May28 –  A Constructed Language

May28 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 32 letters used are:
a ā b č ç d e ē f g h i ī k l m n ň o ō p r s š t u ū w x y ž ' — c j q v z aren'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 4 short vowels (7 phones), 5 long vowels, and 3 diphthongs. The diphthongs are: [ɔi] oi, [ai] ai, and [au] au. Any other vowel sequences are disyllabic.

Short Vowels

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

Long Vowels

	front										central		back
high	iː	ī	-								-		-								uː	ū
high-mid	-				eː	ē	-				-		-				oː	ō	-
low	-										-		ɑː	ā	-

Consonant Qualities

There are 29 onset consonant phonemes using 29 phones and 13 coda consonant phonemes using 16 phones.

Onset Consonants

		labial				coronal						dorsal								guttural
nasal	voiced	m	m	-		n	n	-				ɲ	ň	-						-
stop	voiceless	p	p	-		t	t	-				kʲ	ky	k	k	kʷ	kw	-		ʔ	'
	voiced	b	b	-		d	d	-				gʲ	gy	g	g	gʷ	gw	-		-
affricate	voiceless	-				t͡ɬ	tl	-		t͡ʃ	č	-								-
	voiced	-				-				d͡ʒ	ž	-								-
fricative	voiceless	-		f	f	ɬ	hl	s	s	ʃ	š	ç	ç	-				χ	x	h	h
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	-				ʔ	'
affricate	voiceless	-				-				t͡ʃ'	č	-								-
fricative	voiceless	-		f	f	-		s	s	ʃ	š	ç	ç	-				χ	x	-
rhotic	voiced	-				-		r	r	-		-								-
vocoid	voiced	-				l	l	-				-								-

Phonotactics

Onsets

• The onset is either a single consonant phoneme or a cluster.
• The 15 onset clusters are: pl, bl, kl, gl, pr, br, kr, gr, tr, dr, xr, xl, py, by, and my.

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 an obstruent.
• A coda nasal may assimilate to the following onset: the allophone [m] appears before p, m, the allophone [n] appears before t, č, ', d, n, h, the allophone [ɲ] appears before ň, ç, y, and the allophone [ŋ] appears otherwise.

Vowel Allophones

The allophone of a short vowel depends on whether it's in a closed or open syllable and, if closed, whether it's followed by a nasal or liquid consonant, as shown in the following table:

Vowel Allophones

	Closed			Open
	+ N	+ l/r	Other
i	iN	ɪ	i
e	ɛN	ɛ	ɛ
a	ɑN	a	ɑ
o	oN	ɔ	o

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 is extraheavy, stress it;
• else if the penult is heavy, stress it;
• else if the ultima is heavy, stress it;
• else stress the penult.

Words of 1 syllable are unstressed if light (-V) 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	ī	ē	ai	oi	au	ā	ō	ū
VC	iy	ey	ay	oy	ew	aw	ow	iw

Consonant Alternations

Coda nasal letters alternate according to the following onset: m appears before p, b, and m, while n appears otherwise.

The consonants r, l, y, and w may combine with a preceding consonant to form a single consonant or onset cluster, as shown in the following table; combinations which remain coda + onset are not shown.

Consonant Alternations

base

m

n

p

t

k

(')

b

d

g

s

x

h

base + w

m

-

p

kw

kw

w

b

gw

gw

x

f

f

base + y

my

ň

py

č

ky

y

by

ž

gy

š

ç

ç

base + l

-

-

pl

tl

kl

l

bl

dl?

gl

hl

xl

hl

base + r

-

-

pr

tr

kr

r

br

dr

gr

hr

xr

hr

The notation -^j indicates that t, d, s, x, and h act as if combined with y.

MOA Alternation

The voiced and voiceless stops and affricates are distinguished only at the start of a morpheme. At the end of the morpheme before a vowel, p, t, k, and č appear after consonants and b, d, g, and ž appear after vowels. The corresponding ejectives appear before a consonant or finally.

page started: 2017.Jun.04 Sun
current date: 2017.Jun.05 Mon
content and form originated by qiihoskeh

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