Ancient Figo phonology

This chapter gives an extensive description of ancient Figo phonological features.

Consonants

The consonant system distinguishes 22 phonemes, traditionally arranged in the following scheme:

		IPA			Transcription
plosive	voiceless	[p]	[k]	[t]	p	k	t
	voiced	[b]	[g]	[d]	g	g	d
	palatal		[c]			c
nasal		[m]	[n]	[ɲ]	m	n	ň
liquid		[r]		[l]	r		l
fricative	velar		[x]			x
	sibilant		[s]			s
	alveolar		[ʃ]			š
	glottal		[h]			h
	labiodental		[f]			f
	dental		[θ]			θ
	palatal		[ɕ]			ɕ
	approximant	[j]		[w]	j		w
affricate			[ʧ]			č

The group of the plosive consonants distinguishes three sub-groups: voiceless, voiced, and palatal, even though the palatal sub-group includes only the phoneme [c].

The group of the fricative consonants is overall well developed, with several places of articulation.

The group of the nasal and of the liquid consonants is substantially less rich. The phonemes [j] and [w] have a full consonantal value when in the coda position of the syllable.

Vowels

There are 7 vocalic phonemes, which exhibit other forms of distinction:

5 vowels have a short form and a long form. The mid-central phoneme, [ə], and the open-mid front phoneme, [ɛ], make no length distinction.

IPA						Transcription
[i]	[iː]			[u]	[uː]	i	ī			u	ū
[e]	[eː]			[o]	[oː]	e	ē			o	ō
		[ə]						ə
	[ɛ]						ɛ
		[a]	[a]					a	ā

Stress

The stress is mostly on the first syllable of the word root.

[ˈkɛ.ho.gow]

Nevertheless, in words where [u], either long or short, is the vowel in the first syllable the stress tends to placed on the following vowel.

[θuː.ˈha]

Monosyllabic words, often with a grammatical meaning, are meant to be unstressed and cliticized to the word which they are grammatically bound to.

Polysyllabic words, which are generally composed by more than a word root, usually turn one of the stresses in a secondary one. The stress on the first root is the most likely to become secondary, while also the second stress may become the secondary, albeit in very rare cases.

Syllabic structure

The basic syllable structure in Ancient Figo is (C)V(C). There are, however, some constraints:

1. A word cannot consist of an exclusively vowel syllable, V, but such a syllable, V, can be found at the beginning of a multisyllabic word:

*[a]
[u.ˈmo.coː.da]

1. A word can consist of only one syllable of type VC, and a polysyllabic word can begin with such a syllable:

[om]
[ˈer.tu]

1. A CVC-type syllable is usually found at the end of a word, while is quite infrequent within the word or at its beginning. Monosyllabic words with such a syllabic structure are known to exist.

[ˈkɛ.ho.gow]
[ˈkoːw]

1. CV-type syllables are allowed in every position within a polysyllabic word. Monosyllabic words with this structure are limited in number, but relevantly used.

[ˈʃi.ga.nu.na.ʃa]
[ˈnɛ]

Clusters of more than two consonants are prohibited, both in syllabic onset and in coda.