@spanick:



Oh my! So if I understood this right:

X→Y / = this shows what will happen when it meets the correct condition.

____. = this shows the condition in which the above will happen.

Did I understand it right...? What does the "Ø" mean in what you wrote? Is it the "null" you mentioned earlier and if so, does it represent the "____" after the backslash?

*Oh, about placement of the rule. Could I write this rule within the Allophones part of my post, or should I write it within the Vowels part of the post?*

If I understood the above correctly I have something to ask about the empenthetic/prothetic vowel rule; I actually meant to ask this earlier, but some appointments I had got in the way of it and I completely forgot *stupid hospitals lol*. :/ Could my empenthetic/prothetic vowel rule also (or instead of) be allowed to a cluster of CC instead of just sC? Like Ø→o/C___CC?


How would a rule like that work? Would it be possible for me to have both rules?

Thanks for answering my questions guys. I know I'm being a bother to you guys and that you guys probably get these questions everyday, but I really do appreciate all the help given to me.

Yes, that is what it means. Ø represents an empty slot. Null is just a word for nothing. The blank \would be where the change occurs. So, for example if I said Ø → V / C ____ C the vowel is put where the blank is, between two consonants. But for a vowel harmony rule you might have u → y / ____ i where /u/ becomes /y/ before /i/.

Well, epenthesis really isn't allophony so there's no need to do it there. It doesn't really matter where in your description of phonology you put the rule. You could have a section just describing epenthesis. Just remember that sometimes rules need to be in specific orders...otherwise your words won't come out the way you intended.

Yes, it's possible.

You use # to represent word boundaries. So you could just insert one like this Ø→o/C___#sC (insert /o/ at the end of a word ending C, when it precedes onset cluster sC) this would result in *reno skal or you could write it Ø→o/C#___sC (insert /o/ before onset cluster sC when preceded by a word ending in C) which results in *ren oskal (this is what you see in Spanish).

I know these other guys have been answering a lot more of your questions but I think it's safe to say you're not bothering any of us. This is what we love to do.

Oh! It makes perfect sense now! Thanks for clearing it up.


Ah, then I shall not put it there.

Would a post dedicated to rules and changes of the conlang be good? If not, I'll just make a section for epenthesis like suggested. :p





Would Ø→o/C___CC also represent /s/ in the factor? What I mean is, could the final "CC" also count for /s/?


Ah! Okay, I get it now

But wouldn't reno skal make it not possible for "skal" in my SS since they would be separated and not empathetic/prothetic?




Thank you.

*If I ever get to be a bother, just say the word and I'll disappear. *

Just include all phonological rules in the phonology section.

Yes. CC means ANY two consonants, as long as it's an allowable consonant cluster in your phonology. So if you have both *skal and *tral as possible words, that rule would insert /o/ before both of those.

I'm not sure I totally understand your question but let me try to answer. *ren oskal is more natural/likely than *reno skal. To be honest, I'm not so sure *reno skal is allowable but I can't think of a reason it wouldn't be.

You're welcome.

I'd recommend reading up on phonological topics on wikpedia. The pages are usually quite easy to understand and give lots of examples in natural languages. Also, for rule writing it would be good to read up on feature theory...it's more complicated but helps with writing vowel harmony rules, voicing rules and other rules which can't easily be written with just IPA symbols.