Proto-Rathmosian

Phonology and Orthography

Consonants

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal		m		n
Plosive	p	b	t	d			k	g
Fricative	ɸ		s				x
Trill				r
Approximant		w				j
Lateral app.				l

Vowels

	Front	Near- front	Central	Near- back	Back
Close	i u e ə a
Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open
Open

Vowel length is non-phonemic and all vowels are usually short. However, certain morphological conditions cause lengthening of the primary vowels a, e, u, i (but not ə). These are then written aa, ee, uu, ii.

The semi-vowels i̯ /j/ and u̯ /w/ may occur after any vowel, effectively creating diphthongs, though for the purposes of syllable structure these are analysed as combinations of vowel + consonant: /aj, ej, uj, ij, əj, aw, ew, uw, iw, əw/. The combinations /ij/ and /uw/ may be analysed as [iː] and [uː]. The primary vowels may still be lengthened in these combinations, e.g. aai̯ /aːj/, eeu̯ /eːw/. /iːj/ and /uːw/ are therefore equivalent of [iːː], [uːː].

Orthography

Proto-Rathmosian is written with the Roman alphabet using the following graphs.

a b d e f g h i k l m n p r s t u ə

The breve is used below i̯ and u̯ to signal the semivowels /j/ and /w/. Long vowels are doubled.

The following table shows the sound to spelling correspondences:

graph	a	aa	b	d	e	ee	f	g	h	i	ii	i̯	k	l	m	n	p	r	s	t	u	uu	u̯	ə
IPA	a	aː	b	d	e	eː	ɸ	g	x	i	iː	j	k	l	m	n	p	r	s	t	u	uː	w	ə

Phonotactics

Words are constructed from a root plus various derivation or morphological affixes. Roots must be minimal CVC (e.g. ret- 'go, move') and may be CCVC (glis- 'live, stay'), CVCC (tii̯k- 'touch, feel'), CCVCC (psau̯m 'breathe'). Affixes may be V, VC, VCV, C, CV, CVC.

Morphology

Nouns

Nouns belong to one of three classes and are declined into eight cases and three numbers.

Noun Classes

There are three noun classes: animate masculine (AM), animate common (AC) and inanimate (IA). Strictly speaking, AM nouns are a subclass of Animate nouns which are marked. The class to which a particular noun belongs is semantically motivated and, in almost all cases, entirely predictable based on the following criteria:

• Animate Masculine: male humans, male deities and spirits, male domestic animals and some distinctive male wild animals.
• Animate Common: all other humans, deities, spirits and animals.
• Inanimate: all abstracts, non-living things and plants.

Case

Nouns are declined according to eight cases:

• Absolutive denotes the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb.
• Ergative denotes the subject of a transitive verb.
• Dative denotes the indirect object of a verb and describes motion towards.
• Genitive denotes the possessor of an object.
• Ablative denotes motion away from.
• Instrumental denotes use of.
• Locative denotes location in, at or on.
• Comitative denotes location with or beside.

Number

There are three numbers: singular, plural and collective, the last of which may denote a discrete group of objects or a class as a whole.