Angrex

(T.B.A.) (chio bei nonth)
Spoken in:	(somewhere in North America) ((samva en Nof Maweka))
Conworld:	A possible future timeline (arguments to the contrary are welcome)
Total speakers:	none yet
Genealogical classification:	Indo-European Germanic Anglic (T.B.A.)
Basic word order:	SVO
Morphological type:	isolating
Morphosyntactic alignment:
Writing system:
Created by:
Tropylium	one very late evening in spring 2008

A tentative name for a future Anglic language. May be switched to a proper geographic-based one eventually.

Owes much to Futurese.

Grand Master Plan

Initial dialect features

Note that these features' current geographical distribution does not necessarily limit Ängrex's, since a few of them are still spreding.

Vowels

• Yod-dropping: Early Modern English /iʊ/ becomes /uː/ (GOOSE) if preceded by an initial consonant. Likewise /iʊɹ/ → /ʊɹ/. Typical exceptions, such as sugar, sure, apply.
• The cot-caught and father-bother mergers apply, i.e. /ɒ ɔː/ both merge into /ɑː/.
• The following rhotic vowels are distinguished: /ɪɹ ɛɹ əɹ ɑɹ ɔɹ/ (NEAR SQUARE NURSE START NORTH). /oɹ/ (FORCE) merges into /ɔɹ/; /ʊɹ/ (CURE) merges varyingly with /ɔɹ/ or the disyllable /uəɹ/. Mergers apply also before medial /ɹ/: e.g. /e.ɹ æ.ɹ/ → /ɛɹ/, /ʌ.ɹ/ → /əɹ/, /i.ɹ/ → /ɪɹ/.
• Collapse to a three-vowel system in final unstressed position: /iː/ (HAPPY) becomes /eɪ/ (FACE), while /ə(ɹ)/ (COMMA, LETTER) becomes /ɑː/. /oʊ/ remains. (Phonetically, these are pretty much [e a o].)

The following changes are best considered phonetic detail, since they do not disturb the phonological system.

• /ɑ æ iː uː ʊ/ → [a ɪə ɪj ʏw ʏ]
  • We'll nevertheless write the quality of the GOOSE and FOOT vowels as /ʉ ʏ/ from here on.
  • need to elaborate on the fate of /æ/ per environment, as well as on other pre-sonorant mergers
• Length is by now secondary to quality (and won't be marked, either).

Consonants

• Whine-wine merger: /ʍ/ merged into /w/.
• /tj tɹ dj dɹ/ are affricated to /ʧ ʧɹ ʤ ʤɹ/. (Note that palatalization of /sj sɹ zj/ is older and applies to all English varieties, AFATAK.)
• Medial flapping of /t d/ (to [ɾ] when posttonic) applies. Glottalization does not (except, as widespred, to zero between a fricativ and a syllabic consonant — soften [sɑfn̩], rustle [ɹʌsɫ̩] → <wúso>)
• Interdental loss: /θ ð/ become /t d/ in onset position, /f v/ in coda.
  • eater [ˈɪjɾa], ether [ˈɪjta]
• Coda /d/ is lost after /n l/.
• The clusters /ns nz/ insert epenthetic /t d/ to become /nts ndz/.

Further spred of certain consonant changes

• Flapping of /d/ is extended to word-final posttonic position. /t/ persists as an unreleased [t̚].
• /nʃ nʒ/ also undergo epenthesis (therefore eg. <thancang> from tension).

More vowel changes

• Reduction of unstressed vowels continues. In closed syllables, sufficiently unstressed /i ʉ/ typically reduce to /ɪ ʏ/, /æ ɑ/ to /ə/. Pretonic initial /ə/ (but not /ɪ/) tends to be lost entirely.
• Before a vowel, /i ʉ/ reduce to /j w/.
• /ɪɹ/ becomes /ɪəɹ/, still monosyllabic but now equal to a former /æ/ follo'd by /ɹ/ (bear in mind that former /æɹ/, as in carry, has turned into /ɛɹ/).
• /n̩/ → /ŋ̩/ in word-final position

Labial/liquid chainshift

One of Ängrex's most caracteristic features.

• The main chain consists of /ɹ/ → /w/ → /v/ → /b/. Only the onset position is affected.
  • /v/ then devoices to /f/ adjacent to a voiceless consonant
• Coda /l/ ([ɫ]) → /w/ (the syllabic version lingers on for a while more)
• Onset /l/ → /ɾ/ before another consonant

Aspiration development

This series of sound changes forms major isoglosses among the Anglic languages.

