Salton

Notation

 * Phonetic transcriptions are denoted by rectangular brackets          [ˈkæːk̚tɪs]
 * Phonemic transcriptions are denoted by slash brackets                 /kæktɪs/
 * Native phonemic transcriptions are denoted by angle quotes        «cactis»
 * Italic front style denotes native words                                                   cacto
 * Boldface denotes English approximations                                          cactus
 * Boldface also indicates the topic of a sentence in the article         Tense is determined by the following suffixes
 * Bold letters indicate suffixes being demonstrated                             tú comerías el cacto
 * Bold letters also indicate emphasis                                                     don't complain, you ate the cactus.

Abbreviations
Most abbreviations used in this article are relatively standard and/or intuitive. Nevertheless, they're all listed below Adj      - Adjective Adjtl    - Adjectivally Adp      - Adposition Adv      - Adverb Advbl    - Adverbially N        - Noun Nmnl     - Nominally Prep     - Preposition Pro      - Pronoun V        - Verb Vbl      - Verbally

Consonants
Standard Phonetic Realizations
 * /p/ as [ b̥ ]
 * /ð/ as [ ɹ̪ ]
 * /t/ as [ d̥ ]
 * /k/ as [ g̥ ]

Phonotactics

 * Ejectives may only occur initially
 * Like in English, the velar nasal may not occur initially
 * Palatalized consonants may not occur finally
 * /ʊ/ is never stressed
 * /ɰ/ may only occur finally or before a,o,u
 * Post-alveolar consonants may not be palatalized beyond the palatalization already present

Writing System
«y» is represented by «a» in the final position

Special characters include:
 * â, ê, î, ô, û:  pronounced as [i ~ j] followed by their respective base vowel -- palatalizes the preceeding consonant.
 * y:                pronounced [ʊ ~ ʌ ~ ə ~ ɪ]

Allophonic Variations
The Saltonian alphabet is not entirely phonemic, and no universal rules apply governing allophony (especially with vowels). However, general rules can be drawn for some aspects of Saltonian allophony.

The following shows the allophonic forms of palatalized consonants in the final position Common allophones include the following:
 * a:  [ɐ] [æ]
 * e:  [ɛ]
 * i:   [ai] when initial, [i] when final
 * o:  [o] [ɑ] [ʌʊw]

Natural vs. Synthetic
All Saltonian words have a default part of speech. Salton  sometimes makes a distinction between "natural" words in their default part of speech like produce and "synthetic" words that were modified from another part of speech like production.

Nouns
Following a marked nominative alignment, Saltonian nouns decline to three cases, the nominative, the accusative/oblique, and the genitive. Nouns ending in consonants in the accusative decline agglutinatively with their suffixes, while nouns ending in vowels take the suffix after dropping their final vowel.

Saltonian nouns belong to one of three major classes. Nouns ending in consonants belong to either classes I or II, while those ending in vowels belong to class III only. The distribution of nouns among classes I and II is seemingly arbitrary, but this is because the distinction present in Salton's proto-language has been lost while the classification itself has been retained. Classes II and III distinguish between the singular and plural, however class I does not. Irregularities generally deal with class II and III verbs not distinguishing between numbers. These are referred to as classes II-N and III-N respectively.

Adjectives and Adverbs
Saltonian adjectives do not decline, however natural adjectives have both a predicative and attributive form. The attributive form can vary, but the predicative always ends in « -al » (the same suffix used to form synthetic adjectives).

Adverbs are formed by changing the final « -al » to « -el » in the predicative form of their respective adjective

Verbs
Saltonian verbs are conjugated fusionally to voice, mood, person, number, tense, and aspect. Infinitive verbs end in « -ü » and are conjugated by removing the ending and adding on the following suffixes. The conditional is treated as a tense in Salton.

General Syntax

 * Salton is a pro-drop language, however pronouns may be included for clarification or emphasis, and are required in the auxiliary forms and other ambiguous cases
 * Auxiliary forms of verbs are used for various paraphrastic constructions, idioms, and other grammatical functions in Salton.  These are conjugated identically to the first person dual inclusive preceeded by the respective nominative pronoun.

Voice

 * The Reflexive Mediopassive voice is conveyed through the use of the auxiliary form followed by the reflexive pronoun in the accusative case
 * The Reciprocal Mediopassive voice is conveyed through the reciprocal prefix « -sâ ».  Standard forms of the verb are used
 * The impersonal voice is conveyed through the use of the auxiliary form with the impersonal pronoun
 * The passive voice is conveyed through the use of the passive participles along with the present progressive auxiliary forms of Salü

Content Clauses

 * Content clauses are introduced by the subordinating conjunction sed, which functions similarly to the English that (used as a subordinating conjunction, not a relative pronoun)
 * They have full status as nouns and can be used anywhere another nominal could be used
 * Content clauses are often subjunctive clauses; The subjunctive mood is expressed using the hypothetical

POS Synthesis

 * Words can be converted between different parts of speech as follows:
 * Verbs take a nominal form with the suffix « -tam » ( -tion )
 * Adjectives take a nominal form with the suffix « -ryk » ( -ity​ )
 * Nouns take an adjectival form with the suffix « -al » ( -y )
 * Adverbs are formed by replacing adjectival « -al » with « -el » ( -ly )
 * Words ending in vowels always have their final vowel dropped before adding conversion suffixes beginning with vowels
 * Words ending in consonants sometimes have their final consonant dropped before adding conversion suffixes beginning with consonants