Kalahá phonology

Phonemes

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p	t		k	(?)
Nasal	m	n		N
Fricative		s			h
Lateral		l
Approximant	(w)		(j)

Romanisation of the consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p	t		k	'
Nasal	m	n		g
Fricative		s			h
Lateral		l
Approximant	u		i

The phone [?] is not regarded as a phoneme by the imperial linguistic society. It enters first in words before a vowel, or breaks up disallowed vowel-clusters. In the romanisation [?] is written as <’> only between vowels.

The approximants [w] and [j] are regarded as allophones of the short vowels /u/ and /i/ by the kalahaic linguists.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid		@
Low		a

Romanisation of the vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid		e
Low		a

/@/ is not regarded as a ”pure” vowel by the kalahaic linguists, but nevertheless as an phonemic vowel.

The ”pure” vowels can be long: /i:/ /u:/ /a:/ which are romanised <ii> <uu> <aa>

Stress

Stress in Kalahá is phonemic, and can fall on any syllable of a lexical root containing a "pure" vowel.

Stress is marked with a <´> on the stressed syllable in the romanisation.

If there are several lexical roots in a word, the primary stress falls on the last stressed syllable, while the other stressed syllables receive secondary stress.

Syllable structure

Syllabic representation

Syllable structure is C(G)V(V)(X), where:

C	is any consonant, including [?] but excluding the approximants
G	is a glide, i.e. one of the two approximants
V	is any vowel
VV	is a long vowel, or an allowed diphthong
X	is any consonant, excluding [?] and the approximants, and with the nasal phonemes neutralising their contrast (to /n/ lets say)

G is not allowed before /@/. Also /j/ is not allowed before /i/ and /w/ is not allowed before /u/.

The allowed diphthongs are:

/ai/	[aI)]
/au/	[aU)]

Imperial moraic representation

The kalahans describes the syllable structure differently, which reminds of a moraic system.

They describe 3 different types of morae:

The opening empty mora:	C-
The opening full mora:	(C)V-
The closing mora:	-VC

Long vowels and diphthongs are described as the vowels belonging to different morae:

ta	ta	op.fu.
taa	ta+a	op.fu.+op.fu.
taat	ta+at	op.fu.+cl.
tat	t+at	op.em.+cl.
tjat	ti+at	op.fu.+cl.
tjaat	ti+a+at	op.fu.+op.fu.+cl.

Allophony

The allophonic rules are described in the order described by the imperial linguistic society. The very first allophonic rule is however specific to my phonemic analysis.

1. /?/ > 0 before a glide.
2. The plosives are pronounced voiced between voiced sounds:
   1. /p/ > [b]
   2. /t/ > [d]
   3. /k/ > [g]
3. The second imperial allophony rule states that short closed vowels are pronounced as approximants, as described above.
4. The velar sounds and /l/ are rounded before /u/ and /w/.
   1. [k] > [k_w]
   2. [g] > [g_w]
   3. [N] > [N_w]
   4. [l] > [5_w]
5. Many sounds are pronounced ”palatalised” before /i/ and /j/
   1. [t] > [ts)]
   2. [d] > [dz)] > [z]
   3. [n] > [J]
   4. [s] > [s\]
   5. [l] > [L]
   6. [k] > [ts\)]
   7. [g] > [dz\)] > [z\]
   8. [N] > [J]

   Note that /n/ and /N/ neutralise in this position.

6. One sound is pronounced differently before /a/:
   1. [l] > [4]
7. The nasal coda (transcripted as /n/) shares the same POA as a following stop:
   1. /n/ + [b] > [mb] <np>
   2. /n/ + [m] > [mm] > [m:] <nm>
   3. /n/ + [d] > [nd] <nt>
   4. /n/ + [n] > [nn] > [n:] <nn>
   5. /n/ + [g] > [Ng] <nk>
   6. /n/ + [N] > [NN] > [N:] <ng>
8. /a/ changes its pronounciation after /w/ or a rounded consonant sound:
   1. [a] > [O]
9. /a/ changes its pronounciation after /j/ or ”palatalised” consonant sound:
   1. [a] > [E]
10. Pre-stressed high vowels are pronounced near-high:
    1. [u] > [U]
    2. [i] > [I]
11. Post-stressed high vowels are pronounced high-mid:
    1. [u] > [o]
    2. [i] > [e]
12. The eleventh imperial allophony rule states that short high vowels form diphthongs with a preceding short /a/, as described above.
13. Vowels that precedes a nasal coda, that is not affacted by rule 6 are pronounced nasalised:
    1. [a] + /n/ > [a~]
    2. [O] + /n/ > [O~]
    3. [E] + /n/ > [E~]
    4. [u] + /n/ > [u~]
    5. [o] + /n/ > [o~]
    6. [i] + /n/ > [i~]
    7. [e] + /n/ > [e~]
    8. [aU)] + /n/ [aU)~]
    9. [aI)] + /n/ [aI)~]

Rule 8-11 and rule 13 also affect long vowels.

Additional allophony, not noted in the imperial notes:

Long (geminated) /l/, ie. /l:/ is pronounced [J\:] before /i/, /j/ and otherwise [d`:].