Muipidan Phonology

Sounds

The consonant inventory is:

Labial

Alveolar

Velar/Back

Aspirated Stop

/pʰ/ <ph>

/tʰ/ <th>

/kʰ/ <kh>

Plain Stop

/p/

/t/

/k/

Ejective Stop

/pʼ/ <p’>

/tʼ/ <t’>

/kʼ/ <k’>

Voiced Stop

/b/

/d/

/g/

Prenasalized Stop

/ᵐb/ <mb>

/ⁿd/ <nd>

/ᵑg/ <ng>

Fricative

/f/ <f~v>

/s/

/h/

Voiceless Nasal

/m̥/ <hm>

/n̥/ <hn>

Voiced Nasal

/m/

/n/

Approximant

/w/

/l/

/j/ <y>

The vowel inventory is:

Front Unrounded

Front Rounded

Central

Back Unrounded

Back Rounded

High

/i/

/y/ <ü>

/ə/ <e>

/ɨ/ <ï>

/u/

Low

/e/

/a/

/o/

Vowels at the ends of words behave differently than elsewhere in the word: only /i/, /ə/, /o/, and /a/ can occur word-finally, while /ə/ cannot occur elsewhere. The romanization takes advantage of this by writing both /e/ and /ə/ as <e>.

Allophones

Words are strongly stressed on the first syllable, with a weaker stress on alternating syllables after the first. Stressed syllables have a higher pitch and their vowels are held slightly longer.

Vowels tend to be pronounced more tense in the stressed syllables, more lax in the non-final unstressed syllables of the word. So /i/ moves closer to [ɪ], /e/ is more like [ɛ] or even [ə], /y/ is more like [ʏ] or [ø], etc. This laxing of vowels also happens before nasal consonants and glides in stressed syllables, so eme “sun” would normally be realized as [ˈɛ.mə] while ete “there are” would be [ˈe.tə]; similarly, sey “twenty” tends to be pronounced [sɛj].

The fricatives /f/ and /s/ are voiced between two voiced sounds. To indicate this, /f/ is written as <v> in those environments; /s/ is still written as <s> because voicing the letter <s> in those environments is common in English as well.

When /l/ is adjacent to /ɨ/, it tends to be pronounced as a dark l [ɫ].

Vowel Harmony

Words in Muipidan follow two overlapping systems of vowel harmony: harmony by height, and harmony by frontness. This arranges the vowels into four harmony sets:

“I” vowels

/i/

/y/

/ɨ/

“U” vowels

/ɨ/

/u/

/ɨ/

“E” vowels

/e/

/y/

/a/

“O” vowels

/ɨ/

/o/

/a/

Vowels at the ends of words are reduced, and so follow different patterns:

“I” vowels

/i/

/ə/

/a/

“U” vowels

/ə/

/o/

/a/

“E” vowels

/i/

/ə/

/a/

“O” vowels

/ə/

/o/

/a/

Each set is named after the vowel that normally triggers it; for example, an /e/ triggers the use of E vowels. Vowel harmony spreads from the first syllable of the word, both forward to the rest of the word (including suffixes) and backward to any case clitic.

Stems with an /a/ in the first syllable can have either E vowels or O vowels in the rest of the stem, which then determine the harmony for the rest of the word; roots whose only vowel is /a/ take O suffixes.

Similarly, stems with a /y/ in the first syllable can have either E or I vowels, and stems with a /ɨ/ in the first syllable can take O, I, or U vowels. Subsequent vowels may clarify the harmony type, but if not, /y/ words default to E suffixes and /ɨ/ words default to O suffixes.

Suffixes in this document are given in their O form, with the understanding that the vowels change according to vowel harmony. Case clitics, on the other hand, have an inherent vowel that resurfaces if the first vowel of the stem is ambiguous (/a/, /y/, or /ɨ/). So these are given with their inherent vowel.