KLH3 –  A Constructed Language

KLH3 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 26 letters used are:
a á c e é f h i í k l m n o ó p r s t u ú v x y z ' — b d g j q w aren't used.

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

Vowel Qualities

There are 4 short vowels and 5 long vowels. The 3 diphthongs are: [ai] ay, [au] aw, and [ɔi] oy.

Vowels

	front								central		back
high	i i:	i ii	-						-		-						u:	u
high-mid	-		e:	e ee	-				-		-		o o:	o oo	-
low-mid	-				ɛ	e	-		-		-
low	-								-		ɑ ɑ:	a aa	-

High tone is marked with an acute accent, which appears on both letters representing a long vowel. Low tone is unmarked. If one vowel of a pair has the acute and the other doesn't, the vowels are disyllabic.

Consonant Qualities

There are 18 consonant phonemes using 31 phones.

Consonants

		labial				coronal						dorsal						guttural
nasal	voiced	m	m	-		-		n	n*	-		ɲ	n*	ŋ	n*	-		-
stop	voiceless	p	p	-		-		t	t	-		-		k	k	-		ʔ	'
	aspirated	pʰ		-		-		tʰ		-		-		kʰ		-		-
	ejective	p'		-		-		t'		-		-		k'		-		-
	voiced	b		-		-		d		-		-		g		-		-
affricate	voiceless	-				t͡ɬ	tl	-		t͡s̺	c	-						-
	voiced	-				-				d͡z̺		-						-
fricative	voiceless	-		f	f	ɬ	zl	s̻	z	s̺	s	ç	x*	x	x*	-		h	h
rhotic	voiced	-				-		r	r	-		-						-
vocoid	voiced	-				l	l	-				j	y	-		w	w	-

The consonants s and c are grooved (whistling) while z is flat (hissing).

Phonotactics

• The voiced stop allophones appear between vowels while the voiceless allophones appear in other onset positions.
• The ejective stop allophones appear before the glottal stop while the aspirated voiceless allophones appear in other coda positions.
• The allophone [ç] appears before i, ii, and y and after i, ii, ee, ay, and oy; otherwise the allophone [x] appears.
• The allophone [ɲ] appears before y and the allophone [ŋ] appears before k; otherwise, the allophone [n] appears.

• Any single consonant may be an onset.
• An onset may also be null.
• The following onset clusters may appear: pl and kl.

The following rhyme types appear:

-V, -V:, -VV, -VC, -V:C, -VVC, and -VCC (where VV represents a diphthong).

• A coda nasal has the same point of articulation as a following stop, affricate, or nasal.
• The glides y and w don't appear in codas but combine with the preceding vowel to form diphthongs and long vowels.
• The sonorants m, n, r, and l appear as codas only after short vowels.
• The following coda clusters may appear: mp, nt, ntl, nc, nk, lp, lt, ltl, lc, lk, rp, rt, rtl, rc, rk, rf, rz, rs, and rx.

Prosody

The pitch accent is lexically-based.

Morphophonology

Where necessary, e is inserted.

Each morpheme may have a single accented syllable. The accented syllable of the complete word form is the last such syllable but if no such syllable appears in the word form, the first syllable of the root receives the word accent (except for unaccented clitics). Examples:
(1) wá-hook-le-r becomes wáhookler
(2) 'ó-hook-í-to-k becomes 'ohookítok
(3) hook-'a-m-z becomes hóók'amez

When a vowel-initial morpheme follows a long vowel or diphthong, the long vowel or diphthong reverts to a vowel + glide sequence.

Alternations

	+ y	+ w
i	ii	u
e	ee	aw
a	ay	aa
o	oy	oo

The glide y is deleted before i and ii and the glide w is deleted before u.

page started: 2016.Jul.12 Tue
current date: 2016.Jul.12 Tue
content and form originated by qiihoskeh

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