Katäfalsen
Introduction
Katafalsen (pronunciation: [ˈkɑtɑfɑlsɛn]) is an apriori language, which is partially inspired by Basque, Hebrew and Latin. The aim was to construct a language with simple phonology along with unorthodox grammar and syntax. Katafalsen is highly synthetic and features a free word order and ergative-absolutive alignment.
Phonology
Consonants
The consonant phonemes of Modern Katafalsen are as follows:
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m /m/ |
n /n/ |
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| Stop | voiced | b /b/ |
d /d/ |
g /g/ | |
| voiceless | p /p/ |
t /t/ |
k /k/ | ||
| Fricative | f /f/ |
s /s/ |
h /x/ | ||
| Approximant | r /ɹ/ |
j /j/ |
w /w/ | ||
| Lateral approximant | l /l/ |
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Vowels
The vowel inventory of Katafalsen is quite symmetrical as there are each three front, back, rounded and unrounded vowels.
| Front | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unrounded | Rounded | Unrounded | Rounded | |
| Close | i /i/ |
y /y/ |
u /u/ | |
| Mid | e /e̞/ |
o /o̞/ | ||
| Open | a /ɑ/ |
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The only vowel that distinguishes length is /ɑ/ contrasting phonemically with /ɑː/. The long vowel is represented by ⟨ä⟩. The sequences /ɑj/ and /ɑw/ are realised as diphthongs, while adjacent vowels are usually pronounced in hiatus.
Alphabet
The Latin alphabet used for Katafalsen therefore contains the following letters. Uppercase letters are used for the first letter of a sentence and proper nouns.
| a | b | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | r | s | t | u | w | y | ä |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | B | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | R | S | T | U | W | Y | Ä |
Phonotactics
The syllable structure in Katafalsen is (K)V(K), where K denotes a consonant and V a vowel.
Sound changes from Old Katafalsen
A lot of the complexity of Katafalsen arises out of the sound changes from Old to Modern Katafalsen. So it is reasonable to consider these before occupying oneself with morphological processes in Modern Katafalsen. In the following, we shall leave the exact pronunciations out of consideration.
Old Katafalsen had six vowel phonemes: /a, i, u, aː, iː, uː/.
The consonant inventory was very similar to Modern Katafalsen but had two additional phonemes /ħ/ and /ʔ/.