Root Shapes
I know this has probably been discussed a million times over (and I’ve read through many posts looking for answers), but I just can’t wrap my head around how to have varied root shapes.
Like, obviously I can’t only have CVC roots, especially with a small phonemic inventory. There’s just not enough possible roots for every irreducible concept. And I’ve tried. There’s just not enough.
But when I toy with the idea of CVCV, CVCCV, or CVCVC roots, I always feel like they don’t fit.
Say you have a root, /tar/ and another root, /tara/, and there’s an affix of the form -k. I have a CV(C) syllable structure language, so tara-k can work but not tar-k, so an epenthetic vowel is added, the default being (a), making tar-(a)k. Now I have homophones. And while those aren’t necessarily a huge issue, I kinda just want to minimize those at this stage.
I’m also just not very good at making words or affixes longer than a syllable, for whatever reason. Words like CVCV or CVCCV feel like they should be derived from CVC roots to me, despite numerous real world languages having not just unrelated roots of those forms, but also plenty of homophonic roots.
Of course, I’m kind of building the walls around myself with my language, as I have a phonemic inventory of /p’, p, t’, t, k’, k, s, h, m, n, l, r/ & /i, e, ä, u, o/, no vowel length, and no diphthongs, with an epenthetic glottal stop inserted for vowel-initial words, and to prevent vowel hiatus. There’s just not that many one syllable combinations to go around, and it kind of necessitates having at least some longer roots and likely longer affixes as well.
My current system inflects nouns for case and number (though I’m starting to consider reduplication for plurals instead) and verbs for aspect and evidentiality, but I’m having a hard time coming up with affixes that sound good, let alone figuring out what they’re derived from (and yeah, not every affix needs a clear derivation).
What I had it at first was cases all being -CV, then I did -VC, then -(V)C, then -C(V), and recently I’ve been trying for more of a mix with some -(V)C and some -(V)CV, but I’m really struggling with phonoaesthetics, diachronics, and naturalistic grammar, and I’m not sure what my issue really is.
Also I’m having trouble with free vs bound roots. I fully understand the concept I just don’t know how or why to implement them or if I should.