Amòssi

Phonology

Phonemes

Consonants

There are 30 phonemic consonants in the inventory of Amòssi.

Consonants
	Bilabial		Labiodent.		Alveolar		Palato-alv.		Retroflex		Velar		Uvular		Glottal
Nasal		m				n						ŋ
Plosive	p				t	d					k	g	q		ʔ
Affricate					ʦ				ʈʂ	ɖʐ
Fricative				v	s		ɕ		ʂ	ʐ	x				h
Lateral Approximant						l
Rhotic						r								ʁ

The chart above shows 23 of the 30 phonemic consonants. The additional 7 consonants form two different series: the velarized alveolar series, and the labio-velar series:

-The velarized alvelolar series is similar to the "emphatic" consonants of the Semitic languages. Only certain alveolar consonants can be velarized phonemically, but phonetically in many dialects, other consonants are velarized as well. The series consists of 5 of the "plain" alveolars in the chart above: /n t d s l/, whose velarized counterparts are: /nˠ tˠ dˠ sˠ ɫ/. The distinction can easily be seen in minimal pairs such as s and ṣ (/s/ and /sˠ/ respectively); the former means 'of, from', while the latter means 'and'.

-The labio-velar series is much smaller, and only consists of 2 phonemes: /kʷ gʷ/. Rather than being simply /k g/ with a secondary articulation, however, they are literally a /k g/ sound pronounced with the lips rounded. However, because the distinction is somewhat difficult to hear, especially for non-native speakers, many dialects have either neutralized the distinction (i.e. merging /k g/ and /kʷ gʷ/), or strengthened the distinction (i.e. strengthening /kʷ gʷ/ to /kp gb/, labio-velar stops). But, in the standard Amòssi dialect, the distinction is a labialized stop.

Vowels

There are 9 contrasting (short) vowels in the standard Amòssi dialect. In addition, there are 4 contrasting nasalized vowels, as well as lengthened vowel counterparts to each short vowel (nasalized vowels excluded).

Vowels
	Front		Central		Back
Close	i	y				u
Close-Mid		ø			ɤ
Open-Mid	ɛ					ɔ
Near-Open			ɐ
Open					ɑ

As mentioned earlier, each of these 9 vowels has a long counterpart: /i: y: u: ø: ɤ: ɛ: ɔ: ɐ: ɑ:/. In addition, 4 of these vowels has a nasalized counterpart: /ɑ̃ ɛ̃ ɔ̃ ũ/.

Clusters

Consonants

In terms of consonant clusters, Amòssi is quite lenient in sounds that are allowed to be put together in the beginning and in the middle of words, especially compared to English. Take the words pšurtenn ('part, piece, chapter') and aìknro ('we know how to...') for example. However, the rules regarding final clusters of consonants is much stricter; in fact, words can only end in vowels, velar consonants (excluding labio-velar consonants), coronal consonants (includes alveolar, velarized alveolar, palato-alveolar, and retroflex consonants), or uvular consonants.
For more information, see the section of Phonology regarding syllable structure.

Vowels

Although it may seem otherwise, Amòssi does not allow diphthongs, either. It might they are at first because vowels in hiatus are not pronounced in separate syllables, and they are not separated with a buffer consonant such as [ʔ j w] or other. Simply put, vowels in hiatus are non-contrastive with any separate vowel (only with other vowels in hiatus) because they derive from the structure (C)VCV(C), in which the middle consonant was eroded due to sound changes. Moraically, two vowels in hiatus are quite similar to long vowels, in that both are bimoraic, but contained in one syllable. In other words, there are no diphthongs in Amòssi because one vowel does not "glide" to another, but each are fully pronounced within one syllable.
Clusters of vowels can easily be seen in many places, the most common of which is in verb conjugation (prevocalic /i u y/ are not being considered because it is widely accepted that they are actually pronounced [j w ɥ]), specifically in the present tense conjugation, where a verb ending in -V in the 1st person singular ends in -ṇVi (-ṇi when V is /i/). However, they are also found in several common native words, such as hao, 'two' and heišš, 'you (singular)'