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.

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 phonotactics are very restrictive, 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 3 phonemic oral monophthongs /a ə ɨ/, each with nasal counterparts /aⁿ əⁿ ɨⁿ/. These are 4 oral diphthongs /aɨ əɨ ɨa ɨə/, and 2 nasal diphthongs /aɨⁿ əɨⁿ/.

Consonants

	Labial	Pal. Labial	Alveolar	Lab. Alveolar	Pal. Alveolar	Retro-flex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Lab. Palatal	Lab. Velar	Lab. Uvular
Nasal	m	mʲ	n				ɲ	ŋ		ɲʷ	ŋʷ
Stop	p b	pʲ bʲ	t d	tʷ dʷ	tʲ dʲ	ʈ ɖ	c ɟ	k g	q	cʷ ɟʷ	kʷ gʷ	qʷ
Fricative			s		sʲ ~ ʃ ~ ɕ	ʂ	ç		χ	çʷ ~ ɸʲ		χʷ ~ ɸ
Approximant			ɹ			ɻ	j		ʁ	ɥ	w	ʁʷ ~ β
Lateral Approximant			ɫ				ʎ

Palatal, labialised palatal, palatalised alveolar, labialised alveolar and retroflex stops are in free variation with the corresponding affricates.

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", /ˈkə̰tə/ - "short" vs. /kəˈtə̰/ - "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. /ˈbɨə̰kɨ/ - "bake" vs. /ˈbɨə̰kːɨ/ - "duty". Geminate consonants cannot occur after nasal vowels.

Timing

NE Antarctican is mora-timed. Each syllable counts as one mora, except diphthongs, 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. /ˈbaɨ̤ⁿdɨ/ - "liver" vs. /ˈbaɨ̰ⁿdɨ/ - "to tie together".

Phonotactics

The only possible syllable structures are CV and V, and the latter only occurs word initially.

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 /ˈbaɨ̤ⁿdɨ/ - "liver", the breathy phonation spreads from the first (stressed) syllable, through the /d/ onto the final syllable. However, in words such as /ˈbɨə̰kɨ/ - "bake" and /ˈbɨə̰kːɨ/ - "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. However, it is blocked by fricatives and voiced stops e.g. it spreads in both /ˈqɨ̰ɫɨ/ - "big" and /ˈkə̰tə/ - "short", but not in /gʷɨˈkɨ̰da/ - "to swim" or /ˈkʷə̰sa/ - "to throw".

Vowel Allophony

Even though there is no phonemic contrast between front and back vowels, this does not mean that sounds such as [i], [u] and [e] are absent from the language. Front and back vowels occur as allophones of their corresponding central vowels. This allophony is depends on both the surrounding consonants. If a consonant begins a bimoraic syllable, then it only affects the first part of that syllable e.g. /ˈwɨ̤ⁿdɨ/ - "wind" is pronounced [ˈwʉɨ̤ⁿdɨ̤], with the /w/ only causing rounding of the first part of the following vowel (since it is nasal and hence bimoraic). /akʷɨəˈta̰/ - "to squeeze" is pronounced [akʷʉəˈta̰ː], with only the first element of the diphthong being rounded.

Likewise, if a consonant follows a bimoraic syllable, then it only affects the last part of the vowel e.g. /ˈsɨqɨ/ - "to suck" is pronounced [ˈsɨɯ̰qɯ].

Fronting

This occurs when a vowel is adjacent to a palatal or palatalised consonant e.g. /ˈɨ̰mːʲɨ/ [ˈḭmːʲḭ] - "ocean", /ˈca̰kːɨsama/ [ˈcæ̰kːɨ̰sama] - "customer".

Retraction

This occurs adjacent to a (non-labialised) uvular consonant, or "dark" /ɫ/ e.g. /ˈqɨ̰dːɨ/ [ˈqɯ̰dːɨ] - "good".

Rounding without Retraction

This occurs adjacent to labialised velar consonants, but does not apply to /a/ e.g. /akʷɨəˈta̰/ [akʷʉəˈta̰ː] - "to squeeze", /gʷɨˈkɨ̰da/ - [gʷʉˈkɨːda] - "to swim".

Rounding with Retraction

This applies to all short monophthongs in two cases. The first is adjacent to a labialised uvular consonant, or a labialised alveolar consonant e.g. /ˈtʷɨpːasɨ/ [ˈtʷupːasɨ] - "intestines", /ˈmɨ̤qːʷɨə/ [ˈmṳqːʷuə] - (a female given name).

The second case occurs between a uvular consonant and a rounded velar consonant (which is quite rare) e.g. /sɨaˈgʷa̤qːə/ [sɨaˈgʷɒqːɤ] - "that meeting". Note that in addition to this sound change (in the second, stressed syllable), we can also see retraction without rounding in the final syllable.

Rounding with Fronting

This occurs to all short monophthongs except /a/, in two cases. The first is adjacent to a labialised palatal consonant e.g. /ɨˈɥaɨ̰/ [yˈɥaɨ̰] - "festival". The second is between a palatal / palatalised consonant, and a labialised non-uvular consonant e.g. /ʎɨˈkʷɨ̰ɹɨ/ [ʎyˈkʷʉɨ̰ɹɨ̰] - "yellow".