Hutala

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Introduction

Phonology

Orthography

Hútala is written with the Latin alphabet. Diacritics can be used to indicate stressed vowels : á, é, í, ó, ú, but they are often omitted. They will be used in this article.

A a /a/
B b /b/
D d /d/
E e /e/
F f /f/
G g /g/
H h /h/
I i /i/
Dj dj /d͡ʒ/ (J, j is an alternative spelling that fell into disuse by analogy with Tx, tx).
K k /k/
L l /l/
M m /m/
N n /n/
O o /o/
P p /p/
Q q /ʔ/
R r /r/
S s /s/
T t /t/
U u /u/
V v /v/
W w /w/
X x /ʃ/
Y y /j/
Z z /z/

Digraphs include : Dj, dj /d͡ʒ/ ; Tx, tx /t͡ʃ/ ; Ng, ng /ŋ/ ; Ts, ts /t͡s/ ; Dz, dz /d͡z/.

Consonants

Bilabial Labio-dental Dental Alveolar Post-alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive p b t d k g ʔ
Fricative f v s z ʃ h
Approximant j w
Trill r
Affricate t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
Lateral approx. l

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i u
Close-mid e o
Open a


Prosody

Stress

Intonation

Phonotactics

The syllable underlying structure is most usually (C)V, but consonant clusters can appear at the surface in morpheme boundaries as a result of derivative and especially of inflectional morphology. Consequently, such clusters only show up word-internally and are limited to two consonantal phonemes. However, there is no restriction on the consonants which can make up the cluster, or on their identity as C1 or C2. On the other hand, there are phenomena of voice assimilation : if one of the consonants is voiced and the other unvoiced, the voiced one gets devoiced, unless it is a nasal (although some level of devoicing might be observed in practice for nasals too). There is also an assimilation of place of articulation of the nasals /n/ and /ŋ/ and their homorganic counterparts. A word or a syllable can start with any phoneme. On the other hand, coda consonants or consonants at the end of a word are rare and diachronically restricted to nasals and stridents, but in synchronic, spoken Hútala, other coda consonants have appeared as a consequence of the elision of final vowels.

Morphophonology

Morphology

Syntax

Constituent order

The basic constituent order for transitive phrases is SVO, while for intransitive phrases it is VS. It is also VS for expressions in the passive voice. Constituent order changes in the case of questions : they are verb-final, so that we get SOV and SV.

Noun phrase

Verb phrase

Sentence phrase

Dependent clauses

Example texts

Other resources