Seuna word shape

@	.	.	.
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 (45 in base 8) 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 69 (105 in base 8) possible "mid-events", which are ;-

ø m y j f b g d l c s k p t w n h (17)

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)

nfy mby nky mpy (4)

njw mbw ngw ndw ncw nsw nkw ntw (8)

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".

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