Ükäntel

Consonants

 * /t l/ are truly dental [t̪ l̪] but usually transcribed without the distinguishing bar.
 * Affricates are usually transcribed without a tie bar.
 * /w/ is weakly labialized, although not entirely unrounded

Allophony

 * /h/ appears as [x] following a back vowel, [ç] after a front vowel (and likewise /h:/ as [x:] or [ç:]) and only appears as [h] pre-vocalically.
 * If /h/ is preceded by a different fricative, /h/ will assimilate and lengthen the preceding fricative, i.e. /sh/ is realized as [s:]. This does not happen following an affricate.
 * Short /r/ is tapped while geminate /r/ is trilled.
 * Plain alveolar consonants will become palatal consonants (i.e. /n ts s r/ > [ɲ tʃ ʃ dʒ]) next to another palatal consonant
 * /nj t͡sj sj rj/ become [ɲ t͡ʃ ʃ d͡ʒ]. /j/ is elided after existing /ɲ t͡ʃ ʃ d͡ʒ/.
 * /ʃd͡ʒ d͡ʒʃ/ are realized as [ʒd͡ʒ d͡ʒ:] respectively.

Allophony

 * /i y u/ are realized as [ɪ ʏ ʊ] before sonorant consonants and before /j w/.
 * Unstressed /i/ is often elided in syllable-permissive environments.

Phonotactics
Ükäntel syllables minimally consist of only a vowel and maximally are CVC. The syllable can thus be transcribed as (C)V(C). Any consonant can appear as the onset or coda, and any single vowel can act as a syllable nucleus. /ø o/ do not appear word-finally, having become /e ɤ/ in that environment, and suffixes containing the archiphoneme /O/ and no coda consonant thus may possibly have four variants due to a historical sound change.

Considering syllable boundaries, long vowels do not occur as a result of two juxtaposed morphemes and always result in an identical short vowel. Two unlike vowels in sequence are broken up by the addition of a sonorant in between the vowels, which is detailed in the morphophonology section below.

Stress
Stress is non-phonemic and falls on the first syllable of a word. Stressed vowels are pronounced significantly longer than unstressed vowels. Vowels are not reduced when unstressed.

Orthography
Ükäntel orthography is largely phonemic and even represents certain allophonic processes in the written language. The sounds are written as in IPA unless listed in the table below.
 * <ńć ńŕ ńś gk> are spelled , that is, orthographic <ń g> will become  if followed by those specific consonants
 * When /h/ assimilates to a fricative preceding it, the allophony is indicated in the orthography, i.e.  will be written as  depending on the fricative it follows.
 * Alveolar-palatal assimilation is indicated orthographically.
 * In the environment of <ń ś ć ŕ> the alveolar consonants are written with an acute accent unless the sequence is  followed by one of <ś ć ŕ>.
 * The sequences coalesce to <ń ś ć ŕ>.
 *  is omitted following <ń ć ś ŕ>.
 * <śŕ ŕś> remain unchanged.
 * All processes detailed in the morphophonology section are indicated orthographically.

Morphophonology
Morphophonological processes are rampant in Ükäntel, including the characteristic vowel harmony, as well as partial vowel reduplication and epenthesis.

Vowel Harmony
Vowels in Ükäntel pattern in front-back pairs with /i/ patterning neutrally. /y e ø æ/ alternate with /u ɤ o ɑ/ respectively, with archiphonemes being transcribed as /U E O A/. Vowels do not harmonize according to roundedness and thus all grammatical suffixes have two variants, unless the sole vowel is /i/ where one variant exists, or unless the suffix is an open syllable and contains the archiphoneme /O/ where four variants exist as per /ø o/ having become /e ɤ/ word-finally.

Reduplication
Many grammatical suffixes in Ükäntel use a reduplicated vowel from the preceding syllable as its own syllable nucleus. This is transcribed in grammars using a capital V in place of the vowel. A few verbal suffixes, personal suffixes on verbs, posessive suffixes on nouns, a few case suffixes, the comparative and superlative morphemes on adjectives, as well as various derivational morphemes all utilize this process. /ø o/ do become /e ɤ/ word-finally in this instance.

Anaptyxis
Anaptyxis, or the insertion of a vowel, is necessary with certain grammatical suffixes as the stringing together of certain morphemes would violate the Ükäntel syllable structure. In many instances, the reduplicated vowel detailed in the above section is only present if syllabically necessary, and this is often considered an example of anaptyxis, but is in fact separate due to various suffixes where the reduplicated vowel is always present. Some Ükäntel suffixes contain two consonants in what would seem to be a syllable onset, or some suffixes consist of a single consonant. If either of these types of suffixes follow a morpheme ending in a vowel, no insertion is not necessary. When following a morpheme that ends in a consonant (in both cases) or if sandwiched in between two consonants (in the latter case only), a vowel is inserted before the suffix in question, which is -E in all environments. In suffixes where two consonants ocur in what would seem to be a syllable coda, the epenthetic vowel is inserted after the suffix in question.

Excrescence
Excrescence, or the addition of a consonant, is necessary when two juxtaposed suffixes would result in a vowel sequence. The consonant inserted is always a sonorant. If the first vowel is unrounded, the in-between sonorant is /j/. Similarly, if the first vowel is rounded, the in-between sonorant is /w/.

