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 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".
Index
- Introduction to Seuna
- Seuna : Chapter 1
- Seuna word shape
- The script of Seuna
- Seuna sentence structure
- Seuna pronouns
- Seuna nouns
- Seuna verbs (1)
- Seuna adjectives
- Seuna demonstratives
- Seuna verbs (2)
- Asking a question in Seuna
- Seuna relative clauses
- Seuna verbs (3)
- Methods for deriving words in Seuna
- List of all Seuna derivational affixes
- Numbers in Seuna
- Naming people in Seuna
- The Seuna calendar
- Seuna units