North-East Antarctican

Overview

NE Antarctican is a cluster of mutually intelligible dialects, spoken in the far future in Antartica, where runaway global warming has melted the ice sheets, while at the same time rendering most of the rest of the world uninhabitable.

The ancestors of the speakers of NE Antarctican lived on the coast of Antarctica, due south of Africa. They spoke a variety of English that was heavily influenced by African languages (some English words became grammaticalised as noun class prefixes), and soon their language was also influenced by Spanish (Patagonia was one of the few nearby places that was still habitable, and many people migrated from there to the Antarctic continent) and by Japanese (Japan established colonies all around the Antarctic coast).

The language has evolved for roughly 2000 years since migration, but still shares a number of features with English. These include prepositions, absence of case marking on nouns, adjectives and numerals preceding nouns, but relative clauses following it, and a two-way voicing contrast on stops and affricates.

However, it differs from English in many other ways. Syntactically, it prefers SVO, but is less strict than English, often allowing words to be fronted as topics, or elided if they are obvious from context. This does not create ambiguities, since verbs have have prefixes to mark polypersonal agreement as well as hierarchical person marking. The language also marks alienable and inalienable possession. Phonologically, the language uses secondary articulation to contrast a very large number of consonant phonemes (43) however the only syllable structures permitted are CV and V, and most dialects have a vertical vowel system (the ones that do not still preserve an older system with vowel harmony).

Phonology

Vowels

Vowel frontness / backness is not phonemic. There are 4 phonemic oral vowels /a ɜ ɘ ɨ/, and 3 phonemic nasal vowels /aⁿ əⁿ ɨⁿ/.

Consonants

	Labial	Pal. Labial	Alveolar	Post-Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Lab. Palatal	Lab. Velar	Lab. Uvular
Nasal	m	mʲ	n			ɲ	ŋ
Stop	p b	pʲ bʲ	t d		ʈ ɖ	c ɟ	k g	q	cʷ ɟʷ	kʷ gʷ	qʷ
Affricate			ts dz	tʃ dʒ
Fricative			s	ʃ	ʂ	ç		χ	çʷ ~ ɸʲ		χʷ ~ ɸ
Approximant			ɹ		ɻ	j		ʁ	ɥ	w	ʁʷ ~ β
Lateral Approximant			ɫ			ʎ

Depending on the dialect, /ts/ and /dz/ can be pronounced as dental affricates [tθ] and [dð], lateral affricates [tɬ] and [dɮ], or labialised stops [tʷ] and [dʷ].

Suprasegmentals

Stress

In each word, one syllable has stress. Stress can occur on any syllable, indeed the location is phonemic. There are many minimal pairs that contrast only in the location of the stress e.g. /ˈqɨ̰ɫɨ/ - "big" vs. /qɨˈɫɨ̰/ - "evidence", /ˈkɘ̰tɘ/ - "short" vs. /kɘˈtɘ̰/ - "concept".

Gemination

If a stressed vowel is followed by a consonant, then sometimes the consonant is doubled. This is phonemic, and there are minimal pairs distinguished by the presence of gemination e.g. /bɜˈɨ̤kɨ/ - "bake" vs. /bɜˈɨkːɨ/ - "duty". Geminate consonants cannot occur after nasal vowels.

Timing

NE Antarctican is mora-timed. Each syllable counts as one mora, except nasal vowels and stressed syllables count for two, and therefore take twice as long to pronounce. If a stressed syllable has an oral vowel, but is not followed by a geminate consonant, then the vowel is pronounced long.

Phonation

There is a phonemic phonation contrast on stressed syllables, between breathy voice and tense voice. There are many minimal pairs that contrast this e.g. /ˈba̤ⁿɨⁿdɨ/ - "liver" vs. /ˈba̰ⁿɨⁿdɨ/ - "to tie together".

Phonotactics

The only possible syllable structures are CV and V. If two identical vowels occur without an intervening consonant, then a glottal stop is inserted between them. If two non-identical vowels occur without an intervening consonant, then the result is often pronounced as a diphthong.

If two vowels occur adjacent to each other without an adjacent consonant, then they must either both be oral or both be nasal. If a process such as affixation or compounding would cause a violation of this rule, then both vowels are nasalised. /ɜ/ and /ɘ/ both merge to /əⁿ/ e.g. when the noun /ˈa̰ⁿta/ - "husband" takes the second person possessive prefix /jɘ-/, the result is /jəⁿˈa̰ⁿta/ - "your husband".

Phonetic Processes

Phonation Spreading

Both breathy and tense phonation tend to spread rightwards from the stressed syllable. Breathy voice spreads until it is blocked by a voiceless consonant. So in /ˈba̤ⁿɨⁿdɨ/ - "liver", the breathy phonation spreads from the first (stressed) syllable, onto the /ɨⁿ/ and then through the /d/ onto the final syllable. However, in words such as /bɜˈɨ̤kɨ/ - "bake" and /bɜˈɨkːɨ/ - "duty", the voiceless /k/ blocks the spread of the breathy voice, no matter whether or not it is geminated.

The rules for tense phonation are slightly more complex. Tense phonation spreads through nasals, approximants and lateral approximants, and also through voiceless stops and voiceless affricates. However, it is blocked by voiced stops, voiced affricates, and fricatives e.g. it spreads in both /ˈqɨ̰ɫɨ/ - "big" and /ˈkɘ̰tɘ/ - "short", but not in /gʷɨˈkɨ̰da/ - "to swim" or /ˈkʷɘ̰sa/ - "to throw".