Affanonic/Grammar/Phonetics
Consonants
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Alveolar sibilant | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Laryngeal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops / affricates | p | t | ts [t͜s] | k | ||||
| Fricatives | f | s | h | |||||
| Nasals | m | n | ||||||
| Approximants | w | j | ||||||
| Lateral approximants | l | |||||||
| Vibrants | r [ʀ] |
Vowels
Affanonic distiguishes the following monophthongs: a o u e i ø y (IPA values), and the following diphthongs: ai ei oi au.
Phonotactics
Syllable onsets
Every consonant phoneme can be used as a single-consonant onset. Vowel onsets are allowed too, although common only word-initially. The consonants j- and h- do not occur before the narrow front vowels i and y, while w- cannot stand before the narrow labialized vowels u and y.
Besides, a syllable can begin in a cluster, Cj or Cw. However, h r l w (and j) are not allowed before j, while p f m s n l j (and w) are not tolerated before w; intervocalic combinations like -rj- or -lw- that do occur word-internally have a syllable boundary between the two consonants, and thus do not form a syllable onset. Therefore the complete list of onset clusters looks like the following: pj- tj- tsj- kj- fj- sj- mj- nj-, tw- tsw- kw- sw- rw-.
Syllable codas
The following single-consonant codas are allowed: r l n f s and gemination of the onset stop/affricate (clustered or not) of the next syllable. None of these can follow a diphthong. The coda -n remains [n] only before n- t- ts-; before m- p- it assimilates to [m] (which is reflected in spelling: -mm-, -mp-), whereas word-finally (except when followed by a vowel-initial word without a pause) and before all the other consonants it becomes a velar [ŋ] (still written n).
The coda -n often assimilates to a following l- (to produce a geminated -ll-), but this alternation is not automatic anymore and therefore is better considered part of morphonology rather than of synchronic phonotactics.
Stress
The position of stress is not contrastive.
Disyllabic words always have the stress on their first syllable. In words of more than two syllables, the stress falls on the penult if it is heavy (i. e. uncludes either a diphthong or a coda consonant) and on the antepenult otherwise.
In declarative utterances pronounced with neutral intonation, the stressed syllale is characterized by its falling tone; the pretonic syllables tend to form a high-pitch platform, while the tone of the posttonic ones is low. The dynamic aspects of stress are not prominent in Affanonic.