The Jul21 Constructed Language

Jul21 Phonology and Orthography

The orthography used here is a transliteration of the native writing system, with doubled letters substituting for diacritical marks. The 30 letters used are a â b c d e ê f g h i î j k l m n o ô p q r s t u û w x y '; the letters v z aren't used.

In addition to the above, the letter ɪ represents an i that gets deleted under certain phonological circumstances; it's used in the grammar and vocabulary.

The proposed phonetic values are given below. The 1st table shows the 21 consonant phones (20 phonemes) that can appear while the 2nd table shows the 5 short and 5 long vowels; the corresponding orthography is also given. Letters marked with an asterisk * appear in more than one place in the tables.

Consonants

		Labial				Coronal				Dorsal						Guttural
Stops	V'less	p	p	-		t	t	-		-		k	k	-		'	ʔ
	Voiced	b	b	-		d	d	-		-		g	g	-		-
Nasals	Voiced	m	m	-		n*	n	-		-		n*	ŋ	-		-
Affricates	V'less	-				-		c	t͡ʃ	-						-
	Voiced	-				-		j	d͡ʒ	-						-
Fricatives	V'less	-		f	f	s	s	x	ʃ	-				q	χ	h	h
Trills	Voiced	-				r	r	-		-						-
Approximants		w	w	-		l	l	-		y	j	-				-

Vowel Phonemes

	Front								Central		Back
High	i î	i i:	-						-		-				u û	u u:
High-Mid	-		ê	e:	-				-		-		ô	o:	-
Low-Mid	-				e	ɛ	-		-		o	ɔ	-
Low	-						a â	a a:	-		-

• The diphthongs are ai [ai], au [au], and oi [ɔi].

Syllables and Stress

Syllables are (C(L))V(V|L|N)(C), where N is homorganic to the following consonant. Any single consonant may appear as an onset; onset clusters are limited to (most) obstruents plus a liquid, [j], or in some cases [w]. Post-resonant coda consonants are limited to voiceless obstruents.

There are a number of rules for accent placement, both phonological and morphological:

• Only one of the last 3 syllables may be accented.
• If no other rule applies, the antepenult is accented (assuming 3 or more syllables).
• A heavy penult supercedes the antepenult.
• An accentable root supercedes any prefix.
• A polarity suffix supercedes the root.

Vowel Combinations

Certain 2-vowel sequences combine into a single long vowel or diphthong:

Vowel Combinations

	+ i		+ u		+ a
i	î	i:	î	i:	ê	e:
e	ê	e:	yô	jo:	â	a:
a	ai	ai	au	au	â	a:
o	oi	ɔi	û	u:	ô	o:

Other Phonotactics

A resulting y may combine with the preceding consonant:

• ty and cy become c
• dy and jy become j
• sy and xy become x
• ly and 'y become y
• y is syllabified to i after r, q, and w

Coda m and n may assimilate to the following onset's point of articulation; this is normal within words.

page started: 2014.Jul.22 Tue
current date: 2014.Jul.27 Sun
content and form originated by qiihoskeh

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