User:Masako/sandbox

Phonology

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

Consonants

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Glottal
		central	lateral
Nasal	m (m)	n (n)		ɲ (ny)
Plosive	p~b (p)	t~d (t)			k~g (k)	ʔ (`)
Affricate		ts (ts)	t͡ɬ~tl (tl)	t͡ʃ (ts)
Continuant		s (s)	l~ɾ (l)	ʃ (s)		h~ɦ (h)
Semivowel				j (y)	w (u)

• Prenasalized: /ᵐp ⁿt ᵑk/
• Labialized:/pʷ kʷ mʷ nʷ ʃʷ hʷ t͡ʃʷ/
• Palatalized: /pʲ kʲ mʲ hʲ/

Note: Because of its small phoneme inventory, Kala allows for quite a lot of allophonic variation. For example, /p t k/ may be pronounced [b d ɡ] as well as [p t k], /s l h/ as [ʃ ɾ ɦ], and /t͡s t͡ɬ/ as [t͡ʃ t͡l]; also, vowels may be either long or short.

Vowels

Vowels

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

Kala has five vowels /i/, /e/, /a/, /o/ and /u/. Each occurs in both stressed and unstressed syllables. Phonetic nasalization occurs for vowels occurring between nasal consonants or when preceding a syllable-final nasal, e.g. tsunka [ˈt͡ʃũᵑka] ('bug').

Diphthongs

Phonetically, Kala has only two diphthongs, both falling; [aɪ̯] and [aʊ̯], but there are five syllables that can be analyzed as rising diphthongs; [wa], [we], [ja], [je], and [jo]. The two triphthongs [waɪ̯] and [jaʊ̯] are very rare but should be noted as possible.

syllable structure

Kala syllable structure is ((N)C)(y, u)V(F). As in most languages, CV is the most common syllable type, accounting for the majority of Kala lemmas. The finals /n/, /m/, and /k/ are grammatical and indicate adverbs, plurals, and negatives, respectively. They only occur word finally. So, nkapa (alcohol) is permitted, but nakpa is not; kyopo (fear) is acceptable, but koypo is not, etc. There is a limited set of syllables allowed by Kala phonotactics, similar to Japanese or Chinese. They are listed here: Syllable Chart, or here.

• /l/ cannot occur word initially (except in loan words and toponyms).

grammar

noun phrases

The basic noun phrase in Kala is PREPOSITION DETERMINER NOUN DESCRIPTIVE-VERB RELATIVE-CLAUSE. Depending on context, this is fairly predominant with a few exceptions.

determiners

uatse

	Proximal i-	Medial ua-	Distal ye-	Inclusive -kua	Negative -k	Indefinite -la
mo place	hina here	uana there	yemua over there	mokua everywhere	mok nowhere	mola somewhere; anywhere
ko person	iko this person	uako that person	yeko that person (over there)	tlokua everyone	tlok no one	kola someone; anyone
uku amount	iku this much	uaku that much	-	kua all; every	ok none	ula some; any
ama time	ima now, at present	uama then; at that time	-	kuama always	amak never	tlama sometime; anytime
so kind, type	iso this kind	so'o that kind	yeso that kind (over there)	sokua all kinds	sok no kind (at all)	sola some/any kind
no thing	itla this	uatla that	yetla that (over there)	nokua everything	nok nothing; none	nola something; anything
to manner, way	yoto thus; like this; this way	uato that way	ato that way (over there)	tokua every way	tok no way	tola somehow; anyway

pronouns

Kala agent pronouns are often omitted when the person is obvious from context. Kala personal pronouns also encode clusivity. That is, there are different words for "we" depending on whether the speaker is including the person spoken to or not. Pronouns do not inflect for gender; if gender is significant, one can use words like naka, tlaka, nahi, tahi (the woman, the man, the girl, the boy), etc.

nkalo

	Agent	Patient	Reflexive	Possessive	Reciprocal
1sg	na	ena	na'i	nayo
2sg	ta	eta	ta'i	tayo
3sg	ha	eha	ha'i	hayo
4sg	tla	etla	tla'i	tlayo
1pl 1pl exclusive	nam na'am	enam ena'am	nami na'ami	namyo na'amyo	nanku na'anku
2pl	tam	etam	tami	tamyo	tanku
3pl	kam	ekam	kami	kamyo	kanku
4pl	tlam	etlam	tlami	tlamyo	tlanku