Phonology
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This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 3 Jun 2016, 16:16.
[comments] mdlphonologyphoneticsharmony
1. Nouns
2. Phonology
[top]Consonants
Midal has a very reduced consonant inventory, with only 12 consonants. There six stops, with voicing contrast and three different points of articulation: bilabial, dental and velar. These same three points of articulation appear on nasals too, while there's only one velar fricative and two alveolar liquids -- a lateral and a rhotic. The following table collects them all together:| Labial | Coronal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | k |
| voiced | b | d | g | |
| Fricative | x | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |
| Liquid | lateral | l | ||
| rhotic | r | |||
[top]Vowels
As for the vowels,
Midal has a pentavocalic system, with two high, two mid and one low vowel. | Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | i | u |
| Mid | e | o |
| Low | a | |
[top]Diphthongs
There are eight allowed diphthongs, namely wa, ja, jo, ju, aw, aj, ey. They are not phonological, since they can be traced back to a sequence of two vowels -- /j/ and /w/ always a phonemic /i/ or /e/ and /u/ or /o/ respectively.
The different underlying phonemes can be easily found due to
Midal's vowel harmony. yo diphthongs are always /eo/ sequences and yu are always /iu/. Diphthongs with a can have either vowel as an underlying phoneme, however, they act in vowel harmony. For example, mawt 'to sound' and mawt 'to scream' form a minimal pair. Even if their phonetic realizations are identical, the underlying realizations are /maot/ and /maut/ respectively, which can be seen in the negative suffix:- mawt 'lives' > mawtro 'doesn't live'
mawt 'screams' > mawtru 'doesn't scream'
Triphthongs are also possible as long as the nucleus is an a.
[top]Phonotactics
Midal's syllables are very simple in structure, they only allow one consonant in the onset -- if any at all -- and one in the coda.The fricative /x/ can only appear after a vowel.
An /l/ might also appear after the vowel and before only a stop or a nasal.
A word cannot start with a glide but a syllable can.
- (C)V(l)(C)
Due to this structure, more than one vowel can appear in a row, as in oeka 'river'. Words containing the same vowel twice are also possible, like tabiig 'chair' -- these are not long vowels, they belong to different syllables. If two vowels that can form a diphtong get in contact, they diphthongize and lose their syllabic status. This means that /ee/ will always diphthongize to [ej] too, so it's the only vowel that can't appear twice.
[top]Stress
There are two possible stress paterns in
Midal. According to these the stress can fall on either(a) the penultimate syllable of the root or
(b) the last syllable of the word.
Stress pattern (a) is the unmarked pattern and most words fall under it. Stress on these words will fall on the second-to-last syllable of the root and won't move regardless of derivation. Words with stress pattern (b) will have their stress on the last vowel of the word, regardless of where the root ends.
[top]Phonological processes
There are number of phonological processes in
Midal affecting mainly consonants.Word final stop deletion
Stops are elided at the end of the word and are only pronounced when the next word starts with a vowel. Compare, for example, these two forms of ult 'fish':
- bi ult 'a fish' → [bul]
ult+u 'the fish' → [ultu]
The /t/ of the original word reapears with the apparition of a suffix that changes it's context from word-final to word-medial.
Geminate simplification
While geminates are allowed, double stops are simplified to a sequence of [r] plus the stop.
- maot+ta 'lived' → [mawrtʰa]
Aspiration of stops
All voiceless stops are aspirated when preceeding /a/ or /o/.
- topiu 'the harvest' → [tʰopʷju]
maotta 'lived' → [mawrtʰa]
Palatalization of velars
Velars are fully palatalized when in front of front vowels /i, e/ and the glide /j/.
- ket 'two' → [ce]
bi aŋi 'a dog' → [baɲi]
aŋyu 'the dog' → [aɲ(j)u]
Velar nasalization
The voiced velar stop /g/ is usually pronounced [ŋ]. Though it undergoes the same processes a stop receives -- namely, elision and simplification -- it is ultimately realized as a nasal, as is it's palatal allophone [ɟ]. It can then trigger other processes, like nasal assimilation.
- geraw 'the boy' → [ɲeraw]
bi gera 'a boy' → [miɲera]
bi golk 'a summer' → [miŋol]
Labial rounding
Labial consonants are rounded when in contact with a rounded vowel or another labialized consonant.
- embo 'you' → [emʷbʷo]
topiu 'the harvest' → [tʰopʷju]
Nasal assimilation
Only word medially, nasals assimilate the point of articulation of the following consonant, if the consonant is a stop. Therefore, heterorganic nasal+stop consonants can only be found in word boudaries.
[top]Vowel harmony
There's a very simple height vowel harmony in
Midal. Vowels in a word might be either high or mid, with the low vowel /a/ being a transparent segment, that is, it can appear with any other vowel. Affixes are affected by this vowel harmony and will therefore assimilate the heght traits of the closest root vowel -- ignoring /a/.- dyolla 'draws' > dyollaro 'doesn't draw'
ti 'eat' > tiru 'doesn't eat'
Sometimes, roots will not show vowel harmony, like the word topi 'harvest'. However, their affixes will still assimilate the trait of the closest vowel:
- topi 'harvest' > topyu 'the harvest'
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