Kala: Difference between revisions
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* Kala phonotactics does not allow the onsets of adjacent syllables to be identical, nor both to be labialised or palatalised. | * Kala phonotactics does not allow the onsets of adjacent syllables to be identical, nor both to be labialised or palatalised. | ||
** There are a few exceptions to this, such as '''tata''' for the informal/familiar form of father, etc. | |||
* Syllables beginning with /l/ do not occur as the first syllable of a morpheme. | * Syllables beginning with /l/ do not occur as the first syllable of a morpheme. | ||
Revision as of 03:56, 23 March 2013
- Kala is meant to be a simple and euphonic personal conlang.
- Many lexical entries are inspired/influenced/borrowed by/from any number of natlangs
Pronunciation
- Where ~ appears, it indicates free variation between phonemes.
Vowels
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i~i: (i) | u~u: (u) | |
Mid | e~e: (e) | o~o: (o) | |
Open | a~a: (a) |
Diphthongs
- Both of the falling diphthongs as well as uai and yao only occur word finally.
falling
- [aɪ~aɪ:] - ai
- [aʊ~aʊ:] - ao
rising
- [wa~wa:] - ua
- [waɪ~waɪ:] - uai
- [ja~ja:] - ya
- [jaʊ~jaʊ:] - yao
- [je~je:] - ye
- [jo~jo:] - yo
Consonants
- <s> & <ts> are /ʃ/ and /tʃ/ respectively, unless immediately preceded or followed by one another, then <s> is always /s/ and <ts> is always /tʃ/.
- However, one could pronounce them either way (e.g. always /s/ & /ts/) and still be understood.
- Example:
- sitsa - /'si:.tʃa/ - warmth, heat / warm, hot / to heat up
- tsasu - /'tʃa:.su/ - cursive writing; having successive letters joined together
Phonotactics
- Kala phonotactics does not allow the onsets of adjacent syllables to be identical, nor both to be labialised or palatalised.
- There are a few exceptions to this, such as tata for the informal/familiar form of father, etc.
- Syllables beginning with /l/ do not occur as the first syllable of a morpheme.
Syllable Structure
- See also: Syllables
- (N)(C)V/D(F)
- N - nasal; prenasal; /n/ or /m/
- C - consonant
- V - vowel
- D - diphthong
- F - final; coda
- The three codas are /k/, /m/, and /n/; these only occur as a final codas to negate, pluralize or adverbialize verbs and nouns, respectively.
Stress
- In Kala stress falls on the penultimate syllable with the exceptions of negatives and words that end with a syllable onset palatal approximant, in which case stress is ultimate.
Prenasalized consonants
- In Kala, almost every consonant can be prenasalized, but primarily the plosives /p/, /t/ and /k/ can be analyzed as prenasalized,while most other instances could be easily analyzed as cases of syllabic /n/ or /m/.
- mp /ᵐp~ᵐb/
- Example: mpaka /ˈᵐpa.ka/ - n - boundary / border / line
- nt /ⁿt~ⁿd/
- Example: ntama /ˈⁿta.ma/ - n - calf (a young cow or bull)
- nk /ᵑk~ᵑ/
- Example: nkapa /ˈᵑka.pa/ - n - alcohol / grog
Writing System
See: Naua Moya
Grammatical Principles
- The grammar of Kala should be regarded as a guide indicating how grammatical distinctions of gender, number, tense/aspect, noun, verb and particles are made. I have adopted the Arab grammarian's division into three categories (1) Noun [no / ata] / , (2) Particle [peya] , (3) Verb [uati] . Kala does not always follow European models. It discards all redundancies. In English we say “two boys came yesterday”; in Kala “boy two yesterday come” [tahi ta’o yomaye tala] it is clear that more than one boy is already indicated by ‘two,’ while ‘yesterday’ shows the time, or tense of the verb.
Sentences
See: Kala Sentences
Nouns
See: Kala Nouns
Verbs
See: Kala Verbs
Particles
Prepositions
Conjunctions
Questions
See: Kala Questions
Clauses
Numbers
Cardinal Numbers
- e'o - zero / nothing
- na'o - one
- ta'o - two
- ha'o - three
- ma'o - four
- ya'o - five
- tsa'o - six
- ka'o - seven
- pa'o - eight
- sa'o - nine
- ue'o - ten
- nye'o - (one) hundred
- tle'o - (one) thousand
- mue'o - ten thousand
- kye'o - (one) hundred thousand
- nte'o - (one) million
Higher Numbers
- uena'o - eleven / 11
- taue'o - twenty / 20
- nyeka'o - one hundred seven / 107
- hanyetauetsa'o (long form) | hatatsa'o (short form) - three hundred twenty six / 326
- tsatletauema'o - six thousand and twenty four / 6024
Ordinal Numbers
- ki- - ordinal prefix
- Example : kisa'o - ninth (in a sequence)
- Example : kiyanyepa'o - 508th
Fractions
- i- - fractional prefix
- Example : isa'o - a ninth, 1/9
- Example : iha'o te pa'o - three eighths, 3/8 [lit: a third of eight]
word formation
Punctuation
See: Moya