Non-verbal Morphology
Ükäntel is an exclusively suffixing agglutinative language. Ignoring morphophonological processes and orthographic rules, morphology is largely regular outside of a few stem alterations. Throughout this section, archiphonemes are used. Annotations will not made where vowel epenthsis would possibly occur but will be where reduplication only occurs if syllabically necessary, denoted by an asterisk following the suffix.

Posession
Posession is indicated by a suffix in Ükäntel, which precedes the case and/or number suffixes if present. With the first- and second-person plural posessor suffixes, the reduplicted vowel is always included if the posessed noun ends in a consonant, unlike other suffixes where reduplication is optional based on syllabic structure, and is omitted if the posessed noun ends in a vowel.

Case
Ükäntel has 16 case suffixes, 8 singular and 8 plural; the nominative singular is unmarked. The nominative case is used to mark the subject of a sentence, more specifically, the agent of a transitive verb and the patient (also called the experiencer) of an intransitive verb.

The accusative case is used to mark the patient (also called the object) of a transitive verb. When making a transitive verb causative, both the causee (the subject of the non-causal clause) and the original object appear in the accusative case, with the causee appearing second.

The dative case is used to mark the recipient or geographical destination of an object, the object of verbs implying transfer or perception, the purpose or beneficiary of an action, as well as posession when coupled with the copula.  

The genitive case is used to mark the posessor of another noun, a noun which modifies another noun, description, geographic origin, and composition.

The instrumental case is used to mark the means by which an action is done, whether physical or abstract.

The comitative case is used to mark with whose company an action is done.

The temporal case is used to mark when an action is done and can be applied to numbers to mean at ___ o'clock, or to noun phrases to mean on _____.

The durative case is used to specify the length of an action or during what the action took place, meaning effectively for x ____ (where x is a numeral) or during _____ or throughout ______.

Personal pronouns
As in most languages, personal pronouns in Ükäntel are somewhat irregular. The temporal and durative forms of the pronouns exist but are not used in colloquial speech, and thus are not listed in the table below. They are formed by suffixing the case edings to the nominative stem, except the first person singular, whose stem is tä.

Modifiers
Modifiers in Ükäntel can be separated into three categories: Constituents of all three categories behave similarly to verbs. When used to modify a noun, there are no agreement markers and modifiers precede the head noun. When used as a predicate, modifiers take a derivational suffix and then verbal suffixes in order to agree with a subject.
 * 1) Numerals
 * 2) Non-numeral quantifiers
 * 3) Adjectives

Verbal morphology
Verbs in Ükäntel are morphologically regular; there are no irregular, defective, or suppletive forms. They take a multitude of suffixes to indicate finite grammatical information and suffixes that construct non-finite forms.

Finite Verbal Morphology
Finite verbs serve as the main verb of a clause. Suffixes attach to finite verbs in a strict order, listed in the table below.

Stem
The stem of a verb in Ükäntel is the bare form of the verb and is a bound morpheme. Stems do not have any restrictions insofar as their syllabic structure.

Voice
The active voice in Ükäntel is unmarked. There are a multitude of other morphological voice suffixes, the majority of which are different causatives. The different causative morphemes are glossed as CAUS1, CAUS2, etc, the meanings of which are explained below the table with examples. Causative 1 indicates that the causer excercises direct physical control over the action.


 * Sanëtnë üneyetne yëtokot.


 * I am feeding my dog meat.

Causative 2 indicates that the causer excercises indirect verbal control over the action.


 * Ayët ennitne śinëhënë ertäyyelhe.


 * My mother made my father hold her hand.

Causative 3  indicates that the causer exerted direct, intensive, physical over an action. This usually has some sense of violence and being against the will of the causee.


 * Cölötne öttecänähiddet.


 * I had to made my sister sit (i.e. by placing her down physically).

Causative 4 indicates that the causer has control over the action but did not interfere.


 * Sanëtnë üneyetänne yëŕhëś. 


 * You let our dog eat meat.

Mode
Modality distinctions in Ükäntel are diverse, with finer distinctions being made than in most languages. The table below presents the suffixes and examples can be found below.

Polarity
Negation is indicated with the suffix -l.

Aspect
Ükäntel distinguishes between three aspects morphologically. Other aspectual meanings are conveyed through double verb constructions.

Person
Similar to the posessive suffixes on nouns, the reduplicated vowel in the first- and second-person plural forms is always present if preceded by a consonant.

Non-finite Verbal Morphology
Non-finite verb forms in Ükäntel are numerous and common in the language. This includes the infinitive, gerunds, and participles. and converbs.

Infinitive
The infinitive form of a verb ends in -hE. As the infinitive is the citation form of a verb, this presents an ambiguitity concerning roots that end in vowels and roots that end in a consonant cluster or geminate consonant, as roots of the latter type end in -EhE due to anaptyxis. In a dictionary, an asterisk is placed before those forms with -EhE due to anaptyxis. In speech and writing, however, distinguishing these forms is unnecessary. The infinitive in Ükäntel is found in constructions requiring two finite verbs in a single clause or to express purpose adverbially.

Participles
Participles in Ükäntel function as verbal adjectives, meaning they serve to modify a noun.