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Ancient Raunan: Difference between revisions
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More phonology
(Phonology - Consonants) |
(More phonology) |
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| style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#efefef;" | Approximants | |||
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| style="text-align: center; background-color:#ffffff;" | w /w/ | |||
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#ffffff;" | y /j/ | |||
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As an ancient language, the exact pronunciation of certain consonants is not entirely known. This is particularly true of the rhotic /r/ whose exact realization is unknown but seems to have varied from region to region as ancient texts mention that 'the R sound has a weaker pronunciation in the west'. | As an ancient language, the exact pronunciation of certain consonants is not entirely known. This is particularly true of the rhotic /r/ whose exact realization is unknown but seems to have varied from region to region as ancient texts mention that 'the R sound has a weaker pronunciation in the west'. As the approximants /w/ and /j/ were not reliably distinguished from /hʷ/ and /hʲ/ in writing (as neither were the zero-consonant Ø and /h/) it has been suggested that the latter might have been pronounced as the former at least in some dialectal varieties. | ||
The glottal stop /ʔ/ (also transcribed as ''h''; preceded by an apostrophe if immediately before a vowel as in ''Raunah'ih'') is also used in the language although it patterns unlike any other consonant, being found exclusively in syllable codae. Due to this glottalization may be considered a feature of Raunan vowels despite its pronunciation being theorized to be an actual glottal stop rather than a glottalized phonation of the vowels. | |||
===Vowels=== | ===Vowels=== | ||
=== | The spoken language was characterized by a small variety of vowels (/a ə i u/, also transcribed as ''a ə i u'') although combined into a larger number of diphthongs: /aə ai au əi əu iə uə/. The letter ''e'' might be used as an alternative to ''ə'' in the romanization should the latter not be available. | ||
=== | {| class="wikitable" | ||
! style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#efefef;" | | |||
! style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#efefef;" | Front | |||
! style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#efefef;" | Mid | |||
! style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#efefef;" | Back | |||
! style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#efefef;" | Diphthongs | |||
|- | |||
| style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#efefef;" | High | |||
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#ffffff;" | i /i/ | |||
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#ffffff;" | | |||
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#ffffff;" | u /u/ | |||
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#ffffff;" | iə /iə/, uə /uə/ | |||
|- | |||
| style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#efefef;" | Mid | |||
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#ffffff;" | | |||
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#ffffff;" | ə /ə/ | |||
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#ffffff;" | | |||
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#ffffff;" | əi /əi/, əu /əu/ | |||
|- | |||
| style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#efefef;" | Low | |||
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#ffffff;" | | |||
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#ffffff;" | a /a/ | |||
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#ffffff;" | | |||
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#ffffff;" | aə /aə/, ai /ai/, au /au/ | |||
|} | |||
===Phonotactics and prosody=== | |||
Ancient Raunan only allows '''(C)V(H)''' syllables where | |||
* '''C''' is any consonant other than the glottal stop. | |||
* '''V''' is either a vowel or a diphthong | |||
* '''H''' is the glottal stop. | |||
There are no further phonotactical restrictions. Although ''yi'' and ''wu'' (/ji/ and /wu/) are often substituted with plain ''i'' and ''u'' in inflectional paradigms, they are still allowed. | |||
Prosodic stress was non-phonemic in Ancient Raunan. Words were usually stressed on the second-to-last syllable. | |||
==Morphology== | ==Morphology== | ||
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