Sep14 – A Constructed Language

Sep14 Phonology and Orthography

Legend: Definitions, Terms, <Text>, [IPA], -Tags-, and "Glosses".

Letters and Sounds

The tables show the relevent phonetic symbols (in IPA) with the corresponding orthographic (romanization) symbols. The 29 letters and consonant digraphs used are:
a á b ch d e é f g i í j k kh l m n o ó p r s sh t u ú w y ' — q v x z aren't used.

In the following tables, an asterisk * indicates that the letter is used for more than one sound.

Vowel Qualities

There are 5 vowels and 3 diphthongs. The vowels appear long in stressed ultimas and in stressed open penults (in which cases, the vowel takes the acute accent); otherwise, vowel length isn't distinguished. The diphthongs are: [ai] ai, [au] au, and [ɔi] oi.

All other vowel sequences are disyllabic.

Vowels
front central back

high i i - - - u u

mid - e e - - - o o -

low - a a - -

Vowels
	front	central	back
high	i	i	-	-	-	u	u
mid	-	e	e	-	-	-	o	o	-
low	-	a	a	-	-

Consonant Qualities

There are 20 consonant phonemes using 22 phones.

Consonants
labial coronal dorsal guttural

nasal voiced m m - - n n* - ɲ n* ŋ n* - -

stop voiced b b - - d d - - g g - -

voiceless p p - - t t - - k k - ʔ '

affricate voiced - - d͡ʑ j - -

voiceless - - t͡ɕ ch - -

fricative voiceless - f f - s s ɕ sh - χ kh h h

rhotic voiced - - r r - - -

vocoid voiced - - l l - j y - w w - -

Consonants
	labial	coronal	dorsal	guttural
nasal	voiced	m	m	-	-	n	n*	-	ɲ	n*	ŋ	n*	-	-
stop	voiced	b	b	-	-	d	d	-	-	g	g	-	-
voiceless	p	p	-	-	t	t	-	-	k	k	-	ʔ	'
affricate	voiced	-	-	d͡ʑ	j	-	-
voiceless	-	-	t͡ɕ	ch	-	-
fricative	voiceless	-	f	f	-	s	s	ɕ	sh	-	χ	kh	h	h
rhotic	voiced	-	-	r	r	-	-	-
vocoid	voiced	-	-	l	l	-	j	y	-	w	w	-	-

The allophone [ɲ] appears before y and the allophone [ŋ] appears before g, k, w, and fricatives; otherwise, the allophone [n] appears.
The vocoid h appears only between vowels or initially.
The glottal stop ' doesn't appear initially and is geminate between vowels.

Phonotactics

The onset is either a single consonant phoneme or null; there are no onset clusters.

The following rhyme types appear:

light: -V
heavy: -V:, -VV, -VC
extraheavy: -V:C, -VVC

There are no coda clusters.
The phonemes y and w are vocalized (to i and u, respectively) in coda position, combining with the preceding vowel to form the diphthongs and historically long vowels.

Prosody

If the ultima is extraheavy, it receives the stress; else if the penult is extraheavy or heavy, it receives the stress; else the antepenult receives the stress, assuming the word has an antepenult.

Morphophonology

Long Vowels

In the grammar and vocabulary, each potentially long vowel is marked with an acute accent; the ones that turn out to be insignificant are omitted when the whole word is assembled.

Vowel Insertion

After a stem-final consonant pair, a u is inserted before a following consonant. Also, a u is inserted between a voiceless consonant and a voiced obstruent.

page started: 2016.Sep.16 Fri
current date: 2016.Sep.19 Mon
content and form originated by qiihoskeh

Table of Contents