Emeigu

Emeigu (Emeigu: The language of Eigu) is an isolating-fusional ergative-dechticaetiative language.

Phonology

Phoneme Inventory

Emeigu distinguishes the following consonants:

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive/Affricate	p /p/ b /b/	t /t/ d /d/		č /ʨ/	k /k/ g /g/
Fricative			s /s/	š /ɕ/		h /h/
Nasal	m /m/		n /n/	ny /ɲ/	ng /ŋ/
Liquid	w /w/		r /ɾ/ l /l/	y /j/

There are five vowel phonemes, /i e a o u/, represented by i e a o u, as well as five diphthongs, all falling: /ai au ei eu oi ou/, ai au ei eu ou. In native words, /o u/ only occur in closed syllables.

Orthographically, the diphthongs are distinguished from two discrete vowel nuclei with an apostrophe, e.g. tai /tai/ ta'i /ta.i/. /ng/ is distinguished from /ŋ/ the same way.

Syllable Structure

Emeigu has a simple (C)V(m n t s) syllable structure, with the caveat that coda s only occurs after /a/.

Allophony

-/n/ assimilates to the point of articulation of any following consonant /ankas/ [ɐŋ'kas]

-Unstressed vowels, and stressed vowels in closed syllables, tend to be realised as lax [ɪ ɛ ɐ ɔ ʊ], except after a palatal, where /a/ tends to be realised as [æ].

Verbal Morphology

Emeigu verbs are conjugated for voice, mood, tense and transitivity.