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Contents

• Info
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Phonology
  • 2.1 Consonants
  • 2.2 Vowels
  • 2.3 Diphthongs
  • 2.4 Phonotactics

Info

a	romanization
a	translation
/a/	phonemic transcription
[a]	phonetic transcription

1 Introduction

Fatalia is a personal constructed language built around rhythmic euphony. Song lyrics often feature complex rhyming patterns which are meant to sound pleasant to the ear. I wanted to replicate this phenomenon by having various patterns built into the language as grammatical or morphological constructions.

2 Phonology

2.1 Consonants

This is the consonant inventory of Fatalia.

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	m /m/	n /n/	ni/n' /ɲ/	ng /ŋ/
Stop	p /p/ b /b/	t /t/ d /d/		k /k/ g /ɡ/
Fricative	f /f/ v /v/	s /s/ z /z/	sh /ʃ/ j /ʒ/	ch /x/
Liquid		l /l/ r /ɾ/	li/l' /ʎ/

Palatals /ɲ/ and /ʎ/ have several possible romanizations.

• - /ɲ/~/n/ and /ʎ/~/l/ are in complementary distribution before front high vowels. Only the palatals occur before /i/ and only the alveolars occur before /ɪ/. Both /ɲi/ and /nɪ/ are romanized ni. Both /ʎi/ and /lɪ/ are romanized li.
• - before a vowel, /ɲi/ and /ʎi/ are romanized ni' and li', respectively, e.g. li'a /ʎi.a/, ni'a /ɲi.a/
• - before other vowels, /ɲ/ and /ʎ/ are romanized ni and li, respectively, e.g. lia /ʎa/, nia /ɲa/
• - word-finally, /ɲ/ and /ʎ/ are romanized n' and l', respectively

Nasals do not contrast in coda position before other consonants, but assimilate to the following consonant. This is also reflected in spelling.

• - m [m] before p b
• - n [ɱ] before f v
• - n [n] before t d s z n l r (nn nl nr clusters only cross-morphemically)
• - n' [ɲ] before sh j ni li (only cross-morphemically)
• - ng [ŋ] before k g ch (in romanization simplified to nk ngg nch)

Any consonant can serve as the initial or coda of a syllable.

2.2 Vowels

This is the vowel inventory of Fatalia.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i /i/ /ɪ/		u /u/ /ʊ/
Mid	e /e/	(/ə/)	o /o/
Low		a /a/ /ɐ/

In stressed syllables (including secondary stress), vowels can be pronounced as tense or lax. Tense pronunciations occur in open syllables and when the vowel is followed by a single consonant. Lax pronunciations occur if the vowel is followed by a doubled consonant or a consonant cluster.

Vowel	Tense	Lax
i	[i]	[ɪ]
u	[u]	[ʊ]
e	[ei̯]	[e]
o	[ou̯]	[o]
a	[a]	[ɐ]

Note that doubled consonants do not indicate geminates, but rather that the preceding vowel should be lax, cf. pit /pit/ and pitt /pɪt/. Doubled k is conventionally romanized as ck for esthetic reasons.

Palatals sh j ni li, as well as ch and ng are never doubled, but are always preceded by lax vowels, e.g. mush /mʊʃ/, fong /foŋ/.

In unstressed syllables, vowels have differet pronunciations depending on whether the syllable is open or closed, or the vowel is word-final.

Vowel	Open	Closed	Word-final
i	[i]	[ɪ]	[i]
u	[u]	[ʊ]	[u]
e	[e]	[ə]	[ə]
o	[o]	[ə]	[ə]
a	[ɐ]	[ə]	[ɐ]

2.3 Diphthongs

There are six diphthongs in the language.

Spelling	Stressed	Unstressed
ae, ai	[ai̯]	[ɐi̯]
ao, au	[au̯]	[ɐu̯]
ei	[ei̯]
eu	[eu̯]
oi	[oi̯]
ou	[ou̯]

Diphthongs are always tense and never followed by doubled consonants.

Any other vowels sequences are treated as hiatus, and always pronounced with their cardinal values [i u e o a]. They are never followed by doubled consonants. In unstressed syllables, higher vowels can become non-syllabic /i̯/ /u̯/ and form diphthongs with neighboring vowels, e.g. ea /e.a/ or /i̯a/, ue /u.e/ or /u̯e/.

2.4 Phonotactics

Word-initially, the following clusters are allowed.

• - tf kf sf
• - ps ts ks(x)
• - sp st sk sm sn
• - spr str skr
• - spl skl
• - pr br tr dr kr gr fr vr sr zr chr mr
• - pl bl kl gl fl vl sl zl chl ml

Word-medially, all word-initial clusters are allowed in addition to the following.

• - tp kp fp chp
• - pt kt ft cht
• - pk tk fk chk
• - p t k + any word-initial s-initial cluster
• - mp mb nt nd ngk(nk) ngg nf nv ns nz ngch(nch)
• - rp rb rt rd rk rg rf rv rs rz rch rm rn rl
• - lp lb lt ld lk lg lf lv ls lz lch lm ln lr
• - m/n/ng r l + any word-initial obstruent-initial cluster

Word-finally, the following clusters are allowed.

• - pt kt ft
• - ps ts ks(x)
• - sp st sk
• - mp mb nt nd ngk(nk) nf ns
• - nsp nst nsk mps nts nks(nx)
• - rp rb rt rd rk rg rf rs rch rm rn
• - rsp rst rsk rps rts rks(rx)
• - lp lb lt ld lk lg lf ls lch lm ln
• - lsp lst lsk lps lts lks(lx)

ks is conventially romanized as x for esthetic reasons, but still treated as two consonants.

Palatal consonants never cluster.

Consonant clusters other than those listed above can occur word-medially, but only across morpheme boundaries.