Feb05 –  A Constructed Language

Feb05 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 b c ch d e f g h i j k kh l m n o p q r s t th u w x y z ' — v isn't used.

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

Vowel Qualities

There are 5 short vowels, 5 long vowels, and 5 diphthongs. The diphthongs are: [ʊi] ui, [ɪu] iu, [ɔi] oi, [ai] ai, and [au] au. All other vowel sequences are disyllabic.

Vowels

	front										central		back
high	iː	ii	-								-		-								uː	uu
high-lax	-		ɪ	i	-						-		-						ʊ	u	-
high-mid	-				eː	ei	-				-		-				oː	ou	-
low-mid	-						ɛ	e	-		-		-		ɔ	o	-
low	-								a aː	a aa	-		-

Consonant Qualities

There are 24 consonant phonemes using 37 phones.

Consonants

		labial				coronal						dorsal								guttural
nasal	voiced	m	m	-		n̪	n*	n	n*	-		ɲ	n*	ŋ	n*	-				-
stop	aspirated	pʰ	p	-		t̪ʰ	t	-				cʰ	c	kʰ	k	-				-
	ejective	p'	b	-		t̪'	d	-				c'	j	k'	g	-				-
	voiceless	p		-		t̪		-				c		k		-				ʔ	'
	voiced	b		-		d̪		-				ɟ		g		-				-
affricate	voiceless	-				-		t͡s	z	t͡ɕ	q	-								-
fricative	voiceless	-		f	f	θ	th	s	s	ɕ	x	ç	ch	x	kh	-				h	h
	voiced	-				-		z		ʑ		-								-
rhotic	voiced	-				-		r	r	-		-								-
vocoid	voiced	-				l̪	l	-				j	y	-		w	w	-		-

• An initial [ʔ] isn't written.

Phonotactics

Onsets

• The onset is either a single consonant phoneme, or a cluster.
• The onset clusters are: py, by, and my.
• The voiced allophones of b, d, j, and g appear after a vowel, liquid, nasal, s, or x; the voiceless allophones appear for all other onsets.
• The voiced allophones of s and x appear after a vowel or liquid; the voiceless allophones appear for all other onsets.

Rhymes

The following rhyme types appear:

light: -V
heavy: -Vː, -VV, -VC
extraheavy: -VːC, -VVC, -VCC

• The consonants y, w, and h don't appear as codas, being vocalized.
• A coda cluster may consist of a liquid or nasal plus a stop or affricate (excluding the glottal stop).
• A coda liquid or nasal can't follow a diphthong or long vowel.

• The voiced allophones of b, d, j, and g appear before a liquid; the ejective allophones appear for all other codas.
• The voiced allophones of s and x appear before b, d, j, or g; the voiceless allophones appear for all other codas.

• Coda n assimilates to the following onset: the allophone [n̪] appears before t, d, n, ', and h, the allophone [n] appears before z and q, the allophone [ɲ] appears before c, j, ch, and y, and the allophone [ŋ] appears otherwise.

Prosody

Words of 3 or more syllables stress the antepenult unless the penult is heavy, in which case they stress the penult.

Words of 2 syllables ....

Words of 1 syllable are stressed if heavy and unstressed if light.

Morphophonology

Long vowels and diphthongs alternate with sequences of short vowels + consonants, the latter appearing before a vowel. The following table shows the possible alternations.

Vowel Alternations

Vː, VV	ii	ei	aa	ou	uu	au	ai	oi	iu	ui
VC-	iy-	ey-	aw-	ow-	uw-	ew-	ay-	oy-	iw-	uy-

Possibly, long vowels can also alternate with short vowel + h.

Consonant Alternations

• Coda nasals alternate according to the following non-glottal onset: m appears before p, b, and m, while n appears otherwise.

The consonant h may combine with a preceding consonant:

• The fortis stops p, t, c, and k become f, th, ch, and kh.
• The affricates z and q become s and x.
• A fricative (other than h) becomes a geminate.

The consonant y may combine with a preceding consonant:

Palatalization

base

m

p

b

f

t

d

th

c

j

k

g

kh

base + y

my

py

by

ch

z

s

ch

q

x

c

j

ch

page started: 2017.Feb.07 Tue
current date: 2017.Feb.07 Tue
content and form originated by qiihoskeh

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