Taalen Phonology

Phonology

Consonants

The Taalen phonemic inventory contains 21 consonants. There are bilabial, alveolar, and velar stops, occurring in aspirated and non-aspirated pairs, as well as the single glottal stop. Of these six, the three non-aspirated stops, p t k, are realized as voiced stops in free variation.

The language contains the bilabial, alveolar, and velar voiced nasal sonorants as well, m n ŋ. Of these, n may appear as a syllabic resonant, n̩. When pre-aspirated, the voiced nasals often realize as their voiceless counterparts.

The single alveolar tap may also be realized as an alveolar approximant in some dialects.

There are four fricatives: the unvoiced alveolar s, the unvoiced post-alveolar ʃ, the glottal h, and the lateral fricative ɬ. Of these, the glottal fricative h appears as ç near the front vowels i and e (or their lax counterparts), and often as x when final. The occasionally occurring palatized alveolar fricative sʲ is usually realized as the post-alveolar fricative.

The approximant inventory consists of a voiced bilabial or labio-velar w, a voiced palatal j, and the alveolar lateral approximant l. The lateral approximant may also appear as a syllabic resonant l̩, and when pre-aspirated, becomes the voiceless lateral fricative.

Finally, Taalen contains 3 unvoiced affricates, the laminodental tθ, the alveolar ts, and the lateral tɬ.

The full phonemic consonant inventory can be summarized in the table below:

	Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	pʰ p			tʰ t		kʰ k	ʔ
Nasal	m			n			ŋ
Tap				ɾ
Fricative				s	ʃ		h
Lat. Fric.				ɬ
Approximant	w				j
Lat. App.				l
Affricate		tθ	ts
Lat. Aff.				tɬ

There are morphological and composition process that can change the phonetic realization of the consonantal phonemes; these are discussed in the Transformations section.

Vowels

Taalen makes use of a simple 6-vowel system similar to that of Cherokee.

	Front		Central		Back
High	i				u
Mid		e		o
Low-mid			ʌ
Low			a

The Low-mid unrounded vowel ʌ is usually nasalized.

Two resonants may also be syllabic: n̩ and l̩, as in English button and bottle.

Vowel length is not phonemic, though stressed vowels tend to be held longer, and unstressed vowels tend to be weakened.

Before clusters (i.e. pre-aspirated or pre-nasalized consonants, consonants followed by a glide + vowel, glottal stop + consonant), high and mid vowels tend to realize as their lax counterparts:

i > ɪ, e > ɛ, u > ʊ, o > ɔ

Diphthongs & Glide Clusters

There are eight diphthongs, all falling: aɪ̯, eɪ̯, oɪ̯, ʌɪ̯, aʊ̯, eʊ̯, oʊ̯, and ʌʊ̯.

The diphthongs in ʌ maintain the nasalization common to the phoneme throughout.

The rising diphthongs, here called glide clusters, start with the close vowels ɪ̯ and ʊ̯, or more properly, the glides j and w. There are ten of these clusters: ja, je, jo, jʌ, ju, wa, we, wi, wo, and wʌ.

Both diphthongs and glide clusters are limited in the environments in which they can occur. These limitations are discussed in the Phonotactics section below.

Stress

Taalen words are regularly stressed on the penultimate syllable. The only exception is when an unvoiced plosive ([p t k]) appears non-initially, in which case that syllable is stressed.

Cadarina /ˌka.də.ˈɾi.nə/ : normal stress, with normal Taalen spelling
Catarina /kə.ˈtʰa.ɾi.nə/ : spelling closer to an English standard, with exceptional stress placement

Mutation

Taalen is rich in mutation, partly a result of its polysynthetic typology. There are three primary types of mutation, lenition, nasaliszation, and vocalization. None of the mutations are strictly grammatical in nature, instead resulting from the morphophonology. Because of the nature of some morphemes, it can be difficult to see this, as the surface realization of a particular marker might only be mutation in the majority of cases.

Lenition

Historically, lenition arose most often from sibilants or liquids + stops initially, intervocalically, and from geminate stops. It also arose in syllabic codae, but only affected stops. It creates fricatives from stops, nasals are unvoiced, and fricatives tend to be weakened to approximants.

Nasalization

Arising from nasal assimilation, nasalization mutates unvoiced stops into voiced stops, and voiced stops into nasals.

Vocalization

The most common and complex mutation, vocalization is the primary means by which medial clusters are simplified in Taalen. In addition to voiced consonants becoming vowels, unvoiced consonants usually cause other changes. Some vowels arise simply as a result of compensatory lengthening, which is not technically vocalization, but has been classed as such by the Elder grammarians. In a similar vein, some consonants do not vocalize, but aspirate or otherwise mutate eiether themselves of consecutive consonants or vowels, and these are classed as vocalization mutations as well.

