NewLang/Phonology

From Allocosm

Phonology Inventory

Consonants

Stops

Rom. IPA
b /b/
p /p/
d /d/
t /t/
g /g/
k /k/
' /ʔ/

Affricates

Rom. IPA
dz /d͡z/
ts /t͡s/

Fricatives

Rom. IPA
v /v/
f /f/
z /z/
s /s/
lz /ɮ/
lh /ɬ/
zh /ʒ/
sh /ʃ/
x /x/
h /h/

Nasals

Rom. IPA
m /m/
n /n/

Liquid/Tap

Rom. IPA
l /l/
r /ɾ/

Vowels

Monophthongs

Rom. IPA
i /i/
u /u/
e /e/
o /o/
a /ɑ/
' /ə/
Long Vowels

There are three vowels for which length can be phonemic.

Rom. IPA
ii /i:/
uu /u:/
aa /ɑ:/

Diphthongs

Rom. IPA
ya /ja/
ay /aɪ/
wa /wa/
au /aʊ/

Phonotactics

Syllable Shape

Syllables are (C)V(C).

Syllable Weight

Syllables can either be light or heavy.

(C)V syllables are:

  • ...light when V is a monopthong of medium length.
  • ...heavy when V is a long vowel or a diphthong.

(C)VC syllables are:

  • ...light if the nucleus is ' .
  • ...heavy otherwise.

Consonant Rules

Consonant Clusters

  • Consonant clusters only occur word-medial.
  • In morphological operations, if consonant clusters are created of different voice quality, the second consonant takes on the voice of the first.

Vowel Rules

  • Vowel hiatus is not allowed between identical monophthong vowels - ' is inserted. Word-medially this is written. Across word boundaries, the sound is often inserted, but never written.
  • In terms of vowel hiatus, a diphthong adjacent by a monophthong that is identical to the closest sound of the diphthong counts as an identical vowel for the previous rule. For example: a followed by ai will have a ' inserted between them: a'ai. So would the sequence of ya and a: ya'a.
  • ' as a vowel never appears in a stressed syllable.

Misc. Rules

  • The apostrophe only appears in the following environments and is pronounced differently depending on its location/:
    • word-medially, between two consonants (as a syllable nucleus), it is pronounced as the vowel [ə])
    • between two vowels, as an onset, it is pronounced [ʔ]
    • word-initial as an onset, followed by a vowel, it is pronounced [ʔ]

Prosody

Stress

Stress is lexical, and does not shift due to morphological operations. Ed. note: this feature may change as the conlang is developed.

Prosodic Foot

The primary prosodic foot is an trochee, that is, a heavy syllable followed by a light one. This has implications for word shapes:

  • In multisyllable words that are derived, inflected, and/or compounded, the word will end in a complete prosodic foot. Morphological operations will include adapting elements that ensure the shape.
  • Words that are bare stems (unaffixed, uncompounded, etc.) can end in any type of syllable.

Orthography Notes

The orthography is mostly just a simple phonemic romanization. There are a few variations.

  • I use digraphs for a few phonemes for aesthetic only
  • The same for the use of the apostrophe for both the schwa and glottal stop - I like how that looks on the page better.