Word shape

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Seuna sounds

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

Consonants

p b         t d         k g
  m           n            
              r            
    f         s           h
              r            
      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=>ŋ) 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 ... i e a o u. Also there are four closing diphthongs ai au oi eu and the two opening diphthongs ia ua.

A Seuna word may begin with one of the following consonants or consonant clusters ;-

@ 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

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 ;-

m y j f b g d l c s k p t w n h (16) zm zy zb zg zd zl sk sp st zw zn (11) lm ly lj lf lb lg ld lc ls lk lp lt lw ln lh (15) ny nj nf mb ng nd nl nc ns nk mp nt mw nh (14) ngw nkw (2)

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".

So how many words are possible in Seuna ? Well if there was no restictions on what could occur together in a "word", we would have a total of 37 x 9 x 58 x 11 or 212,454 possible "words". 

However there are restrictions.

(In the following discussion S represents any "unitary" "head-event" and KL any "head-event" cluster, similar representatives are taken for the other positions. X means any sound at all that is allowed in this slot) 1) A word can have at the most only two clusters. A cluster is a diphthong or two abutting consonants.

This cuts thing down to 132,202 possible "words".

S A G U 17x5x16x5=6,800 KL A G U 20x5x16x5=8,000 S AU G U 17x6x16x5=8,160 KL AU G U 20x6x16x5=9,600 S A ND U 17x5x42x5=17,850 KL A ND U 20x5x42x5=21,000 S AU ND U 17x6x42x5=21,420 KL AU ND U 20x6x42x5=25,200 disallowed by rule 1 S A G AI 17x5x16x6=8,160 KL A G AI 20x5x16x6=9,600 S AU G AI 17x6x16x6=9,792 KL AU G AI 20x6x16x6=11,520 disallowed by rule 1 S A ND AI 17x5x42x6=21,420 KL A ND AI 20x5x42x6=25,200 disallowed by rule 1 S AU ND AI 17x6x42x6=25,704 disallowed by rule 1 KL AU ND AI 20x6x42x6=30,240 disallowed by rule 1

In Seuna there are clear classes of nouns, verbs and adjectives. These classes differ as to how they are phonologically expressed. For example nouns must be of the form KL A X X or S AU X X or KL AU X X. Verbs must be of the form X X ND X and adjectives must be of the form S A G X.

Note that there are many words (42,420) that can be both nouns or verbs.

adjectives 14,960 nouns 7,572 verbs 81.690 noun & verb 42,420

2) LvL is disallowed i.e. "flolde" is not allowed

3) YI and WU are allowed but XYI and XWU are banned. "fumwua" is OK

4) A noun (also a Noun/verb) can not end in I 

   An adjective can not end in U or UA ..... LITE = small, LITUA = smallness
   Some verbs can not end in O, (a Noun/verb can though ??)

So we have out of a hundred :-

34 disallowed 23 verbs 13 nouns 15 nouns/verbs 15 adjectives

Index

  1. Introduction to Seuna
  2. Seuna : Chapter 1
  3. Seuna word shape
  4. The script of Seuna
  5. Seuna sentence structure
  6. Seuna pronouns
  7. Seuna nouns
  8. Seuna verbs (1)
  9. Seuna adjectives
  10. Seuna demonstratives
  11. Seuna verbs (2)
  12. Asking a question in Seuna
  13. Seuna relative clauses
  14. Seuna verbs (3)
  15. Methods for deriving words in Seuna
  16. List of all Seuna derivational affixes
  17. Numbers in Seuna
  18. Naming people in Seuna
  19. The Seuna calendar
  20. Seuna units
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