Kossian

Vowels
Modern Standart Kossian (MSK) possesses 8 vowel phonemes (given in the table above). Vowel length is not phonemic in MSK. Classical Kossian (CK) had a tonal system for all stressed vowels, differentiating between a high (or rising) tone and a low (or falling) tone. In MSK, these tones were systematically replaced (usually with a new contrast between short and long vowels).

The MSK pronunciation of /i/ with high tone can be either [ji] or [i]. [i] is only used if the vowel is preceded by a palatalizable consonant or vowel/diphthong that has an i-umlaut. /o/ with high tone can be pronounced [wɔ] or [wo] in free variation. The vowels /ə y/ have never had a tone since /ə/ does not appear in stressed syllables and /y/ is a non-native phoneme. There is a strong tendency in MSK to pronounce [i u y] more central [ɪ ʊ ʏ] in closed syllables.

Besides the non-phonemic diphthong appearing due to tone reduction, MSK also possesses several phonemic diphthongs. These are /aɪ̯ aʊ̯ eɪ̯ eʊ̯ oɪ̯ oʊ̯/.

The vowel /u/ and the diphthong /oʊ̯/ can be affected by i-umlaut if they are followed directly by /i/ with high tone or by a palatalizable consonant and /i/ with high tone. The i-umlauts are pronounced [y] or [øʏ̯].

Consonants
MSK possesses 18 consonant phonemes (given in the table above). Consonant length is phonemic in Kossian for all consonants except non-alveolar fricatives.
 * /n/ is assimilated to following plosives and can be pronounced either [m], [n] or [ŋ]
 * Non-alveolar plosives are subject to dissimilation when neighboring alveolar plosives; /p b k g/ are then pronounced [f v x ɣ]
 * /r/ can be either trill [r] or flap [ɾ]
 * All alveolar consonants except /r/ are palatalizable; when preceding /i/ with high tone, /n t d s z l/ are pronounced [ŋ t͡ʃ d͡ʒ ʃ ʒ ʎ]

Stress
In MSK, word stress is distributed according to syllable weight. The heaviest syllable of the word stem is stressed; if there are multiple syllables with the highest weight, the last syllable is stressed.

There are 3 different weights in MSK: light, heavy and superheavy. Light syllables only contain a monophthong and no coda, heavy syllables contain either a monophthong and a coda or a diphthong and no coda and superheavy syllables contain a diphthong and a coda.