• The trigger is the loss of onset /s/ before another consonant. This leads to the phonemicization of aspiration in voiceless stops in the onset — as well as of word-initial /ɾ/.
• Coda stops are normally unreleased, with the exception of the position before another obstruent, or a non-tautosyllabic consonant such as [ɫ̩] (syllables with a consonantal nucleus may not contain an onset) or [m] (stop+/m/ not being a valid initial cluster). After its inception by the previous change, aspiration develops also in this position, in stressed syllables only.
• Any coda affricates are 'fcors released, but generally don't develop aspiration. An exception, most likely analogy-motivated, is the cluster /ʧt/ when resulting from /ʧ/ plus the past tense suffix //d//.
• Additionally, /ts/ → /tʰ/ in all positions.
• This system is then muddled by application of anti-Grassman's Law, i.e. in a word containing two aspirates within one syllable of one another, the latter is deaspirated.
• /h/ triggers deaspiration regularly; it's however medially lost in all cases (e.g. megahertz → <magát>)
• /h/ is also lost initially before any high vowel or glide.
• However, in syllables with an initial lo vowel or /ɾ/, any possible aspiration in the coda is transferred to become an intrusiv initial /h/ (e.g. opt → <háp>, slacks → <hrákhs>)
• All coda stops after an obstruent or a homorganic nasal are lost. The first part of this change is common enuff even in contemporary English dialects, but the consequences for aspiration sho that at least in /pt kt/ this must postdate the development of phonemic aspiration.

Retroflexen

• To compensate for the increasingly stronger allophonic palatalization of ordinary coronals before front vowels, the postalveolar sibilants become apical in articulation, in enunciated speech even retroflex. These retain their inherent labialization, and a folloing /w/ is assimilated. An /f/ or /v/ from former /w/, however, is metathesized, giving eg. <pháfcúk> from patchwork, <defxa> from dishwasher (note the haplology) and <pháse(u)jri> from passageway.

Palatal vowel shift

There are two theories to what's going on in here. One is that this is simply palatalization and the glide found in eg. cube → <khiobo> is excrescent in nature; the other is that /j/'s actually are broken off vowels, but simply lost in most situations. We'll mark this simply as /ʲ/.

• /e/ → /ʲi/
• /ɪj/ (former /i/) → /ʲej/
• /ɪə/ → /ʲa/.
• /ʏ(w)/ → /ʲo(w)/
• No glide nor palatalization appears after a liquid (/l ɾ/), a postalveolar, or a labial.
• Non-liquid alveolars reddily assibilate: /tʰ t d s z n/ + /ʲ/ → /tɕʰ tɕ dʑ ɕ ʑ ɲ/
• And as stated, before velars a plain [j] appears.
• In conjunction with this, elsewhere /ɪ/ → /e/ (with NO palatalization) and /o/ → /u/.

jth jt jd js jz jn ditto s z > s` z`/ w_

Yet more vowel shifts

• Rhotic vowels have at least by this time merged with the corresponding plain vowels. /ɔɹ/ becomes a new /o/.
• Syllabic consonants are also lost: [ɫ̩ m̩ n̩ ŋ̩] → [o am an aŋ]
• Lo front vowels rotate down & backwards: /ɛ a/ → /æ ɑ/. [a] remains when word-final or follo'd by [j], but is transferred from /ɑ/ to /æ/. Similarly [aj] → [æj].
• Shwa is inserted after word-final voiced stops and affricates.
• These changes create a rather asymmetric final vowel inventory of [i a ə o u]. To compensate, unstressed shwa then proceeds to become [e] if there is a preceding palatal glide, and [o] if there is a preceding labial glide or postalveolar.
• The sequences /əw əj/ become /u i/, even before another vowel.
• Remaining stressed shwas are raised to [ɨ].
• Coda /j/ is lost between front vowels and palatals, likewise coda /w/ between labial vowels and labials.

? aU oI > Aw oj v > w / V_ Aw > o

various

• Voiced affricates lenite to fricativs: /dz dʐ dʑ/ → /z ʐ ʑ/. Before nasals, however, the opposite development is found.
• Certain awkward consonant clusters are resolved: /n/ after an alveolar stop becomes /ɾ/, and /n/ before /ɾ/ becomes /nd/. (Dialectally, the first of these applies before any stop, not just alveolar.)
• Before another obstruent, coda /k/ and /kʰ/ become [x], similarly /p⁽ʰ⁾ b/ become /f v/.

Phonology

pʰ	tʰ	tʂʰ	tɕʰ	kʰ
p	t	tʂ	tɕ	k
b	d			ɡ
f	s	ʂ	ɕ	(x)	h
v	z	ʐ	ʑ
m	n		ɲ	ŋ
w	l		j
	ɾ

i	ɨ	u
e	ə	o
æ		ɑ

Difthongs iu eu ei au ai ou oi (áu ui??)

Orthography

Per IPA, except:

• Obviously (?), <r> is /ɾ/ and a digraph with <h> signifies aspiration.
• /j/ is written as <i>; similarly /w/ as <u> when not in absolute syllable-initial position.
• <c x j> are /tɕ ɕ ʑ/ before an orthographic <i> (itself silent before another vowel), /tʂ ʂ ʐ/ elsewhere.
  • A silent <r> occurs before retroflexes deriving from former /ɻ/, but also between a retroflex and /i/. E.g. jail → <jriu> /ʐiw/, dale → <jiu> /ʑiw/.
  • need to decide what to do with coda position
• [x] is treated as an allophone of /kʰ/ and written to the effect.
• <ñ ng> are /ɲ ŋ/.
• The lo vowels are <a á> = /æ ɑ/; unstressed, <a> varies from [a] to [ə]. <ú> is /ɨ/.
  • The acutes here derive from a superscript <h>.