The Glossotechnia deck

Glossotechnia is released under the least restrictive Creative Commons license, CC BY 4.0. That is, you can do anything with it (including manufacture decks and sell them for a profit) as long as you credit me (Jim Henry III) as the inventor of Glossotechnia.

This is a list and description of the cards found in my Glossotechnia decks. You are welcome to create your own variant decks for faster play, greater accessibility to younger players or those less familiar with linguistics jargon, etc.

Phoneme cards

Each Phoneme card consists of an IPA symbol written large, below which are written a featural description of the phoneme and one or more examples of that phoneme in words from English or other languages. If the only perfect examples of the phoneme are in other languages, I try to give an approximation in English as well. For instance,

Besides the specific phoneme cards, there are two Wildcards and a Fill Gap card.

 

Phoneme Fill gap Specify a phoneme that clearly fills a gap in the current phoneme inventory.

The phonemes in my main deck are:

Vowels: i, I, y, e, ɛ, ø, æ, ɑ, ɨ, ə, ɯ, u, ʌ, ʊ, o, ɔ

Consonants: m, n, ɲ, ŋ, N, p, b, t, d, c, k, g, q, ʔ, Φ, β, f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, ʂ, ç, ʝ, x, h, l, r, ɹ, j, w, ʘ, ɻ, ǁ

Other: Wildcard, Fill Gap

ɑ, i, u, æ, p, t, k, f, l, j, s, m, n and Wildcard all occur twice in the deck.

Phonemic Contrast cards

 

Phonemic contrast Tone Place above the vowel array. While in play, tone is phonemic. The player who plays this card specifies how many and what tones are used. Anyone may complicate or simplify the tone system with a Phoneme Merge or Phoneme Split card.

 

Phonemic contrast Palatalization Place above the consonant array. While in play, palatalized versions of all consonants are available.

The phonemic contrast cards are:

• Palatalization
• Labialization
• Aspiration
• Affricate [create affricate versions of all fricatives currently in play]
• Ejective [create ejective versions of all plosives currently in play]
• Voicing [can affect the vowels or the consonants, but not both at once]
• Nasalization
• Rounding
• Length
• Tone

The Voicing card occurs twice in the deck.

It might be better to let the player who places down one of these cards optionally specify a subset of phonemes that the contrast applies to; for instance, applying only to fricatives or plosives, or alveolars or velars, or whatever, instead of all consonants.

Syllable cards

My original deck had a single set of cards for syllable structures: each labeled with a large-print abbreviation like CV, CVC, etc, followed by a smaller-print expansion of the abbreviation ("consonant-vowel", etc.). Later I've created decks with two sets of onset and rime cards, which independently specify the initial consonant or cluster of a syllable, and the vowel perhaps followed by a final consonant or cluster.

 

Syllable onset/rime Wildcard Specify a syllable onset or rime structure available as long as this card is in play.

 

Syllable rime VN vowel + nasal consonant Ex.: /-an/, /-um/

Syllable onsets: C, (null), PF, FF, FP, FPA, PN, FN, NP, NF, CA, NN, Wildcard
(C = any consonant, F = fricative, P = plosive, N = nasal, A = approximant)
C, (null), and CA occur twice in the deck.

Syllable rimes: V, VN, VC, VPF, VFP, VNF, VNP, VA, VAC, C [syllabic consonant], Wildcard
V, VA, VN and VC each occur twice in the deck.

Syntax cards

Each syntax card specifies a word order to be used for the game language. They have a large-print brief statement of the rule (e.g., "SVO"), below which are a more explicit statement of the rule and one or more examples in English or pseudo-English of how that rule works.

 

Syntax head-modifier Adjectives follow nouns; adverbs follow verbs. dragon scaly the eats voraciously

 

Syntax postpositional Postpositions follow their objects; postpositional phrases precede their heads. shelf on books cave in treasure

Syntax cards: SVO, SOV, VSO, OVS, OSV, VOS, V2, Topic-Comment, Comment-Topic, [?] head-modifier, modifier-head, prepositional, postpositional, Wildcard
SVO, SOV, VSO, head-modifier, modifier-head, and prepositional all occur twice in the deck.

Sound change, Grammar change, Meaning change, and Action cards

I'm not going to give layout diagrams for these cards, because they're all pretty straightforward: a small caption saying [Sound change / Grammar change / Meaning change / Action], a title in large print, and small-print text saying what the effect of the card is.

