User:Masako/nkala

kamalo

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants	Labial	Coronal	Dorsal
Nasal	m	n
Plosive	p	t	k
Fricative		s
Approximant	w	l	j (y)

Vowels

Vowels	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	e	o
Open	a

Syllable Structure

All syllables are of the form (C)V(N), that is, optional consonant + vowel + optional final nasal, or V, CV, VN, CVN.

Phonotactics

The following sequences are not allowed: /wo, wu, yi, yu, lu, tu/.

Allophony

Because of its small phoneme inventory, kamalo allows for quite a lot of allophonic variation. For example, /p t k/ may be pronounced [b d ɡ] as well as [p t k], /s/ as [z] or [ʃ] as well as [s], /l/ as [ɾ] as well as [l], and vowels may be either long or short.

Parts of Speech

All kamalo words are built from basic roots. These roots are always CVC (consonant+vowel+consonant) and surrounded by various affixes to subtly add nuance and change meaning. The majority of these roots are primarily verbal. The only other part of speech is particles.

Verbals

Verbs are the centerpiece of a kamalo sentence. They can mark for both agent and patient as well as tense. Many simple sentences are composed of only a verb. An unconjugated verb root can consist of as little as a single consonant. As a rule, all verb roots must start and end with a consonant.

• wata

wa-t-a

1s-COP-NPST

I am. / We are.

Nominals

Pronouns

kamalo has the basic pronouns wa- (first person), ni- (second person), and ko- (third person). The above words do not specify number or gender. Thus, ko- can mean "he", "she", "it", or "they". In practice, the plural prefix ka- can be used for plural pronouns. Both subject and object are marked on the verb.

	singular	plural
1	wa-	kawa-
2	ni-	kani-
3	ko-	kako-