Hive1 –  A Constructed Language

Hive1 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 b d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z ' — c isn't used.
Digraphs are shown in the appropriate subsection.

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

Vowel Qualities

There are 6 short vowels, 5 long vowels, and 3 diphthongs. The diphthongs are: [ɔi] oi, [ai] ai, and [au] au. There are no other vowel sequences.

Short Vowels

	front										central		back
high	i	i	-								-		-								u	u
high-lax	ɪ		-								-		-
high-mid	-				e	e	-				-		-				o	o	-
low-mid	-				ɛ		-				ɜ	y	-				ɔ		-
low	-								a	a*	-		ɑ	a*	-

Long Vowels

	front										central		back
high	iː	ii	-								-		-								uː	uu
high-mid	-				eː	ee	-				-		-				oː	oo	-
low	-								aː	aa	-		-

Consonant Qualities

There are 33 onset consonant phonemes and 12 coda consonant phonemes, the latter using 20 phones. Note that some distinctions made for onsets are not made for codas (except orthographically).

Onset Consonants

		labial				coronal						dorsal								guttural
nasal	voiced	m	m	-		n	n	-				ɲ	nj	-						-
stop	voiceless	pʰ	p	-		tʰ	t	-				kʲʰ	kj	kʰ	k	kʷʰ	kw	-		ʔ	'
	voiced	b	b	-		d	d	-				gʲ	gj	g	g	gʷ	gw	-		-
affricate	voiceless	-				t͡ɬ	tl	-		t͡ʃ	tj	-								-
	voiced	-				-				d͡ʒ	dj	-								-
fricative	voiceless	f	f	-		ɬ	hl	s	s	ʃ	sj	ç	hj	-				χ	x	h	h
	voiced	v	v	-		-		z	z	ʒ	zj	-						ʀ	q	-
rhotic	voiceless	-				-		r̥	hr	-		-								-
	voiced	-				-		r	r	-		-								-
vocoid	voiced	-				l	l	-				j	y	-		w	w	-		-

Coda Consonants

		labial				coronal						dorsal								guttural
nasal	voiced	m	m	-		n	n*	-				ɲ	n*	ŋ	n*	-				-
stop	ejective	p'	p	-		t'	t	-				-		k'	k	-				-
affricate	voiceless	-				-				t͡ʃ	č	-								-
fricative	voiceless	f	f	-		-		s	s	ʃ	sj	ç	hj	-				χ	x	-
	voiced	v	v	-		-		z	z	ʒ	zj	ʝ		-				ʀ	q	-
rhotic	voiced	-				-		r	r	-		-								-
vocoid	voiced	-				l	l	-				-								-

Phonotactics

Onsets

• The onset is either a single consonant phoneme or a cluster.
• The 17 onset clusters are: pr, br, fr, tr, dr, kr, gr, xr, pl, bl, fl, kl, gl, xl, pj, bj, and mj.
• The onset j doesn't appear before i or ii and the onset w doesn't appear before u or uu.

Rhymes

The following rhyme types appear:

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

• A coda cluster may consist of l, r, or a (homorganic) nasal plus a stop or affricate.
• An extraheavy simple coda must be a stop, affricate, or fricative.
• The voiced and voiceless fricatives are allophones with the voiced ones appearing before voiced stops, affricates, and fricatives and the voiceless ones appearing otherwise.
• A coda nasal may assimilate to the following onset: the allophone [m] appears before p, b, m, the allophone [n] appears before t, tj, ', d, dj, n, h, the allophone [ɲ] appears before nj, hj, j, and the allophone [ŋ] appears otherwise.

A coda l, r, or a nasal in a closed (heavy or extraheavy) syllable affects the allophone of the preceding vowel, as shown in the following table:

Vowel Allophones

	+ l	+ r	+ N	else
i	ɪl	ɪr	iN	i
e	ɛl	ɛr	ɛN	e
a	al	ar	ɑN	a
y	-			ɜ
o	ɔl	ɔr	oN	o
u	-			u

Prosody

The stress rules for words of 3 or more syllables are as follows:

• if the ultima is extraheavy, stress it;
• else if the penult isn't light, stress it;
• else stress the antepenult.

The stress rules for words of 2 syllables are as follows:

• if the ultima is extraheavy, stress it;
• else if the penult isn't light, stress it;
• else if the ultima is heavy, stress it;
• else stress the penult.

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

Morphophonology

Vowel Alternations

Long vowels and diphthongs in open syllables 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	ee	ai	oi	au	aa	oo	uu
VC	ij	ej	aj	oj	ew	aw	ow	iw

Consonant Alternations

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

The consonants y, w, and l may combine with a preceding consonant to form a single consonant or onset cluster:

Consonant Alternations

base

m

n

p

t

k

'

b

d

g

s

h

r

l

base + w

m

nw?

p

t

kw

'w

b

d

gw

s

f

ur

ul

base + y

my

ň

py

č

ky

'y

by

ž

gy

š

ç

ir

il

base + l

-

-

pl

z

kl

-

bl

c

gl

-

-

-

-

page started: 2017.Apr.25 Tue
current date: 2017.Apr.25 Tue
content and form originated by qiihoskeh

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