Rokadong phonology

This page discusses the phonology of Rokadong.

Rokadong is a mora-timed, dynamic-accent language, with several notable features such as nasal assimilation. Due to its wide range, Rokadong phonology is also quite variable from dialect to dialect.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Labial		alveolar		Post- alveolar/ palatal		Velar		Uvular		Glottal
Nasal		m		n		ɲ		ŋ
Stop	p	b	t	d	t͡ʃ	d͡ʒ	k	ɡ			ʔ
Fricative	f	v	s	z	ʃ						h
Approximant				(ɹ)		j		w
Lateral				l
Trill				(r)						(ʀ)		(ʢ̠ᵐ)
Tap				ɾ

Notes

• /ɾ/ is a highly variable sound, with exact realization depending on dialect and surroundings:
  • [r], the "long r", is usually found morpheme-initially as well as in clusters of /ɾ l/.
  • [ɹ], the "vowel r", is found morpheme-finally in some dialects.
  • [ʀ], the "growl r", is marginally phonemic, as some words in some dialects retain it instead of it merging. It may also appear in imperative or otherwise forceful speech as an allophone of /ɾ/.
  • [ʢ̠], the "purr r", is usually also labialized, if not produced with an entirely closed mouth, which is why it appears as ʢ̠ᵐ in the chart. This sound is true glottal, and thus is not possible for humans to reproduce, as the only method humans have of producing a glottal trill is through vowels, which are produced with an open mouth. However, it can be imitated through a variety of means if desired, and often is merged with one or more of [r ʀ m], even for kanva speakers.
• Nasal consonants lose their contrast before stop consonants. However, they still contrast in morpheme-final position, so /ŋ/ is still considered phonemic.
• /h/ is frequently elided between unlike vowels.
• In most dialects, /s, z, (t)ʃ, dʒ/ palatalize to [ʃ~ɕ, ʒ~ʑ, (t)ɕ, dʑ] before /i, j/.
• In Pahang Rokadong and Oceanic Rokadong dialects, [s, z] may vary with non-sibilant equivalents [θ, ð], especially morpheme-finally. The latter used to be phonemic, but merged with the former, now only appearing as an allophone of it. These dialects are described as "tékuhasa" ("all S"). In Continental Rokadong dialects, assibilation of /θ/ is complete, and only [s, z] remain.

Vowels

Vowel phonemes

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː		u uː
Mid	e eː	(ə)	o oː
Open		a aː

Notes

• /e, o/ may be realized as [e̞, o̞].
• /i, u, e, o/ may be opened in the final syllable of a morpheme if it is closed, to any of [i~ɪ~e~ɛ, u~ʊ~o~ɔ, e~ɛ, o~ɔ] respectively, though this is substantially more common for /i, u/ than for /e, o/.
• Morpheme-final short /a/ becomes [ə] in most dialects, but some perform this change on all unstressed short /a/.

Prosody

Rokadong is generally described as mora-timed, with short vowels and coda sonorants each providing one mora to the syllable, and long vowels and diphthongs providing two moras. However, timing may sway toward syllable-timing in certain dialects and speaking styles. Particularly for Sanenyandoka, the dialect most well-known for syllable timing, this phenomenon is known as "raisendoka" (literally "gun speech").

There are also prosodic connotations from the phonemes used in a word. The vowel directly preceding a plosive /p t t͡ʃ k b d d͡ʒ g/ and the rhotic /ɾ/ is considered "defective". This happens for any plosive pair, but the only ones which occur in all dialects involve /ɾ/. A defective syllable cannot be stressed or have pitch accent, unless it is the only syllable in the word. A defective syllable is allowed to have the offglide from accented to neutral pitch, though. Moving the accent to the preceding syllable is preferred if the defective syllable has both a syllable before and after it, as the syllable after the defective one is also considered to be defective. Examples follow:

• bélrukr [ˈbeː˥˧rʊ˧kɾ] - there is a syllable before the defective rukr syllable.
• anrukron [ˈan˥ɾʊ˥˧kɾɔ˧n] - there are syllables before and after the defective rukr, so the an syllable is preferred over the ron.
• rukrapan [ɾʊ˧kˈɾa˥pa˥˧n] - there is no syllable before the defective rukr, so the stress is forced to be on ra.
• rukr [ˈɾʊ˥˧kɾ] - there is no adjacent syllable here, so the stress is forced onto the defective syllable.