Sound change

• Sound shift: Play a phoneme card that matches at least one feature with a phoneme already in play, discarding the old one and replacing the old phoneme with the new one in existing words.
  Draw another card at the end of your turn.
• Phoneme Merge: Discard a phoneme card currently in play, specifying another phoneme in play with which it merges. (The two must match on at least one feature.)
• Phoneme split: Play a phoneme card that matches at least one feature with a phoneme already in play. Specify the context(s) where the old phoneme changes to the new one in existing words.
  Draw another card at the end of your turn.
• Eliminate cluster: Discard a syllable onset or rime card currently in play which allows two or more consonants in a row. Specify how you want this to affect existing words with that kind of cluster. (E.g., insert a vowel; delete the first or second consonant; ...)
• Eliminate contrast: Send a Phonemic Contrast card currently in play to the discard pile, eliminating this contrast also in existing words.
• Chain shift: Play a phoneme card from your hand, and send a phoneme card in play to the discard pile. Specify a chain of sound shifts affecting any number of phonemes.
  Draw another card at the end of your turn.
• Syncope: Specify a phoneme and a context in which it will disappear. (The current syllable patterns must allow the resulting clusters or diphthongs.) If the phoneme no longer occurs in any words, send its card to the discard pile.
• Metathesis: Specify a sequence of two phonemes, or two types of phoneme, and optionally a limiting context; these sounds swap positions in existing words.
• Decrease Phoneme Limit -1: If the maximum number of phoneme cards are already in play, send one to the discard pile and merge that phoneme into another.
• Decrease Phoneme Limit -2: If the maximum number of phoneme cards are already in play, send two to the discard pile and merge each of those phonemes into another.
• Increase Phoneme Limit +1
• Increase Phoneme Limit +2

Grammar change

• Add inflection: Instead of coining a new word, think of an inflection (prefix, suffix, mutation, infix...). Then show what it means and how it's used with two or more previously coined words.
• Add inflectional category: Specify a category (e.g., case, number, tense, aspect, etc.) for which the language will inflect, and the types of words to which it applies. [Not playable if Isolating.]
• Drop inflection: Pick an inflection (prefix, suffix, mutation, infix...) previously introduced and eliminate it from the language.
  Optionally, you may use your word-coining turn to show how the same meaning is expressed with stand-alone words.
• Secondary word order: Play a syntax card from your hand without discarding a syntax card of the same type already in play. Specify the conditions when this alternate word order is used (e.g., questions, subordinate or relative clauses, superlatives, emphasis, etc.).
  Draw another card at the end of your turn.
• Back-formation: Specify a morpheme that occurs within one or more previously coined words, in place of coining a new word.

Meaning change

• Extend meaning: Instead of coining a new word, take an existing word and give it a new sense or broader meaning (This may or may not be related to its original meaning.)
• Restrict meaning: Instead of coining a new word, take an existing word with a broad meaning or multiple meanings and give it a more restricted sense.

Action

• Constraint: The player you designate must, on their next turn, coin a word of a specified part of speech or in a specified semantic domain — your choice.
  Place this card in front of the designated player, who will discard it after their next turn.
  [We may need to rename this card if "constraint" has another meaning in the revised rules...]
• Discard anything: Send any card in play to the discard pile, specifying how this loss affects the language and existing words.
  (This can cancel a Constraint that's been placed on you (or another player).)
• Loanword: Instead of coining a new a priori word, borrow a word from any other language. (Adapt its sound to the phonology of the game-language.)
• Swap challenge: Trade your translation challenge card for another player's.
• New challenge: Discard your translation challenge card and draw a new one.
• Rotate Challenges: Each player must pass their Subject card to the player on their right.
• Rotate Challenges: Each player must pass their Predicate card to the player on their left.
• Free pass: On this turn, you may use English (or any other language) to define a new word with no penalty.
• Lookahead: Look through the deck, find a card and immediately play it. Then reshuffle the deck.
• Replay: Look through the discard pile, pick a card, and immediately play it. Then reshuffle the discard pile into the deck.
• Draw 4: Draw four cards, then play one and discard three.
• Draw 3: Draw three cards, then play one and discard two.

Sound Shift (3), Phoneme Split (2), Phoneme Merge (2), Eliminate Contrast (2), Add Inflection (2), Add inflectional category (3), Secondary Word Order (3), Extend Meaning (2), and Constraint all occur more than once in the deck.

Typology cards

• Isolating: While in play, no new inflections may be coined. The player who plays this card may optionally eliminate any number of existing inflectional and derivational morphemes without replacing them.
• Fusional: While in play, any player may coin a fusional affix or mutation on any turn instead of a new root word.
• Agglutinative: While in play, any player may optionally coin an agglutinative affix on any turn instead of a new root word.
• Polysynthetic: While in play, if the previous player coined a root word, you must coin an affix or mutation.

