Ris/Phonology
The Ris phonology is a medium-sized inventory of sounds, modelled after Indo-European languages.
Phonologically and phonaesthetically, the language is modelled after Greek. Other influences are native American languages, the Shona language and to certain degree Swedish.
Interesting oddities in the phonology are the whistled sounds /s͎/ and /z͎/, common to a few languages in Africa.
Phonology
Consonants
The following is the inventory of consonants in the Ris language. There are 18 contrastive consonants.
| Consonants | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | Denti-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||
| plain | whispered | |||||||
| Nasals | plain | m /m/ | n /n/ | [ŋ] | ||||
| Plosives | aspirated | ph /pʰ/ | th /tʰ/ | kh /kʰ/ | [ʔ] | |||
| unvoiced | p /p/ | t /t/ | k /k/ | |||||
| voiced | b /b/ | d /d/ | g /g/ | |||||
| Fricatives | unvoiced | s /s͎/ | h /ç ~ x ~ h/ | |||||
| voiced | z /d͡z ~ d͡z͎ ~ z ~ z͎/ | [ʝ] | ||||||
| Trills | aspirated | r /r̥ʰ/ | ||||||
| voiced | r /r/ | |||||||
| Approximants | ou /w/ | |||||||
| Laterals | l /l ~ ʎ/ | |||||||
Consonant allophony
Allophony is common to many consonants, and sandhi forces them to be realised different in different environments.
The glottal fricative
The phoneme /h/, the so called glottal fricative, is in free variation with the unvoiced palatal fricative /ç/ as well as the unvoiced velar fricative /x/.
| ἒτροι | ||||
| hétroi | ||||
| /ˈhɛtrɔɪ̯/ | = | /ˈxɛtrɔɪ̯/ | = | /ˈçɛtrɔɪ̯/ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| normal, okay | ||||
The velar fricative is the most common one, but the phones are all affected by palatalisation from front vowels, producing the palatal fricative [ç].
| ὒο | ἢστιμι | |||||
| hýo | hḗstimi | |||||
| /ˈhʉ̩.ɔ/ | = | [ˈhʉ̩.ɔ] | /ˈheːs͎tɪmɪ/ | → | [ˈçeːs͎tɪmɪ] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| to leave .ind.m. | pride .f | |||||
Palatalisation
Palatalisation occurs due to two main factors:
- Internally: Front vowels tend to palatalise preceding consonants if the syllable is stressed.
- C[-pal, -rhotic, -appr] → C[+pal, -rhotic, -appr] /_V[+front, +stress]_
- Externally: A final near-close near-front vowel, /ɪ/, palatalises the initial consonant of the following word.
All consonants but the rhotic trills and the labio-velar semivowel are affected.
| Plain | /m/ | /n/ | /p | /t/ | /k/ | /b/ | /d/ | /g/ | /pʰ/ | /tʰ/ | /kʰ/ | /s/ | /z/ | /h/ | /l/ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palatalised | [mɲ] | [ɲ] | [pj] | [t͡ʃ] | [c] | [bj] | [ɟ] | [ʝ] | [p] | [t] | [k] | [ʃ] | [ʒ] | [ç] | [ʎ] |
| ρἂκι | τή | ἢστιμι | τί κατεράσχοι | |||||||||||
| rā́ki | tḗ | hḗstimi? | tí kateráskhoi? | |||||||||||
| /ˈrakɪ/ | → | [ˈracɪ] | /ˈteː/ | → | [ˈt͡ʃeː] | /ˈheːs͎tɪmɪ/ | → | [ˈçeːs͎tɪmɪ] | /ˈtɪ katɛˈraskʰɔɪ̯/ | → | [ˈt͡ʃɪ catɛˈraskʰɔɪ̯] | |||
| root .in.gen | how | pride. .f.pat | Where did I write it? | |||||||||||
Phonological processes
Vowels
There are 7 vowel phonemes in the Ris language. In Ris, the system of vowels are known as ptḗgna i rháki - 'the hollow triangle', due to their symmetrical places of articulation.
All vowels may be long, but the phonemes /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ change their quality when long; they are then pronounced /eː/ and /oː/ respectively.
| Front | Near-front | Central | Near-back | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | short | y /ʉ/ | ||||
| long | ȳ /ʉː/ | |||||
| Near-close | short | i /ɪ/ | ou /ʊ/ | |||
| long | ī /ɪː/ | ou /ʊː/ | ||||
| Close-mid | ē /eː/ | ō /oː/ | ||||
| Mid | ||||||
| Open-mid | e /ɛ/ | o /ɔ/ | ||||
| Near-open | ||||||
| Open | short | a /ä/ | ||||
| long | ā /äː/ | |||||
Other than that, my vowels are rather simple. No mystics quirks at all. Well, that's if you choose to ignore the vowel harmony and umlaut process in the Nassi dialect. Makes it a tad more interesting, in my opinion.
Phonotactics
There are a number of phonological constraints on the Ris words.
As for the syllable structure, the following rules apply:
- All syllables have an onset. The default onset is always a glottal stop, /ʔ/.
- All syllables have a nucleus.
- No geminate consonants.
- Only /n/, /r/, /s/ and glides are allowed in codas.
On consonant clusters in onsets, there are a multitude of rules:
- The first consonant in a complex onset must be an obstruent, or the bilabial nasal /m/.
- If the first consonant in a complex onset is an /m/, the second must be an alveolar nasal /n/.
- If the first consonant in a complex onset is an /s/, the second must be a plosive.
- The second consonant in a complex onset must not be a voiced obstruent.
- The third consonant in a complex onset must be a rhotic trill /r/, or a glide.
- The fourth consonant in a complex onset must be a glide.
- Any obstruent in a complex onset must be voiceless.
Some rules are phoneme-specific:
- The /h/ only occurs in onset position.