Stress

Rokadong is a dynamic-accent language. Stressed syllables are louder than non-stressed syllables. Stressed syllables may also have higher or lower pitch, but the distinction is not phonemic in most modern Rokadong dialects. Rokadong therefore is not usually considered a pitch-accent language, as there is only one pitch mode in most dialects. However, it does interact in unique ways with the stress system, so some analyses retain that it is a pitch accent language, just one whose two pitch contours have been merged, much like the Tokyo Yamanote dialect of Japanese.

Stress is usually on the syllable containing the penultimate mora. As such, the ultimate syllable receives the accent if it is closed or has a long vowel. However, if the antepenultimate vowel is long, and the penultimate and ultimate vowels are not long, then that long vowel receives the accent.

Pitch blurring

Also like Japanese, compound words tend to blur their respective pitch accents together. In the case of Rokadong, the default is that every morpheme in a compounded word maintains its stress. Some compound words do have unique stress locations to the words by themselves, however. For the pitch system, this means that every stressed syllable raises the pitch, while the last one in the word neutralizes the pitch on the subsequent mora.

Contionary notation

In the Rokadong Category:Contionary, a syllable with secondary stress [ˌ] has higher pitch on its first mora, but the succeeding mora does not lower the pitch, while a syllable with primary stress [ˈ] does neutralize its pitch on the following syllable. The place in the word where this pitch neutralization occurs is noted with the downstep [ꜜ]. Pitches are only directly notated in dialects or words where the pitch does matter. For example, the particle au generally has a different meaning depending on if its pitch is high-rising or high-falling.

Phonotactics

Rokadong is a (C)V(C) language for the most part, though the final C in a word may also be clusters of a stop followed by /ɾ/. Phonetically, stop-rhotic sequences are [Bɾə]], however. V can be a short vowel, a long vowel, or a diphthong. A more full description of Rokadong's syllable structure would be (C)(j)V(ː/C/SR), where C is a consonant, j is /j/, V is a vowel, and SR is a stop-rhotic sequence.

/h ʔ/ are in complementary distribution in most dialects, with the former only permissible in the onset of syllables, and the latter only permissible in the coda of syllables, and only before consonants or at the end of words, though some dialects only apply this to a small subset of the Rokadong dictionary. Additionally, /ŋ/ merged with /n/ at the start of syllables, while the opposite occured with /ɲ/. Therefore, /ɲ ŋ/ are also in complementary distribution when not assimilated. However, note that a coda /ʔ ŋ/ is still kept in compound words, even when the next syllable doesn't have an onset, and vice versa for an onset /h ɲ/.

Rokadong's diphthongs are /aj aw oj ja jo ju/. Only the latter three may appear with a syllable coda after them.

When a morpheme's initial vowel is preceded by another vowel, the boundary is often realized as hard attack. However, /h/ almost never causes hard attack, even if it gets elided.

The following strings of phonemes that may occur due to affixes or compounding are not allowed:

• Any phoneme followed by itself; if a conflict occurs, one is dropped for consonants. Vowel handling under this rule differs between dialects, though usually either they combine to a long vowel, or the latter vowel is given hard attack.
• Two consecutive consonants that differ only in voicing; if a conflict occurs, then usually, the voiced consonant is kept unless the prior vowel is short and unstressed, then the unvoiced consonant is kept.
• Two nasal consonants; if a conflict occurs, then one of the nasals is dropped; generally speaking, /m ɲ/ are more likely to be kept than /n ŋ/. This has resulted in some fossilized /ɲ/ formerly in the coda, such as tén sometimes turning into tény. However, in many dialects, the nasal that is kept is geminated. This is not necessarily phonemic, but may still be reflected in the preferred orthography of some dialects, such as writing zanma as ZmM rather than ZnM.
• The sequences /ji, wu, wo, uw, ow, uo, and ou/ are not allowed unless there is a syllabic break between them. If needed, the semivowel is dropped or becomes /v/.