Fusional and Agglutinative each occur twice in the deck.

Suprasegmental

• Initial stress: While in play, the first syllable of each word gets the primary stress.
• Final stress: While in play, the last syllable of each word gets the primary stress.
• Penultimate stress: While in play, the second-to-last syllable of each word gets the primary stress.
• Lexical stress: Any syllable of a word can be stressed; stress can distinguish otherwise identical words.
• Wildcard: Specify any stress or tone system for the language, in effect as long as this card is in play. Other players may complicate or simplify the system with Phoneme Split or Phoneme Merge cards.
  [Is this clear enough?]

Possible cards not yet playtested:

• Phonotactic constraint cards, that let a player set limits on the phonotactics...? For instance, if a FP syllable onset card is in play, a player could use any fricative followed by any plosive regardless of their point of articulation or voicing; a phonotactic constraint card might let a player say "consonant clusters must be of the same voicing". Or it could be used to set a vowel harmony rule, etc. — Maybe separate cards for "same voicing", "same point of articulation", "vowel harmony" etc., or just a few wildcards?
• Epenthesis: Play a phoneme card from your hand and specify a context where it will appear within existing words.
  Draw another card at the end of your turn.
• "Add derivation" card similar to the "Add inflection" card. [In practice, so far the "Add inflection" card seems to be used as often as not to coin derivational rather than inflectional affixes.]
• Cards for other types of sound change not yet provided for, e.g. processes that replace one phoneme with a sequence of phonemes or vice versa.
• Typology or syntax cards for accusative / ergative / active / tripartite / trigger alignment?
• Syntax cards like Topic-Comment and Comment-Topic, for pragmatic word ordering as opposed to the SOV, SVO, VSO etc. word orders.
• The suprasegmental cards to define use of tone and stress have been used, but only in one game; they need more playtesting and perhaps refinement.
• More specialized Meaning Change cards like Pejoration and Amelioration, Archaicize or Revive Archaism...?
• Culture change cards, to be used in combination with rules for devising a culture for the fictional speakers of the game-language

Alternate deck compositions

Instead of having a set of cards for specific, individual phonemes, with wildcards and contrast cards that extend the potential phoneme inventory beyond the phonemes enumerated in the deck, I originally considered having a deck with no phoneme cards at all, but sets of "Point of articulation" and "Manner of articulation" cards. If for instance the Bilabial, Alveolar and Velar Point of Articulation cards, and the Plosive and Nasal Manner of Articulation cards, are in play, the consonant inventory would therefore be /p t k m n ŋ/. Additional Phonemic Contrast cards like Voicing could extend the consonant inventory further. The vowels would require a three-dimensional set of contrasts, perhaps, based on height, front/backness, and open/closeness, plus the existing contrast cards for rounding, length and nasalization. The problem with this is that it would generally produce a very schematic, boring phoneme inventory; but the existing system tends to produce ridiculously asymmetric phoneme inventories. Ideally we want something in between, which produces more naturalistic phoneme inventories. The "Fill Gap" phoneme wildcard is an attempt at fixing this. Maybe there need to be more such cards, more Phonemic Contrast cards, and (relatively) fewer Phoneme cards in the deck?

David Salo suggested making the phonological part of the deck based on Optimality Theory. Instead of phoneme or contrast or syllable rime/onset cards, there would be constraint cards, and cards that promote or demote a constraint, swap the priority of two adjacent constraints, etc. New constraint cards could perhaps be added anywhere in the hierarchy, or perhaps only at the top and bottom... I borrowed a book on Optimality Theory to read up on it, but I'm still not sure how to implement this with a manageable number of constraint cards, or explain the rules of such a version of Glossotechnia in many fewer pages than René Kager takes to explain Optimality Theory in his book on the subject. A group of players who are all already familiar with OT could use such a deck, though.

I've thought about creating a deck for non-linguistically sophisticated players which would use English or pseudo-English orthography in place of IPA characters on the Phoneme cards (maybe called Sound cards in this version?), and a simpler set of Syllable cards in place of the Onset/Rime cards -- maybe without distinction of manners of articulation in consonant clusters, so the types would be simply enumerable as CV, CVC, CCVC, CVCC, CCVCC... The existing game was well received by my younger cousins at family reunions from 2007 onward, including a couple of players as young as six and eight, and a simplified deck might be something children in early grades could learn to play with without having to have an amateur linguist like myself explain things constantly. Another possibility is to leave out the phoneme and syllable cards entirely, and modify the Sound Change cards so they simply refer to altering "sounds" in existing words, without reference to playing or discarding phoneme cards.

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Last modified October 2023