Uínlītska Phonology
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Syllable Structure
BNF
Not quite right yet
WORD ::= SIMPLE | SIMPLE WORD | SIMPLE COMPLEX WORD | WORD SUFFIX SIMPLE ::= STRONGVOWEL | C STRONGVOWEL | Q STRONGVOWEL COMPLEX ::= C WEAKVOWEL | Q C WEAKVOWEL | Q WEAKVOWEL SUFFIX ::= C WEAKVOWEL | C WEAKVOWEL C | C STRONGVOWEL STRONGVOWEL ::= COREVOWEL | COREVOWEL ':' | EXTVOWEL | EXTVOWEL ':' | EXTVOWEL '*' WEAKVOWEL ::= COREVOWEL | COREVOWEL '~' COREVOWEL ::= 'i' | 'ə' | 'ɑ' EXTVOWEL ::= 'e' | 'o' C ::= 'ʃk' | 'sk' | 'p' | 't' | 'tʃ' | LIQUID | SIBILANT | NASAL Q ::= '·' | LIQUID | SIBILANT LIQUID ::= 'w' | 'j' | 'l' NASAL ::= 'm' | 'n' SIBILANT ::= 's' | 'ʃ' | 'f' | 'x' | 'z' | 'ɬ'
Stress
The first syllable of any root takes primary stress. Secondary stress in words of three or more syllables falls immediately before the last consonant, including suffixes. Prefixes are not stressed.
Thus, stress falls on the bold and italic vowels in a, ka, kafta, kaftasa, kaftasat.
Consonants
p b | t d | k g | kʷ gʷ | ʔ | ||
f | θ | s | ʃ | x | xʷ | |
tʃ | ||||||
ɬ l | ||||||
m | n | ŋ | ŋʷ | |||
w | j |
Vowels
Conventional Description
There are 7 short (oral) vowels, 5 long (oral) vowels, and 3 (short) nasal vowels.
IPA | |||||||
ɑ | e | ɛ | ə | i | o | ɔ | |
Short | a | e | ę | ø | i | o | ǫ |
Long | á | é | ǿ | í | ó | ||
Nasal | ā | ø̄ | ī |
IPA-style Tables
Stressed
i iː | ||
e eː | ə əː | o oː |
ɛ | ɔ | |
ɑ ɑː |
Unstressed
i ĩ | ||
ə ə̃ | (o) | |
ɑ ɑ̃ |
The vowel /o/ can occur as a vocalic allophone of /w/.
Sound adaptation in borrowed words
Every foreign phoneme (if possible) maps to the identical phoneme in Uínlītska.
The following general rules tend to apply to phonemes from various languages without exact duplicates in Uínlītska:
Foreign | q | ɢ | ɴ | ɟ | ɰ | kʷ | ʌ |
Uínlītska | k | ɡ | ŋɡ* | j | w | kw | ɑ |
*Inuktitut /ɴ/ becomes /ɡ/ word-initially.
Optional Letters
Almost all affixes (and a noticable number of stems) start and/or end with an "optional letter", and sometimes more than one.
An optional letter is a phoneme or archiphoneme that technically forms part of the morpheme in question, but which may or may not be realised depending on its environment in the whole word.
There are two kinds of optional letter, those that appear unless suppressed, and those that disappear unless invoked.
Within dictionaries and grammars, both kinds are written with superscript letters; the first kind appear unadorned, while the second kind are parenthesized.
In other (i.e. normal) circumstances, isolated morphs do not naturally appear in their underlying forms. If forced to produce the isolated form of a given morph, most native speakers fully pronounce all optional letters.
Ablaut
Base vowel | η | a | á | e | é | ę | i | í | o | ó | ǫ | ø | ǿ |
i-mutation | υ | e | é | i | í | e | i | í | i | í | e | e | é |
u-mutation | ω | ø | ǿ | eu | éu | ęu | i | í | o | ó | ǫ | o | ó |
breaking | ю | ǫ | ǫj | ui | oui | ǫui | |||||||
weak | ы | a | a | i | i | ø | i | í | ø | ø | a | ø | ø |
Sandhi
CCC sequences are phonotactically disallowed, though note that this means phonemic sequences (things like tj /tʃ/ are considered single consonants under these rules). The following is a simple summary of the rules, in the order they are applied, along with contrived examples.
