Emeigu

Emeigu (Emeigu: The language of Eigu) is an isolating-fusional ergative-dechticaetiative language.

Phonology

Phoneme Inventory

Emeigu distinguishes the following consonants:

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive/Affricate	p /p/ b /b/	t /t/ d /d/		č /ʨ/	k /k/ g /g/
Fricative			s /s/	š /ɕ/		h /h/
Nasal	m /m/		n /n/	ny /ɲ/	ng /ŋ/
Liquid	w /w/		r /ɾ/ l /l/	y /j/

There are five vowel phonemes, /i e a o u/, represented by i e a o u, as well as five diphthongs, all falling: /ai au ei eu oi ou/, ai au ei eu ou. In native words, /o u/ only occur in closed syllables.

Orthographically, the diphthongs are distinguished from two discrete vowel nuclei with an apostrophe, e.g. tai /tai/ ta'i /ta.i/. /ng/ is distinguished from /ŋ/ the same way.

Syllable Structure

Emeigu has a simple (C)V(m n t s) syllable structure, with the caveat that coda s only occurs after /a/.

Allophony

-/n/ assimilates to the point of articulation of any following consonant /ankas/ [ɐŋ'kas]

-Unstressed vowels, and stressed vowels in closed syllables, tend to be realised as lax [ɪ ɛ ɐ ɔ ʊ], except after a palatal, where /a/ tends to be realised as [æ].

Verbal Morphology

Emeigu verbs are conjugated for voice, mood, tense and transitivity.

The Verbal Noun

The verbal noun is the citation form of the verb. It is formed by -ni, -ini after a consonant: kimini eat, nauni say, namani bite. The only verbal inflection which may occur before the verbal noun is for voice, e.g. namuni bite something, kimasini eat oneself.

Voice

Tanemantin verbs are marked for one of three voices: Default, Antipassive, and Reflexive.

The default is the unmarked voice: kim-, nau-, nama-.

The antipassive is marked by -u after plain stem, which displaces any final a or e. After monosyllabic stems ending in a vowel and after i o e, it is -yu: kimu-, nauyu-, namu-.

The reflexive is marked by -(a)s after the stem: kimas-, naus- namas-.

Mood

Emeigu verbs