|
|
| Line 82: |
Line 82: |
|
| |
|
| ''Letters in parantheses are romanizations. Sequences of sounds that could be confused for digraphs are seperated by a dash ( sx, /ʃ/ vs. s-x, /sx/).'' | | ''Letters in parantheses are romanizations. Sequences of sounds that could be confused for digraphs are seperated by a dash ( sx, /ʃ/ vs. s-x, /sx/).'' |
| ===Phonology===
| |
| ====Consonants====
| |
|
| |
| The consonants marked with apostrophes are lateral sounds
| |
|
| |
| To pronounce them, put the tip of your tongue at the base of your bottom teeth. Then, bend the rest of your tongue upwards until the center of your tongue is pressed against the base of the top teeth. Then, make a plosive, nasal, fricative, or lateral with your tongue in this position. You should sound like you have a lisp.
| |
|
| |
| Plosive consonants and fricatives make a three-way distinction, voiceless, voiced, and breathy. v~w is considered an approximant, although it surfaces as the voiced bilabial fricative v before or after labial vowels. All fricatives, even aspirated ones, may occur at the end of syllables. There is no breathy Gh, nor are there p or b sounds (except in rare circumstances). The only consonant clusters in the Metin language are affricates and l clusters, such as kl, tl, dl, and dlh. l clusters may be voiceless, voiced or breathy. There are also x clusters, px, tx, t'x, and Tx, there are only 4, and they are always voiceless.
| |
|
| |
| Nasals are only distinguished from eachother in the onset of a syllable, at the end of a syllable, they become the archiphoneme m*, which represents a nasal which agrees with the following consonant in place of articulation. If followed by a vowel, m* becomes, /m/.
| |
|
| |
| Approximants can also carry no secondary articulations. There is also an archiphoneme for syllable final approximants, that is l*. l* becomes ł before voiceless non-retroflex consonants, r before retroflex consonants, vowels, and voiced consonants, and l before voiced palatal and dental consonants.
| |
| ====Vowels====
| |
| Vowels are divided into two groups, normal and lateral.
| |
|
| |
| A normal vowel has the tongue held straight during production. They cannot occur after a lateral or retroflex consonant.They are divided int three groups. The first group is the fronted vowels, or palatals, which are are i, e and á. The neutral mid vowels are ï, ë, and a. . The final group is the back vowels, or labial vowels, u, o and à.
| |
|
| |
| A lateral vowel is produced with the tip of the tongue at the base of the teeth and the rest of the tongue bent upwards. Frontness and backness are not distinguished, only openness and labialness. There are only two pure lateral vowels, unlabialized i' and labialized u', the other lateral vowels are dipthongs with i' and u', aa' is a dipthong of aa and i', o' is a dipthong of o and u'.
| |
| ===Phonotactics=== | | ===Phonotactics=== |
| A syllable may optionally have an onset with any one consonant or the permitted consonant clusters (listed in consonants section). The nucleus must consist of a vowel or sequence of vowels (vowels do not dipthongize, rather a sequence of vowels is pronounced with each vowel distinct.) The (optional) coda may be any fricative (including h and other breathy fricatives. | | A syllable may optionally have an onset with any one consonant or the permitted consonant clusters (listed in consonants section). The nucleus must consist of a vowel or sequence of vowels (vowels do not dipthongize, rather a sequence of vowels is pronounced with each vowel distinct.) The (optional) coda may be any fricative (including h and other breathy fricatives. |