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so i've been messing around with the myth generator (which has yet to generate any myths) and part of that involves generating names. previously i was using this mess of pseudo-esperanto, but then recently somebody wrote this really interesting post on generating naming languages that i decided to completely ape and try to reimplement in my myth generator data format. that's been... interesting.
anyway that eventually took me to reading about the sonority hierarchy, or, why "plant" sounds like a word and "lpatn" doesn't even though they both have the same CCVCC structure for the morpheme (that's 'consonant' and 'vowel'). that naming language post has its own morpheme generator, and mostly they're really simple things like CVC or CVF (F for finalizer) or CLVF (L for liquid). esperanto has phonotactics of SCCVCC. english has phonotactics of CCCVCCCCC (strengths is generally the example people use for a word that has the maximum number of consonant sounds).
the thing that i think is funny is that... oh of course that naming language uses all those simple morpheme structures; when you can have five consonants in a row you gotta do a bunch of work to arrange them in a shape that's not all messed-up sounding, but if you only ever have one, or stuff liquids and sibilants in there, then you don't really have to worry about that. permitting CCVCCC morphemes would require some kind of consonant ordering, which is a topic not addressed at all in that post, so it's all just arranged so the problem never really comes up.
none of this is at all relevant to generating myths.
anyway that eventually took me to reading about the sonority hierarchy, or, why "plant" sounds like a word and "lpatn" doesn't even though they both have the same CCVCC structure for the morpheme (that's 'consonant' and 'vowel'). that naming language post has its own morpheme generator, and mostly they're really simple things like CVC or CVF (F for finalizer) or CLVF (L for liquid). esperanto has phonotactics of SCCVCC. english has phonotactics of CCCVCCCCC (strengths is generally the example people use for a word that has the maximum number of consonant sounds).
the thing that i think is funny is that... oh of course that naming language uses all those simple morpheme structures; when you can have five consonants in a row you gotta do a bunch of work to arrange them in a shape that's not all messed-up sounding, but if you only ever have one, or stuff liquids and sibilants in there, then you don't really have to worry about that. permitting CCVCCC morphemes would require some kind of consonant ordering, which is a topic not addressed at all in that post, so it's all just arranged so the problem never really comes up.
none of this is at all relevant to generating myths.
