Yattano

Introduction

Yattano is a language with transitive-intransitive alignment. Its phonology was inspired by Japanese.

Phonology

The charts under the title "phonology" use the Romanization system, rather than the actual writing system.

Consonants

Yattano has 15 consonants:

Stops
b	/b/	as in ‘bee’
p	/p/	as in ‘pea’
d	/d/	as in ‘deed’
t	/t/	as in ‘tea’
g	/g/	as in ‘get’
k	/k/	as in ‘key’
Fricatives
s	/s/	as in ‘see’
z	/z/	as in ‘zed’
sh	/ʃ/	as in ‘she’
Affricates
č	/t͡ʃ/	as in ‘cheek’
ž	/d͡ʒ/	as in ‘jam’
Nasals and Liquids
m	/m/	as in ‘me’
n	/n/	as in ‘need’
r	/r/	as in Japanese ’raku’
Semi-Vowels
j	/j/	as in ‘yesterday’

Vowels

Yattano has 6 vowels:

Back Vowels	IPA
a	/a/
o	/o/
u	/u/
Front Vowels	IPA
e	/e/
i	/i/
ö	/ø/

Prosody

Stress

Stress is usually on the second-to-last syllable of the word, but it can sometimes be on the last syllable too. Stress cannot change a word's meaning.

Phonotactics

• No words can begin with a consonant cluster
• No words can end with a consonant cluster
• No words can end with a consonant except "-n"
• Root words that have "ö" in one syllable can only have either "e", "i" or another "ö" in their other syllables

Diphtongs

Note that the vowel "ö" is not allowed to form a diphtong.

	A	E	I	O	U
A	aa	—	ia	—	ua
E	—	ee	ie	—	ue
I	ai	ei	ii	oi	ui
O	—	—	io	oo	uo
U	au	eu	iu	ou	uu

Consonant clusters=

Group 1 (n-)	Group 2 (j-)	Group 3 (š-)	Group 4 (m-)	Group 5 (double cons.)
nt	jn	št	mp	bb
nd	jt	šk	mb	kk
nk	jk		mj	dd
nj	jm			...
ng	js			(all except r and j)
	jr

Morphology

Nouns

There are 10 noun cases that are marked on the noun in Yattano: transitive, intransitive, abessive, existive, derivative or inalienable possessive, genitive, equative, postpositional, perlative

Syntax