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

Phonotactics

 * Ejectives may only occur initially
 * Like in English, the velar nasal may not occur initially
 * /vʲ/, /ðʲ/, and /mʲ/ may not occur finally
 * /ʊ/ is never stressed
 * Post-alveolar consonants may not be palatalized beyond the palatalization already present

Writing System
/ʊ/ 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] between consonants, and [j] elsewhere
 * °:                 palatalizes final consonants

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 Other common allophones include the following:
 * a:  [ɐ] [æ]
 * e:  [ɛ]
 * i:   [ai] when initial, [i] when final
 * o:  [o] [ɑ] [ʌʊw]

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 are relatively uncommon and generally deal with class II and III verbs not distinguishing between numbers. These are referred to as classes II-N and III-N respectively.

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 since it can combine with several moods.

The following prefixes denote voice. Initial ejectives lose their ejectiveness. The impersonal voice is conveyed through the use of the impersonal pronoun. The verb conjugates identically to the first person dual inclusive.
 * Reflexive Mediopassive:    « nau- »
 * Reciprocal Mediopassive:  « sen- »