- If an orthographic j occurs anywhere in the CCC sequence, it is moved to the end: mantj /mɑntʃ/ + kun /kun/ > mantkjun /mɑnttʃun/
- Phonemic "double" or "long" consonants lose their first orthographic component: mantkjun /mɑnttʃun/ > mankjun /mɑntʃun/.
Sound Change rules in sc.py format
# Some shenannigans to workaround multi-char symbols and funky mappings * ǫ́ ǫː _ * e ɛ _ onlng = áéíóúýœæ onsht = aeiouyøɛ * 0 ː <onlng>_ * <onlng> <onsht> _ nonipa = aǫþv ipa = ɑɒθw * <nonipa> <ipa> _ blb = pbfvφβmλρ alv = tdθðsznlr vlr = kgxɣфвŋля tv = bdg tu = ptk t = tu~tv sv = vzɣ su = fsx spri = fsxvzɣ ssec = φθфβðв s = su~sv cv = tv~sv cu = tu~su c = cu~cv~ʔʃ C = c~λρlrляwjmnŋ v = eioɛɑɒə vt = jjwjʔwɣ fv = eoɛɒ uv = iəəɑ r = λρlrля w = λρlrляwj rt = bbddgg ro = lrlrlr rv = əəiiɑɑ n = mnŋ nt = bdg nr = wlj na = ɑɑɑ # Read ON as IPA * f v _ * v f #_ * 0 s x_ * 0 s z_ * z t _ * r Ω <vlr>_ * <t> <s> _Ω * Ω 0 _ * g Ω _ * Ω g n_ * Ω g #_ * Ω x _s * Ω x _t * Ω ɣ _ * k x _s * k x _t * l ɬ #h_ * l ɬ <cu>_# * l ɬ <cu>_<cu> * n ŋ _<vlr> * qu kw _ * q k _ * <C> 0 <C>#1_ #t > s, tt > st, d > t, dd > ʔt (et al) * <tu> <su> _<^v> * <tu> <su> #_ * <tu> <su> <^su>_# * <tu> s _<tu> * <tv> ʔ _<tu> * <tv> 0 _<tv> * <tv> <tu> _ #More fricathivization * s ʃ #_<c> * s ʃ _<vlr> * θ ɬ _ * ð z _ * x c ʃ_ * ʃ s _c * ʃ s _<c> #Vowels * o ə _ * øy oj _ * øː ew _ * ø e _ * yː iw _ * y i _ * ɛi ej _ * ɛ Ω _ː * ː 0 Ω_ * ɛ e _ * Ω ɛ _ * ɒː ɑw _ * ɒu əw _ * uː iw _ * u o _ #Eliminate 'r' * r ː <v>_ * r j <alv>_ * r n _<alv> * r d #_ * r l _ * ɫ l _ * l ɬ s_ * l ɬ s_ * s 0 _ɬ #Vowel reduction in noninitial syllables * 0 Ω <v><^v>*<v>_ * 0 Ω Ω<^v>*<v>_ * <fv> <uv> _Ω * ː 0 Ω_ * <n> ƞ Ω_ * <w><n> ƞ#1 Ω_ * Ω 0 _ #Deal with glide and/or vowel clusters and other mess * j i <c>_<c> * j i #_<c> * j i <c>_# * w o <c>_<c> * w o #_<c> * w o <c>_# * i j <c>_<v> * i j <v>_<c> * o w <c>_<v> * o w <v>_<c> #Epenethenetic stuff * 0 a <c>_x<c> * 0 i <c>_s<c> * 0 i <c>_ʃ<c> * 0 a <c>_f<c> #Convert IPA to standard Finla orthography fipa = ɑəɛɒw fnonipa = aøęǫu fsht = aeioø flng = áéíóǿ fnas = ā‽ī‽ø * <alv>ʃ #1j _ * <vlr>ʃ #1j _ * ʃ0 sj _ * <r> <ro> _ * ə ø _ * <fipa> <fnonipa> _ * <fsht> <flng> _ː * ː 0 _ * <fsht> <fnas> _ƞ * øƞ ø̄ _ * ƞ 0 _ * 0 h _ɬ * ɬ l _ * x h _ * ɣ g _