Dec23 –  A Constructed Language

Dec23 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 orthography here is a transliteration of the native script. The 40 letters used are:
B b C c D d F f G g H h I i J j K k L l M m N n O o P p Q q R r S s T t U u X x — A a E e V v W w Y y Z 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 short vowels (phonetically), 5 long vowels, and 8 diphthongs. The diphthongs are [ɪu] iu, [əu] ou, [au] (1), [ai] (1), [əi] oi, [ʊi] ui, [ua] U, and [ia] I. The last 2 alternate with [wa] and [ja].

Vowel Qualities

	front										central		back
high	iː	ii	-								-		-								uː	uu
high-lax	-		ɪ	i*	-						-		-						ʊ	u*	-
high-mid	-				eː	io	-				-		-				oː	uo	-
low-mid	-						ɛ	(2)	-		-		-		ɔ	o*	-
low	-								a aː	(1)	-		-

(1) For [a], the preceding letter is upper case instead of lower case; [aː] is the same, but followed by o and [ai] and [au] are the same, followed by i and u.
(2) The vowel [ɛ] isn't written.
E.g. Toms [taː.mɛs].

Consonant Qualities

There are 20 consonant phonemes using 26 phones.

Consonants

		labial				coronal						dorsal								guttural
nasal	voiced	m	m	-		-		n	n*	-		ɲ	n*	ŋ	n*	-				-
stop	ejective	p'	p	-		-		t'	t	-		-		k'	k	-				-
	voiceless	p		-		-		t		-		-		k		-				ʔ	h
	voiced	b	b	-		-		d	d	-		-		g	g	-				-
affricate	voiceless	-				-				t͡ʃ	c	-								-
	voiced	-				-				d͡ʒ	j	-								-
fricative	voiceless	-		f	f	-		s	s	ʃ	x	ç	q*	-				χ	q*	h	o*
rhotic	voiced	-				-		r	r	-		-								-
vocoid	voiced	-				-		l	l	-		j	i*	-		w	u*	-		-

Phonotactics

Onsets

• The onset is a single consonant phoneme or, initally before a written vowel, null.

Rhymes

The following rhyme types appear:

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

• As consonants, i, u, and o are limited to onsets.

Coda + Onset

• The geminates are mm, nn, pp, tt, kk, '', tc, ff, ss, xx, qq, rr, and ll.
• The ejective coda allophones appear before the nasals and voiceless obstruents while the voiceless plosive coda allophones appear before rhotics, vocoids, and o; [ɛ] is inserted elsewhere.
• The vowel [ɛ] is inserted within a number of other consonant pairs, as well as within sequences of 3 or more non-vocalizable consonants. Note that the word divider usually acts like a consonant in this respect.
• A coda n may assimilate to a following onset: the allophone [ɲ] appears before i (when [j]), the allophone [ŋ] appears before k, g, u (when [w]), and the allophone [n] appears before t, c, d, j, n.

Prosody

Examples

Idos [ja.dɔs],
kOskm [kɛ.has.kɛm].

Morphophonology

page started: 2017.Dec.25 Mon
current date: 2017.Dec.25 Mon
content and form originated by qiihoskeh

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