Kalo

Phonology

Consonants

	labial	dental	palatal	velar	glottal
stops		/t/ t		/k/ k - /kʷ/ kw
nasals	/m/ m	/n/ n	/ɲ/ ny
approximants	/w/ w		/j/ y		/h~ɦ/ h

Stops

• t - /t/ >> /tʰ/
• k - /k/ >> /kʰ/
• kw - /kʷ/

Nasals

In anyomo each nasal consonant has a geminate counterpart, and gemination is lexically contrastive.

• m - /m/ >> /mː/
• n - /n/ >> /nː/
• ny - /ɲ/ >> /ɲː/

Approximants

• h - /ɦ/
• w - /w/
• y - /j/

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	e	o
Open	a

There are only three phonemic vowels: /a e o/. They can be long or short and be one of three tones. Length can be lexical, but tone is strictly phonemic.

• aàáeèéoòó

Tones

There are three phonemic tones, traditionally described as mid, high, and low; in transcription the mid tone is unmarked, and the high and low tones are indicated with acute and grave accents respectively.

	high	mid	low
front	é	e	è
central	á	a	à
back	ó	o	ò

Morphosyntax

anyomo is an agglutinative language, where words use suffix complexes for a variety of purposes with several morphemes strung together.

Pronouns

	Singular	Plural
1	o-	wà-
2	ko-	kwà-
3	∅	yà-

Aspect

imperfective

• -a

perfective

• -e

• They have arrived.
• I've bought it.
• We all went.
• This morning I ate breakfast.

durative

• -á

• I'll read, and you listen.
• We will do it, and you all watch.
• Sit for a while. I'll be right back.
• She likes to eat standing up.
• Smiling, he said, "I'm sorry."

progressive

• -ó

• She is reading.
• Mom is making a phone call.
• Who is taking a shower in there?
• The cleaning lady is cleaning our room right now.
• Yesterday at 7pm, we were eating dinner.
• I am working now. It's not convenient for me to leave.

Lexicon

stems

• nyom - speak; talk; converse; chat; discuss
• h - walk; go (away); run; move (of vehicle); visit; leave