The diphthong-rich vocabulary of Taalen owes much of it's existence to this mutation historically. Many of the non-voiced phonemes caused compensatory lengthening (noted as Long in the summary below), prior to the breaking of long vowels into diphthongs. Here is a characteristic example:

rag- 'to carry'

with

-de a resultative suffix

becomes

raede /ɾəɪ.dɛ/ : stative verb 'to be borne, carried'

Summary of Mutation

Phoneme	Lenition	Nasalization	Vocalization
p	ph or f	b	...
t	th	d	...
c	h	g	...
b	bh or v	m	u
d	dh	n	i
g	gh	ñ	Long
m	mh		u
n	nh		i
ñ	ñh		Long
mh		m	u + devoicing
nh		n	i + devoicing
ñh		ñ	Long + devoicing
f	null	v	Long + aspiration
th	h	dh	Long + aspiration
h	null	gh	Long + aspiration
v	u		u
dh	y		i
gh	Long		Long
s	sh		Long + aspiration
sh	h		Long + aspiration
y	hi	ni	i
r	rh		Long + aspiration
rh			Long + aspiration
l	lh		Long + aspiration
lh			Long + aspiration

Empty cells indicate that no change occurs.

Phonotactics

Syllabic onsets may consist of any consonant. In addition, the following clusters are permitted:

• stop + glide: /pj bj tj dj kj gj/ (only word initially)
• nasal + glide: /nj ŋj mw ŋw/ (*/nw mj/ are not allowed)
• /sv lj/

Syllabic nuclei consist of a single vowel, diphthong, or syllabic resonant. Vowels cannot remain in hiatus (*/aɛ/) but instead become a diphthong or introduce a glide: */iə/ -> /ijə/. The lax vowels /ɪ ʊ æ ø/ cannot appear without a geminate coda (runn /ɾʊnː/ vs. run /ɾun/). The schwa /ə/ cannot appear alone as a vowel in a stressed syllable (the diphthongs /əɪ əʊ/ are allowed).

The coda of a syllable can only be a continuant (though the nasals, liquids, and sibilants are much more common than fricatives) or null. Immediately preceding an onset cluster, no coda is allowed. In compounding, codae often vocalize before a cluster: /tam/ + /bran/ -> /taʊbrən/ (with unstressed /a/ -> /ə/). Geminate consonants are limited to continuants.

Cross-syllable (i.e. medial) clusters are limited and rare.

• nasal + homorganic voiced stop: /mb nd ŋg/
• nasal + glide: /nj ŋj mw ŋw/
• liquid + glide: /lj lw rj rw/
• certain fricative + liquid clusters: /fɾ vɾ θɾ ðɾ ɣɾ θl ðl/
• velar fricative + homorganic glide: /çj xw/ written <hi hu>
• /h/ + voiceless stop: /hp ht hk/ written <hb hd hg>

Syllables are therefore ON, NC, or ONC, where O is onset, N is nucleus, and C is coda. Words tend to be 3 syllables or less.

Orthography

Phoneme

p

t

k

b

d

g

f

θ

h ç x

v

ð

ɣ

Romanization

p

t

c

b

d

g

f

th

h

v

dh

gh

Phoneme

m

n

ŋ

m̥

n̥

ŋ̥

s

ʃ

l

ɬ

ɾ,ɹ

ɹ̥

Romanization

m

n

ñ

mh

nh

ñh

s

sh

l

lh

r

rh

Phoneme

j

w

i

ɪ

ʊ

u

e

ø

o

ɛ

Romanization

y,i

u

i

i+

u+

u

e

eu

o

e

Phoneme

æ

ə

a

ɑ

aɪ

eɪ

oɪ

əɪ

aʊ

oʊ

əʊ

Romanization

ea

a,y

a

aa

ai

ei

oe

ae

au

ou

ao

+ : must be followed by a geminate

The letter y is also used to mark syllabicity on the four resonants: yn = /n̩/, ym = /m̩/, yr = /ɹ̩/, and yl = /l̩/. It is also used to indicate /ə/, as can the simple vowels in unstressed syllables.

U before a vowel is /w/, which never occurs before a back vowel (o or u). In the case where composition brings u before such a vowel, it becomes v: -au + o- = -avo-.

Though vowels cannot remain in hiatus (two sequential vowels which do not indicate a diphthong), they do appear frequently with understood glides between. For example, ia represents two syllables, /i.jə/, and uan can be one or two syllables, /wan/ or /u.wən/. The two syllable reading is usually distinguished with y, making uan (/wan/) and uyn (u.wən or u.wn̩), exactly as the native script does. It can also be indicated in romanization with ', so that the two could be distinguished as uan and u'an. This latter method is a remnant of an older romanization.

The digraph ch does not appear, replaced in mutation by h. The phoneme /ŋ/ is always represented by ñ, even in a cluster: /ŋg/ ñg.

Because Taalen does not allow stops finally, stems or words ending in stops aspirate them, and mark them with ' to indicate their origins:

ragh /ˈɾaɣ/ 'mist'	ragha /ˈɾa.ɣə/ 'mists'
rag'h /ˈɾaɣ/ 'he carries'	ragen /ˈɾa.gɛn/ 'I carry'

A newer romanization is gaining ground, in which such distinctions are not written, and left to the reader to clarify. The use of the apostrophe therefore has acquired an antiquated, victorian feel to its use.

Geminate consonants (such as ll /lː/) are represented by doubling the letter. In the native writing system, a special symbol is used for this (as well as in aa). The geminate digraphs are represented by tth, ddh, ggh, ssh, llh, and rrh (ph and bh only appear as the result of mutation, and thus won't appear geminated).

Links

Taalen Ethnography
Taalen Morphology