User:Masako/nkala

Pronunciation

• Where ~ appears, it indicates free variation between phonemes.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i~i: (i)		u~u: (u)
Mid	e~e: (e)		o~o: (o)
Open		a~a: (a)

Diphthongs

falling

• [aɪ~aɪ:] - ai
• [aʊ~aʊ:] - ao

rising

• [wa~wa:] - ua
• [waɪ~waɪ:] - uai
• [ja~ja:] - ya
• [jaʊ~jaʊ:] - yao
• [je~je:] - ye
• [jo~jo:] - yo

Consonants

	Labial	Dental		Palatal	Velar		Glottal
		central	lateral		plain	labial
Nasal	m (m)	n (n)		ɲ (ny)
Plosive	p~b (p)	t~d (t)			k~g (k)	kʷ~gʷ (ku)	ʔ (')
Fricative		s (s)		ʃ (s)			h~ɦ (h)
Affricate		ts (ts)	tɬ (tl)	tʃ (ts)
Approximant			l~r (l)	j (y)		w (u)

Prenasalized consonants

• In Kala, almost every consonant can be prenasalized, but primarily the plosives /p/, /t/ and /k/ can be analyzed as prenasalized, most other instances could be easily analyzed as cases of syllabic /n/ or /m/.

• mb /mp~mb/
• nt /nt~nd/
• nk /ŋk~ŋɡ/

Writing System

See: Moya

Word Order

Sentence

• Basic word order is SOV and is invariable.

-

• (subject) - (object) - (verb)

tlaka (ke) naka anya

man (TOP) woman see

The man sees the woman.

• (subject) - (verb)

nahi apuaye

girl sing.PAST

The girl sang. / The girl did sing.

• (subject) - (complement) - (verb)

ke ina manka a

TOP food cold COP

The food is cold.

• (subject) - (prepositional phrase) - (verb)

ke naka tsa'e kama yalaye

TOP woman through village walk.PAST

The woman walked through the village.

• (subject) - (prepositional phrase) - (object) - (verb)

na'eta itla omena yeta

1s.ACC.2s this apple give

I give to you this apple.

(In this case, the prepositional phrase is replaced by the pronominal construction.)

• (subject) - (prepositional phrase) - (verb)

ta kima poto tayo tse'ek

2s like photo 2s.POSS appear.NEG

You do not look like your photo.

Clauses

• In addition to phrases, some sentences contain clauses, which resemble smaller sentences nested within the larger sentence.

They can modify noun phrases, verb phrases, or the whole of the larger sentence.

-

• (subject) - (clause) - (prepositional phrase) - (verb)

tlaka ke ko asaye hina ka'e nuyoku yalaye

man CONJ live.PAST here to New York go.PAST

The man who lived here went to New York.

• (subject) - (clause) - (verb)

na ke ha aya a omu

1s CONJ 3s beautiful COP think

I think that she is beautiful.

Nouns

Gender

• In general, nouns do not indicate their gender. To distinguish the sexes, one can use the adjectival endings -ta and -na.

Example : nikata "a male dog", nikana "a female dog".

Articles

• There is only one article in Kala, ke. It is used primarily as a "noun marker".

• It is ambi-definite, meaning it can be either definite or indefinite. The distinction is made through context.

Example : kama "village", ke kama "the/a village", ke kama'a "the villages"

Example : inahi "snack", ke inahi "the/a snack", ke inahim "the snacks"

Number

• Nouns are either singular, plural or collective.

• Concrete nouns are pluralized by suffixing -m.

Examples : kono - stone > konom - stones | naka - woman > nakam - women

• When the last syllable of a word contains an m, the plural is marked by reduplicating the final vowel.

Examples : kama - village > kama'a - villages | teyemi - phrase > teyemi'i - phrases

• Collective (plural) nouns are marked by prefixing tli-.

Examples : tsaka - house > tlitsaka - neighborhood | yama - mountain > tliyama - mountain range

• Nouns need not be marked plural if a number is used to show quantity.

Example : sahi - color > sahim - colors > sahi ya'o - five color(s)

• Adjectives do not show plural agreement. However, when an adjective is used nominally, it can be pluralized.

Example : nyeli - pink > nyelim - (the) pink (ones)