Ulele Language

Ulele is a language spoken by a tribe indigenous to colossal underground caverns. This tribe numbers approximately 100,000 people. It is a predominantly analytic language, with all affixes having actual lexical meanings.

General information
Ulele is a analytic language, head-final, and uses postpositions. Word order is nearly always SOV, but can be VSO to emphasize the action, or OSV as an equivalent to the English passive voice. There is not always a clear distinction between agent and patient, sometimes context determines which is the agent and which is the patient. Additional particles like now or a while ago are used in place of tense, and verbal aspects are mostly realized via reduplification or vowel lengthening. Nouns do not decline for the plural or dual, instead the particle many, lot, or a number must be used alongside the noun, or simply repeating the noun a second time implies plurality. Instead of a dual case, one would say, X with Y. There are no indefinite or relative pronouns, phrases consisting of man or thing together with a particle are used instead of the former, the reduced relative clause ( The man [I saw yesterday] went home instead of The man that I saw yesterday went home) is used for the latter.

Phonology
Ulele possesses an extremely small sound inventory, like that of Piraha or the more familiar Hawaiian. There is a great deal of varying pronunciation, with many correct ways to utter a word.

Consonants

 * There is no distinction between voiceless and voiced consonants. Generally, when plosives are pronounced as voiceless, there is never any aspiration as in English. In between words and in clusters with a nasal, they are voiced.
 * k may be pronounced, depending on the speaker, variously as [x], [ɣ], [tʃ], or [dʒ].
 * t before [i] or /ɛ/, tends to be [ts], [dz], [tʃ], or [dʒ]
 * Before vowels /p/ may be [v] or [β] instead of [b] between vowels.
 * The nasals and /l/ may be syllables all by themselves.

Vowels

 * Vowels as well as nasals and even /l/, can have a high, low, or normal tone, which distinguishes words but also plays a role in grammar.
 * Speakers may pronounce [æ] as [ɛ] or [æ] depending on its environment.

Phonotactics
The syllable structure has a few restrictions that characterize the language. Namely, no word may have three plosives, an initial [r], or any consonant clusters other than NC, CN, lC, lN, Cl, and NN (N=nasal, C=all plosives save ʔ and s). Syllabic consonants do not count as part of a clusters. Hiatus us permitted, but no consonant is allowed to occur a the end of a word except the nasals, [ʔ], /s/, and /l/. Also [r] cannot occur initially.