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Seuna word shape

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@ . . .
m my . .
y . . .
j . . jw
f fy fl .
b by bl bw
g . gl gw
d . . dw
l . . .
c . . cw
s . sl sw
k ky kl kw
p py pl .
t . . tw
w . . .
n ny . .
h . . .

Seuna sounds

p b t d k g m n r f s h c j y w l

There are 17 consonant phonemes in Seuna. Under certain circumstances the alveolar fricative (s=>z) and the alveolar nasal becomes a velar nasal (n=>ng) The post-alveolar affricates are represented here by c and j . The consonant r is exceptional in that it only occurs in suffixes attached to active verbs.

There are five distinctive vowels in Seuna. They are i, e, a, o and u. For diphthongs we have the four closing diphthongs ai, au, oi, eu, and the two opening diphthongs ia, and ua. A Seuna word may begin with one of the following consonants or consonant clusters ;-


In the terminology of Seuna, it is said that there are 37 possible "head-events". (The ampersand is the first letter of the Seuna alphabet. It is just a symbol that support the following noun. So a word with @ initially, actually starts with a vowel.) After the "head-event" there is the "initial-span-sound". The 11 possible "initial-span-sounds" are

AU O OI I IA A UA U EU E AI *

  • Notice that no opening diphthongs allowed in initial position

After the "initial-span-sound" we have what is called the "mid-event" There are 58 possible "mid-events", which are ;-


After the "mid-event" we have what is called the "final-span-sound". There are the same as the "initial-span-sounds", namely ;-

A I U E O AI AU OI EU IA UA

Finally there can be two possible "tail-events". Theses are n and s. These are slightly anomalous in that they are used only for suffixes.

The above constitutes what in SEUNA terminology is called a "word". Most concepts in Seuna are represented by a "word". Many particles (and a few concepts such as cat = MEU) are represented by shorter "sound-strings" (called "mini-words" in Seuna terminology), but the vast majority of concepts are represented by "words".