Kala Grammar

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

• Both of the falling diphthongs as well as uai and yao only occur word finally.

falling

• [aɪ~aɪ:] - ai
• [aʊ~aʊ:] - ao

rising

• [wa~wa:] - ua
• [waɪ~waɪ:] - uai
• [ja~ja:] - ya
• [ja~jaɪ:] - yai
• [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)		ʔ (')
Fricative		s (s)		ʃ (s)			h~ɦ (h)
Affricate		ts (ts)	tɬ (tl)	tʃ (ts)
Approximant			l~r (l)	j (y)		w (u)

allophony

• /h/ > /ɦ/ when preceded or followed by a front vowel.
• The glottal stop is not phonemic but is included in the chart above. It is pronounced between two vowels and/or diphthongs that are not connected.
• <s> & <ts> are /ʃ/ and /tʃ/ respectively, unless immediately preceded or followed by one another, then <s> is always /s/ and <ts> is always /tʃ/.
• However, one could pronounce them either way (e.g. always /s/ & /ts/) and still be understood.

• Example:

sitsa - /'si:.tʃa/ - warmth, heat / warm, hot / to heat up

tsasu - /'tʃa:.su/ - cursive writing; having successive letters joined together

phonotactics

• Kala phonotactics does not allow the onsets of adjacent syllables to be identical, nor both to be labialized or palatalized.
  • There are a few exceptions to this, such as tata for the informal/familiar form of father, etc.
• Syllables beginning with /l/ do not occur as the first syllable of a headword.

syllable structure

• See also: Syllables

• (N)(C)V/D(F)
  • N - nasal; prenasal; /n/ or /m/
  • C - consonant
  • V - vowel
  • D - diphthong
  • F - final; coda

• The three codas are /k/, /m/, and /n/; these only occur as a final codas to negate, pluralize or adverbialize verbs and nouns, respectively.

stress

• In Kala stress falls on the penultimate syllable with the exceptions of negatives and words that end with a syllable onset palatal approximant, in which case stress is ultimate.

prenasalized consonants

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

• mp /ᵐp~ᵐb/

Example: mpaka /ˈᵐpa.ka/ - n - boundary / border / line

• nt /ⁿt~ⁿd/

Example: ntama /ˈⁿta.ma/ - n - calf (a young cow or bull)

• nk /ᵑk~ᵑ/

Example: nkapa /ˈᵑka.pa/ - n - alcohol / grog

numbers

cardinal numbers

• e'o - zero; null
• na'o - one
• ta'o - two
• ha'o - three
• ma'o - four
• ya'o - five
• tsa'o - six
• ka'o - seven
• pa'o - eight
• sa'o - nine
• ue'o - ten

-

• nye'o - (one) hundred; 10²
• nya'o - five hundred
• tle'o - (one) thousand; 10³
• mue'o - ten thousand; 10⁴
• kye'o - (one) hundred thousand; 10⁵
• nte'o - (one) million; 10⁶
• hue'o - (one) billion; 10⁹

higher numbers

• uena'o - eleven / 11
• taue'o - twenty / 20
• nyeka'o - one hundred seven / 107
• hanyetauetsa'o (long form) | hatatsa'o (short form) - three hundred twenty six / 326
• tsatletauema'o - six thousand and twenty four / 6024

expressions of time

• Tense markers are often replaced by time expressions. Here are a few of the more common ones:

• iyoma - today
• iyohua - tonight
• yomaye - yesterday
• yomatli - tomorrow
• yomua - morning
• puama - evening
• yomuatli - tomorrow morning
• yohuaye - last night
• sayo - month
• anyo - year
• anyotlipua - end of next year
• anyoye ue'o - ten years ago
• sayotli ta'o - in two months

Index

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