Liðakuin phonology

This article describes the phonology of Liðakuin.

Dialectal variation

Liðakuin is the official language of the Fenril Federation, a very large country of North (and South) Gomensai. As a result, there are a great many dialects. The standard dialect is known as Limban, and will be the primary dialect under discussion for the rest of this article.

Consonants

Consonant phones in Limban Liðakuin
		Labial				Alveolar				Palatal				Velar
Nasal		m				n				ɲ				ŋ
Stop		pʰ	p		b	tʰ	t		d	cʰ	c		ɟ	kʰ	k		g
Affricate						ts		dz		tɕ		dʑ
Fricative	plain	f				θ̠		ð̠		ç				x		ɣ
	sibilant					s		z		ɕ		ʑ
	lateral					ɬ		tɬ
Approximant				ʋ				l		j		ʎ		w		ɫ
Trill						r̥		r

In Liðakuin, only two of the three stop phones in each place of articulation is said to be phonemic, as only two graphemes are used for each (/k g/ have two graphemes, but this is unrelated to aspiration). However, it is not entirely clear exactly which of the three phones should be considered nonphonemic due to allophonic considerations. One analysis is to remove the unvoiced aspirated plosives, considering them allophonic to the unvoiced unaspirated plosives before vowels and approximants. However, adjacent to voiceless fricatives and the voiceless trill /r̥/, voiced plosives do not occur in Limban Liðakuin, devoicing to the plain plosives, offering credence to removing the voiced plosives and considering them allophonic to the plain plosives. Since most Liðakuin dialects do maintain the voiced plosives intervocalically, if not additionally adjacent to voiced consonants, the former is preferred.

Additionally, most of the palatal phones occur as a result of palatalization - in Limban Liðakuin, a /i j/ turns preceding [n t d k g x ɣ s z ts dz l] into [ɲ tɕ dʑ c ɟ ç ç ɕ ʑ tɕ dʑ ʎ]. However, not all of the latter group of phones can be considered nonphonemic by this rule - specifically, [ç ɕ ʑ tɕ dʑ] occur in environments where an inserted /j/ does not otherwise occur in Liðakuin, and [ç] in particular is written one of three ways in the native script, one of which corresponds nicely to /xj/ and another to /ɣj/, as both only occur following back vowels (the environments where /j/ is allowed after other phonemes), but one method cannot correspond to either /xj/ or /ɣj/.

This method of using orthography to help inform phonology can also be used to absorb certain clusters, specifically the pre-aspirated plosives [hp ht hc hk] (also written as a single consonant with a diacritic, [ʰp ʰt ʰc ʰk]) and the lateral affricate [tɬ]. These are always written as if they were [pp tt cc kk ɬɬ], rather than writing them like they were [xp xt xc xk tɬ] in a similar vein to /ɬ ç r̥/, and since all fricatives can also be geminated, these are generally considered to be equivalent. This is another reason why the aspirated plosives are the ones considered non-phonemic, as otherwise the aspirated plosives would lose their post-aspiration to become pre-aspiration, which seems less parsimonious than an originally unaspirated voiceless plosive gaining either pre-aspiration or post-aspiration depending on the environment.

In Limban Liðakuin, the velarized alveolar lateral approximant [ɫ] is only found in the coda of syllables, especially when the preceding vowel is front, and the labiovelar approximant [w] is only found after another consonant. Both are therefore in complementary distribution with [l ʋ] respectively. This completes the final phonemic consonant table for Liðakuin:

Consonant phonemes in Limban Liðakuin
		Labial		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar
Nasal		m		n		(ɲ)		(ŋ)
Stop		p	b	t	d			k	g
Affricate				ts	dz	tɕ	dʑ
Fricative	plain	f		θ̠	ð̠	ç		x	ɣ
	sibilant			s	z	ɕ	ʑ
	lateral			ɬ	tɬ
Approximant			ʋ		l	j
Trill				r̥	r

Vowels

Phonemes not in Limban Liðakuin but that are in other Liðakuin dialects are in brackets.

Vowel phonemes
	Front		Central		Back
	unrounded	rounded	unrounded	rounded	unrounded	rounded
Close	i	y uɥ	[ɨ]		[ɯ]	u
Close-mid	e [ej]	ø	ə	[ɵ̞]		ow [o]
Open-mid	ɛ				ʌ	ɔ
Open	æ		a aj		ɑw
Diphthongs	ju jo jɔ ja ɵj [aŏ ɛŏ eŏ iŏ]

Liðakuin vowels are in some ways simpler than consonants - the effects of the environment on vowels are simpler and more pronounced. Some of this will be discussed in the Stress section, as they are stress-related.

Interestingly, /ə/ undergoes a form of vowel harmony in Limban Liðakuin, turning into [ɵ̞] when the next vowel is rounded. /ɵ̞/ is still considered diaphonemic, however, as in Limban Liðakuin, the two phonemes merged into one in this manner.

Stress

Liðakuin is a dynamic-accent language. Stressed syllables are louder and longer than non-stressed syllables. Additionally, several of the vowel phonemes are laxened in unstressed syllables.

Stress is unpredictable in Liðakuin. It usually falls on "long" vowels, specifically one of /æ aj e o i uy/, but can fall on any vowel.

Liðakuin speakers also tend to reduce the vowels /a i y u uɥ ei ou/ to [ɐ ɪ ʏ ʊ ʉ ɛ e ɔ o] when unstressed. This results in /e ɛ/ and /o ɔ/ to be merged in unstressed position.

Phonotactics

The maximal syllable structure in Liðakuin is CCVCC. Liðakuin generally abhors hiatus that does not occur at word boundaries - that is, within the same word, two vowels are not allowed to touch, and compounded words or affixed words that would result in two vowels touching frequently have a consonant inserted between them, such as a sonorant or the otherwise non-phonemic glottal stop. This inserted consonant is epenthetic and is rarely written orthographically, and is also one of the key differences between different dialects of Liðakuin.