Lánc phonology

Main article: Lánc

Lantian phonology includes all phonemes and phonetical rules which are part of the Lantian language.

Láncon fonetika banyojon fonémyo ši fonetikajeryon núrmanjoy výnufene, eravy žast láncun móru.

Consonants

This is the consonant system in the IPA consonant table:

Consonants
	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Dental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar		Palatal		Velar
Plosive	p	b					t	d			k	g
Nasal		m		[ɱ]1			n				[ŋ]2
Vibrant								r
Fricative			f	v			s	z	ʃ	ʒ			x
Affricate							ʦ		tʃ	dʒ
Approximants												w		j
Lateral approximants								l

• 1: Allophone of [m] before labiodental consonants
• 2: Allophone of [n] before velar consonant

Correspondance

IPA	Letter	X-SAMPA	English approximation	English example	German approximation
[b]	b	b	b	bed	b
[p]	p	p	p	power	p
[t]	t	t	t	tin	t
[d]	d	d	d	din	d
[k]	k	k	k or c	kind	k
[g]	g	g	g	guy	g
[m]	m	m	m	may	m
[ɱ][1]	n	F	mph or mf	symphony	mf or mv
[n]	n	n	n	nature	n
[ŋ][2]	n	N	ng	meeting	nk or ng
[r][3]	r	r	-	no counterpart	-
[f]	f	f	f	fine	f or v
[v]	v	v	v	value	w
[s]	s	s	s	salt	ss
[z]	z	z	z or s	size	s
[ʃ]	š	S	sh	shadow	sch
[ʒ]	ž	Z	s	measure	no counterpart
[x][4]	h	x	-	no counterpart Scottish: loch	ch
[ʦ]	c	ts	ts or tz	tzigane	z
[ʧ]	č	tS	ch	church	tsch
[ʤ]	dž	dZ	j or g	join	dsch
[w]	w	w	w	water	u
[j]	j	j	y	yesterday	j
[l]	l	l	l	lane	l

• ^[1] The phoneme [ɱ] is not an independent one, but is a nasal labiodental allophone, as it appears only before the labiodental stops [f] and [v]. In front of these consonant it appears written only as n (instead of English written form m):

sinfonije, symphony

• ^[2] The phoneme [ŋ] is not an independent one, as in English, but is a nasal velar allophone, as it appears only before the velar stops [k] and [g].
• ^[3] The phoneme [r] is shown as having no English counterparts, because it is an alveolar trill, or most commonly said, a rolling or rolled r, the same r of the Italian language. On the contrary with English alveolar tap [ɾ], the tongue has to vibrate more times while pronouncing it.
• ^[4] The phoneme [x] has no English counterpart. Its pronounce is that of Scottish loch, or German /ch/ in machen.

Vowel sonorants

The lateral consonants r [r] and l [l] and the nasal consonants n [n] and m [m] can play the role as vowel centre of the syllable, as a real vowel.

This is a rare phenomenon, and they are usually found at the end of one of these words. In this case they are called vowel sonorants (they play this role also in English in some words):

• Petr [ˈpetṛ]: syllabication pe.tr
• turistezn [ˈturistezṇ]: syllabication tu.ri.ste.zn

They are pronounced as with a schwa vowel preceding them, a close, weak vowel phoneme. This is an approximate pronounce description, as there is no actual vowel between the two consonant, as Lantian language does not own any schwa vowel:

• Petr [ˈpetɘṛ]

When a vowel is added to a word, ending in a vowel sonorants, this one turns into a full consonant, losing his role as vowel centre.

• Nominative: Petr [ˈpetṛ]: syllabication pe.tr ‣ Genitive: Petru [ˈpetru]: syllabication pe.tru

Palatalization

Some consonants come in pair with a palatalized counterpart:

Non-palatalized consonant	Palatalized counterpart
k [k]	č [ʧ]
g [g]	dž [ʤ]
s [s]	š [ʃ]
z [z]	ž [ʒ]
t [t]	č [ʧ]
d [d]	dž [ʤ]

This phenomenon, called palatalization, is very common, usually (but not always) when one of these consonants comes (or, better, came) in contact with the semivowel [j]. It's very important, because it occurs many times in noun declension.

Vowels

Vowels can be short or long. The difference is very important because it is distinctive: two words can have different meanings with different vowel length:

• ban [ban] (real) - bán [baːn] (all)

Vowels
			Front		Central				Back
High			i(ː)		ɨ(ː)					u(ː)
High-Mid			e(ː)							o(ː)
Low					a(ː)

See also Lánc vowel scheme for more information

Long vowels are marked by an acute accent, as in Czech language:

• a [a] - á [aː]
• e [e] - é [eː]
• i [i] - í [iː]
• o [o] - ó [oː]
• u [u] - ú [uː]
• y [ɨ] - ý [ɨː]

Diphtongs

All kinds of diphtongs are accetable in Lantian, with semivowel before or after the vowel (Vj or jV - Vw or wV) and with both long and short vowel.

Some examples:

• bwand [bwand]: federal
• bwón [bwoːn]: intelligent
• krujzuč [krujzuʧ]: to break

Diphtongs with the [j] semivowel before the vowel are rarer than the other ones, because this semivowel has usually palatalized the consonant before itself. Only some native Lantian words keep it, one of the most important exemples is the nominal ending -tjám.

• skjator [skjator]: to live
• ravídotjám [raviːdotjaːm]: claim, demand

If two vowels (except [i] and [u], which can turn in semivowel) come together in a word, expecially in declension endings, they are considered as separated syllables:

• móryo [moːrɨo], syllabication: mo.ry.o (languages, accusative)

Stress

Stress has a very little meaning, and it falls always on the first syllabe of the root. If a word is simple the stress is on the first syllable, but if this word adds prefixes, the stress remains on the same syllable.

• mýzdosén [ˈmɨːzdoseːn], comprehension
• mýzdor [ˈmɨːzdor], understand
• temýzdesek [teˈmɨːzdesek], they will understand
• otemýzdesu [oteˈmɨːzdesu], I would have understood

Thus the stress is not distinctive, as in many languages of the world, i.e. there can't be two words that change their meanings depending on their stress.

If there is a compound word, for example a verb, the stress can remain on the first syllable of the original root, or can move on the new first syllable:

• gensor [ˈgensor], to take
• šagensor [ʃaˈgensor] or šagensor [ˈʃagensor], to involve, both are accetable.

With words with foreign origin, the stress usually moves on the first syllable, but it can remain on the original syllable.

• informákce [ˈinformaːkʦe] or informákce [inforˈmaːkʦe], information