Akih

Vowels
Dipthongs are made of two elements, one semivowel and one pure-vowel. The semivowels are /w j ɰ l r/. Dipthongs are counted as one vowel but two mora.

Long vowels are written as two consecutive vowels. They are bimoraic.

Short pure vowels are monomoraic.

Phonotactics
The syllable is limited by these constraints:

The syllable must be either monomoraic or bimoraic, meaning that the syllable must have one core vowel, possibly consonants surrounding it and the possibility of having a dipthong, a long vowel or a two-consonant cluster, which tranlates to:

Each row represents a possible syllable. Where C is the consonant, V the vowel and A the semivowel. Every consonant can be in the C class and every semivowel can be either in the C or A class.

Notes to Myself
DO WANT: DO NOT WANT: MIGHT WANT:
 * Productive reduplication
 * I-Umlaut, A-Umlaut
 * Singular-Dual-Plural
 * Transitive or marked Nominative alignment
 * 6 cases
 * VOS, alternate VSO (that is, V1 always)
 * Head-initialial noun phrases, head-final verb phrases
 * Prefixes and suffixes
 * Prefixed possessives
 * Complex nouns, with multiple categories.
 * Strong/Weak distinction
 * Cheezy system
 * Sterile system
 * Short words
 * Celtic stuff
 * A special class for "fat"
 * 4 genders
 * A big lack of pronouns, maybe just simple clitic pronouns
 * Dipthongs

Processes
There are several processes apart from affixing. They are mentioned as follows.

Y-Umlaut
The Y-Umlaut is a grammatical process in which certain vowels move towards the place of articulation of /y/. It is triggered both independently and in affixes by /y/ and /j/. This is the progression:

u > y

ɔ > ɵ

ɜ > ɛ

a > æ

Nouns that in themselves contain the Y-Umlaut triggers and unumlauted vowels do not change themselves, only via affixes and grammatical.

A-Umlaut
The A-Umlaut is the reverse of the Y-Umlaut. It is triggered by /a/ and /ɰ/ in suffixes. This is the progression:

u < y

ɔ < ɵ

ɜ < ɛ

a < æ

Reduplication
Akarh reduplication is a productive process in which the first syllable gets reduplicated according to these rules:


 * 1) Finals are dropped


 * 1) Vowels are distinguished only by height, so u/y/ʉ => ʉ, ɛ/ɜ/ɵ/ɔ=> ɔ and æ/a/ɑ => a


 * 1) Dipthong semovowel elements are conserved.


 * 1) Initials are preserved


 * 1) The reduplicated form is added as a prefix. Umlaut rules don't apply to it

These rules can be practically applied:

pɵk'yq => pɔpɵk'yq

Verbs
La verbs!