Ádeyan Phonology

1.1  Sounds (in IPA)

The Ádeyan language has the following phonemes:

Obstruents: /p t k b d g f θ s ʃ ʒ h ʧ ʤ ɾ/ (written <p t k b d g f th s x z h c j r>)

Sonorant Consonants: /m n l j/ (written <m n l y>)

Vowels: /a e i o u/ (written <a e i o u>)

Additionally, Ádeyan uses lexical stress.  Primary and secondary stresses are marked with an accute accent over the vowel (e.g. <á>).

1.2  Phonotactics

All consonants can be onsets.  In addition, all stops and fricatives except /h/ can form onset clusters by appending /l/ or /ɾ/ to them.  Onsets are not obligatory, although syllables without onsets are relatively rare.

All consonants except the stops, /h/ and /j/ can be codas, but coda clusters are not allowed.

1.3  Allophony

A number of consonants change their pronounciation when they appear as codas.  /f/ becomes [ɸ], and the postalveolars become alveolar - that is, /ʃ ʒ ʧ ʤ/ become [s z ʦ ʣ].  /h/ is only pronounced when it occurs intervocalically, although it is somewhat debatable whether the phoneme actually appears in those positions, or if it is simply an artifact of orthography.  It is generally accepted by Ádeyan historians that it when orthographic <h> () occurs at the beginning of a word, it does not represent any phoneme, but that when it occurs within a word but is not pronounced, it does.  Accordingly, unpronounced <h>s at the beginnings of words are not transcribed, but unpronounced <h>s within words are.

Vowels are realized differently when they are stressed versus unstressed; when stressed the are [a e i o u], and when unstressted they are [ɐ ɛ ɪ ɔ ʊ].

1.4  Stress

Stress in Ádeyan is lexical, but there are still some rules about how the underlying stress is realized in speech.  Stress patterns must be divisible into iambic (US), trochaic (SU), anapestic (UUS) or dactyllic (SUU) feet, with an optional extra unstressed syllable on either end, and the final syllable of every word is always unstressed.  In compounds, the stress patterns of the head noun are obeyed first, and the rest are arranged to fit a legal pattern.  Many grammatical particles, suffixes, and prefixes reject stress even if it means violating the stress pattern on the head.  Since most of these wind up at the ends of words, though, it winds up not mattering very much.  Grammatical particles marking imperfective aspect (see Verbal Morphology) on the other hand, actually demand stress at the expense of the stress patterns on the rest of the verb, leading to a distinctive intonation pattern for imperfective versus perfective verb forms (whose particles reject the stress).

1.5  Sound Changes from Proto-Wohaiehn

• Long vowels became lexically stressed instead.
• Glottal stops became [h], and were lost in all positions except intervocalically.
• Unbroken series' of vowels were separated by [ɾ].
• [t] and [d] following a stressed/long vowel and preceding an unstressed/short vowel became [ɾ].
• [w] became [b]
• [j] in coda position was lost.
• [ɸ] became [f] in onset position.
• Voiced oral stops in codas became nasal stops, except [g] which was lost.
• [θ] came from Proto-Wohaiehn, either directly (in which case it became [s] in modern Wohaiehn) or via a sound change.  Exactly which is to be determined later.  It also occurs in words of Syûzin origin, which probably indicates a sound change, as I don't believe Syûzin has [θ].
• The voiced postalveolars ([ʒ ʤ]) mostly come from Syûzin, but can also be found alongside native Proto-Wohaiehn roots and in grammatical elements,  This may be an illustration of the degree to which Syûzin words have pervaded Ádeyan vocabulary, or there may actually have been a sound change from P-W.  There also remains to be explained the lack of [z], whatever the case.

On to Orthography.