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

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

Labial Dental Palatal Velar Glottal
central lateral plain labial
Nasal m (m) Naua ma.png n (n) Naua na.png ɲ (ny) Naua nya.png
Plosive p~b (p) Naua pa.png t~d (t) Naua ta.png k~g (k) Naua ka.png kʷ~gʷ (ku) Naua kua.png ʔ (')
Fricative s (s) Naua sa2.png ʃ (s) Naua sa2.png h~ɦ (h) Naua ha.png
Affricate ts (ts) Naua tsa.png (tl) Naua tla.png (ts) Naua tsa.png
Approximant l~r (l) Naua la.png j (y) Naua ya.png w (u) Naua ua.png
  • <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

  • (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

Naua cons.png

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] Naua no.png / Naua ata.png, (2) Particle [peya] Naua peya.png, (3) Verb [uati] Naua uati.png. 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

Index

grammar outline | sentences | questions | lexicon | thematic lexicon | writing