User:Ceige/Sketch

Name

## No name yet, leave it as is and call it Proto-Speedy? Has there ever been a language discovered with no hint at an endonym or exonym or even place to associate it with available?

Phonology

Consonants

The places of articulation are defined as follows:

• labial: using the lips
• dental: near the teeth or alveolar ridge
• lateralised dental laterals and lateralised dental affricates
• post-alveolar: either palatal or retroflex
• dorsal: allophonically palatal, velar and uvular, probably
• and finally, glottal: provided for a symmetry's sake, see phonemic brackets

Plosives are distinguished by place of articulation and phonation. The three phonations are fortis (with a positive VOT and/or preaspiration, i.e. voiceless), tense (not well defined, but perhaps having a neutral VOT, glottalisation, or some other feature), and lenis (with a neutral to negative VOT, i.e. voiced).

Nasals (and other normally voiced continuants) are described as being distinguished based on voicing, but this is a simplified approach. In actuality, voiceless nasals can be pre-stopped, may have a negative VOT, or be glottalised. Post-stopped nasals (e.g., mp) are accounted for by vowel nasalisation (see the relevant section)

Consonants

🦌		Labial	Dental	Lateralised	Post-Alveolar	Dorsal	Glottal
Plosives	Fortis	pʰ ⟨pʰ⟩	tʰ ⟨tʰ⟩	tłʰ ⟨tlʰ⟩	čʰ ⟨tšʰ⟩	kʰ ⟨kʰ⟩	ʔʰ /h/ ⟨h⟩
	Tense	p' ⟨p'⟩	t' ⟨t'⟩	tł' ⟨tl'⟩	č' ⟨tš'⟩	k' ⟨k'⟩	ʔ' /ʔ/ ⟨', ʔ⟩
	Lenis	b~p ⟨p⟩	d~t ⟨t⟩	dl~tł ⟨tl⟩	ž~č ⟨tš⟩	g~k ⟨k⟩	ʔ /∅/
Sonorants #1	Voiceless	m̊ ⟨m', pm, hm⟩	n̊ ⟨n', tn, hn⟩	l̥ ⟨l', dl, lt, hl⟩	ɲ̊ ⟨ň', tň, hň⟩	ŋ̊ ⟨ŋ', kŋ, hŋ⟩
	Voiced	m ⟨m⟩	n ⟨n⟩	l ⟨l⟩	ɲ ⟨ň⟩	ŋ ⟨ŋ⟩
Fricatives			s ⟨s⟩	ł ⟨ł⟩	š ⟨š⟩	x ⟨x⟩
Sonorants #2		w ⟨w⟩	r ⟨r⟩		j ⟨j⟩

Some additional notes:

• Voiceless sonorants and /r/ can only occur at the start of a syllable. A voiceless sonorant (or /r/) at the end of a syllable implies a null-nucleus, and as such the consonant is still often released, and a dummy vowel may be inserted.

N.B.: This is an area people creating daughter languages can explore.

Vowels

Vowels are distinguished horizontally and vertically, and by roundedness or nasality.

N.B.: This vowel system was chosen as it has a few areas which could lead to a breakdown in symmetry and thus an entire rearrangement of the vowel system. In addition, as rounding is not distinguished in nasal vowels, there is an opportunity for vowel shifts to occur there too in order to bring in extra symmetry. Nasal vowels are also often quite unstable, at least going by French and the Slavic language family, and can also have weird effects on following consonants too. Lastly, vowel harmony can be tweaked given the number of dimensions vowels are distinguished by here. So people making daughter languages should have plenty of options available to them.

Oral Vowels

🦌	Front			Back
	Unrounded	Rounded	Nasal 🐘	Unrounded	Rounded	Nasal 🐘
Closed	i ⟨i⟩	y ⟨ü⟩	ĩ ⟨į⟩	ɯ ⟨ï⟩	u ⟨u⟩	ũ ⟨ų⟩
Mid	e ⟨e⟩	ø ⟨ö⟩	ẽ ⟨ę⟩	ɤ ⟨ë⟩	o ⟨o⟩	õ ⟨ǫ⟩
Open	a ⟨ä⟩		ã ⟨ą̈⟩	ɑ ⟨a⟩		ɑ̃ ⟨ą⟩

Grammar

## DESCRIPTION // SUMMARY

Word Order

Word order is flexible, with VSO, SOV and SVO all being possibilities. Note, however, that S and O are not strictly speaking the actor and patient in a sentence; see #Morphosyntactic alignment for more information.

Nouns

## Should nouns mark for gender or animacy?

Morphosyntactic alignment

## Austronesian type alignment
# focus erg/acc/dir
# can focus multiple at once for clarification but that's really nom/acc then innit?
# intr can use erg/acc/dir as necessary for semantic reasons (i break smthng, I break, I dance) (e.g. bridge-wo cross.verb in japanese?)
# verb marking if necessary (cf. austronesian "passive" voice)