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Silōs
The Silōs language is an a priori micronatlang spoken exclusively within the Cœlophycian Interim Diarchy. It is largely an isolating language, with occasional productive affixes and compound words. Silōs belongs to the Sinos-Koelic language family, therefore related to the Carichendan and Sinushyeinametiniq languages, moreso to the former. Silōs has a standardized Latin alphabet, but the language is natively written in the Silōs abugida.
Phonology
The phonology of Silōs is simple, indeed very limited, having no velar consonants, no secondary articulation, and no phonemic voicing besides for the labiodental fricative. There are five phonemic vowels. In total, this makes for only 15 distinct phonemes, not counting the palatal approximant, which is considered a mere allophone of the vowel /i/, nor the glottal fricative, which is an allophonic epenthesis in back-vowel hiati.
Consonants
Bilabial | Labio-dental | Alveolar | Post-alveolar | Palatal | Glottal | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m /m/ | n /n/ | ||||
Plosive | p /p/ | t /t/ | ||||
Fricative | f /f/ v /v/ | s /s/ | z /ʒ/ | [ɦ] | ||
Approximant | [j] | |||||
Trill | r /r/ | |||||
Lateral | l /l/ |
Vowels
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i /i/ | u /u/ | |
Mid | e /ɛ̝/ | ō /ɔ̝/ | |
Open | a /ä/ |
Accent
The Silōs language has no phonemic stress accent, pitch accent, nor lexical tone, rendering the basis of the distinction of words solely on the phonemes which compose them. As such, the Silōs language parses its polysyllabic words as if each syllable were a separate word. Many speakers, however, use an allophonic stress accent when not using careful speech.
Prosody
Interrogative sentences in the Silōs language use specific prosodic patterns, as most languages do. The binary question marker preverb zi takes a low pitch with all other syllables at a normal pitch in sentences using it. The passive/complex question marker preverb ius causes a constant rising pitch in sentences using it.