Tanemantin

Tanemantin is one of the Ke:tic languages and a descendent of the classical language Sarim.

Phonology

Tanemantin distinguishes between 17 consonant phonemes

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive/Affricate	p /p/	t /t/	ts /ts/	ch /c/	c /k/
Fricative	ph /ɸ/	th /θ/	s /s/			h /h/
Nasal	m /m/		n /n/	ny /ɲ/
Liquid	w /w/	l /l/	r /ɾ/	y /j/

There are five vowel phonemes /i e a o u/. Length is phonemic, and long vowels are distinguished with macrons. There are also three diphthongs, all falling: /ai au ei eu oi ou/.

Stress

Stress in Tanemantin is non-phonemic, always falling on the penultimate syllable of the word unless an adjacent syllable has a long vowel nucleus, in which case the stress shifts to that syllable. If both the final and antepenultimate vowels are long, stress falls on the final vowel. Monosyllabic semantic words are stressed, grammatical particles are not.

Syllable Structure

Tanemantin has a (C)V(C) syllable structure. Word-internally, /n/ is the only coda consonant that occurs. Word-finally, /m n t θ s h/ are permissible coda consonants.

Allophony

- Word-internal coda /n/ is realised as a nasal at the same point of articulation as the following consonant, e.g. /inɸe/ [ɪm'ɸe]; /ankas/ [ɐŋgɐs].

- Tanemantin has only voiceless stops. They are realised as either plain or lightly aspirated in most environments, except after a nasal where they are realised as voiced. Word final /t/ is realised as unreleased as unreleased.

- /h/ may be realised [x] word-finally.

- The short vowels /a e i o u/ tend to be realised as [ɐ ɛ ɪ ɒ ʊ] except word-finally, where they are realised closer to their cardinal values.

- The long vowels /a: e: i: o: u:/ have a tendency to develop a schwa-like glide: [aə eə iə oə uə].

Nominal Morphology

Tanemantin nouns have two genders: animate and inanimate. Animate nouns include humans, animals, deities and spirits, aswell as certain other words such as inim 'the Sun'. Inanimate nouns are everything else. Tanemantin nouns are also declined for two cases: Absolute and Ergative, aswell as for plurality. Case markers follow

Plurality

Each gender has a different plural morpheme:

Animate nouns have plurals in -me. If a noun stem ends in Vt or Vh, this becomes V:, whist stem-final -n/m after a vowel is lost, without vowel lengthening. If a stem ends in a consonant cluster, an epenthetic -i- is inserted.

Inanimate nouns form plurals with -ā. After a long vowel, and monosyllabic words ending in a short vowel, this becomes -yā. Polysyllabic words ending in a short vowel lengthen the vowel.

Animate nouns are always marked for plurality. Inanimate nouns are never marked for plurality if their noun phrase includes a number or an adjective indicating plurality such as pei 'some', and plural marking in other situations is optional.

Absolutive Case

The absolutive case is unmarked. Stems ending in a consonant cluster or non-permitted coda have an epenthetic -e, e.g. mach- 'house' has the absolutive singular form mache.

Ergative Case

The ergative case is marked by the morpheme -n, -an after a consonant, and -ne following a long vowel except in the case of the inanimate plural morpheme, which becomes -en.