Alas alank

Phonology

Vowels

Vowels
	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Close	i:				u:
Near-close		ɪ		ʊ
Close-mid	e:				o:
Open-mid	ɛ				ɔ
Open			a a:

Diphthongs

There is only one diphthong in the Alasian language: /aɪ̯/.

Vowel sequences

Two vowels cannot follow on each other in Alasian - they always have to be separated by /j/.

Consonants

Consonants
	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	m (m:)		n (n:)		ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	p		t			k
Fricative		f v	s z	ʃ ʒ	ç	x
Approximant					(j)
Trill			r
Lat. app.			l

Plosives

The phonology of Alasian is somewhat special because it restricts the use of some of the most common sounds in the world's languages: Plosives. The voiceless plosives /p/, /t/ and /k/ exist but they can only be found in very special phonological environments:

1. They can only be the last sound of a word.
2. They are always preceded by their "related" nasal consonant (/m/ before /p/, /n/ before /t/ and /ŋ/ before /k/) and no other consonant can be in the same cluster.
3. Their preceding vowel is always short.

Palatal approximant /j/

The palatal approximant /j/ occurs in Alasian but the sound doesn't alter the meaning of words. It only appears in vowel-initial words to prevent the glottal plosive /ʔ/ or between two vowels.

Clusters

Consonant clusters can only appear in the coda of a syllable and one cluster can only contain two consonants. The following clusters (without the nasal-plosive-clusters) are possible:

Clusters
First consonant	Second consonant
/m/ or /n/	/f/, /s/ or /ʃ/
/f/, /ç/, /x/, /r/ or /l/	/s/
/r/ or /l/	/x/

Assimilation

All consonant clusters containing plosives are subject to assimilation. Whenever you add suffixes to words ending in plosives the plosives are dropped (because they aren't the last sound of the word anymore). In compensate for this loss, the preceding nasal vowels are changed in the following way:

Assimilations of nasal-plosive clusters
Pre-assimilation	Post-assimilation
/mp/	/m:/
/nt/	/n:/
/ŋk/	/ɲ/

Stress

The stress of Alasian is usually on the first syllable of a word. This only changes when the first syllable contains a short vowel and the second syllable contains a long vowel (not a diphthong!) - in this case, the stress shifts to the long vowel in the second syllable.

Orthography

Alphabet
Letter	Name	Pronunciation	Sound(s)
A	Á	/ja:/	/a/
Á	Á sol	/ja: sɔl/	/a:/
Ä	Ä	/jaɪ̯/	/aɪ̯/
C	ç	/çɛ/	/ç/
E	É	/je:/	/ɛ/
É	É sol	/je: sɔl/	/e:/
F	Fe	/fɛ/	/f/
H	He	/xɛ/	/x/
I	Í	/ji:/	/ɪ/
Í	Í sol	/ji: sɔl/	/i:/
NK or K	Fank or Fak	/faŋk/	/ŋk/
L	Le	/lɛ/	/l/
M	Me	/mɛ/	/m/
MM	Me sol	/mɛ sɔl/	/m:/
N	Ne	/nɛ/	/n/
NN	Ne sol	/nɛ sɔl/	/n:/
Ñ	Eña	/'jɛɲa/	/ɲ/
O	Ó	/jo:/	/ɔ/
Ó	Ó sol	/jo: sɔl/	/o:/
MP or P	Famp or Fap	/famp/	/mp/
Q	Qe	/ʃɛ/	/ʃ/
R	Re	/rɛ/	/r/
S	Se	/sɛ/	/s/
NT or T	Fant or Fat	/fant/	/nt/
U	Ú	/ju:/	/ʊ/
Ú	Ú sol	/ju: sɔl/	/u:/
V	Ve	/vɛ/	/v/
X	Xe	/ʒɛ/	/ʒ/
Z	Ze	/zɛ/	/z/

Because all plosives are automatically pronounced with a nasal before them, the letters K, P and T can be written with or without an M or N before them - the pronunciation of both ways is the same and both possibilities are accepted in Alasian. However, the combination of nasal letter and plosive letter is more common (and in the case of the language's name, NK is mandatory!).

Declinable parts of speech

General information

In Alasian, nouns, pronouns, articles and adjectives can and have to be declined for ...

Number
	Singular	Plural
Usage	one thing (also zero things in negative statements)	many things
(English) example(s)	one man / a man / the man (no man)	the men / many men

Case
	Vocative	Nominative	Accusative	Dative	Genetive	Locative	Prepositional
Usage	direct address, names (basic form)	Agent of an action	Patient of an action	Recipient of an action	Possession	Place, time or direction	with all prepositions and in compound words - for comparisons (on its own!)
English example	Lydia(!)	I give you the book.	I give you the book.	I give you the book.	the man's car - the car of the man	in the USA, at 9 p.m., to school	I am prettier than you.

Declensions

Vocalic declension
Most prominent feature: -
Members: All words ending in a single vowel
	Singular	Plural
Vocative	-	-li
Nominative	-s	-lis
Accusative	-n	-lin
Dative	-l	-lil
Genetive	-xu	-lixu
Locative	-va	-liva
Prepositional	-on	-lion

Consonantal declension
Most prominent feature: -
Members: All words ending in a single consonant
	Singular	Plural
Vocative	-	-if
Nominative	-us	-ifis
Accusative	-un	-ifin
Dative	-ul	-ifula
Genetive	-oxu	-ifoxa
Locative	-ova	-ifuva
Prepositional	-on	-ifon

Nasal-plosive declension
Most prominent feature: Assimilation of nasal-plosive clusters
Members: All words ending in a nasal-plosive cluster
	Singular	Plural
Vocative	-	-än
Nominative	-os	-äs
Accusative	-on	-äna
Dative	-el	-elän
Genetive	-oxu	-oxä
Locative	-ava	-avä
Prepositional	-oun	-ouän

Diphthong declension
Most prominent feature: Change of diphthong /aɪ̯/ to /ajɪ/ in plural
Members: All words ending in /aɪ̯/
	Singular	Plural
Vocative	-	-ain
Nominative	-äs	-ais
Accusative	-än	-aina
Dative	-äl	-ail
Genetive	-äxu	-aixu
Locative	-ävä	-aiva
Prepositional	-äxon	-aixon

Cluster declension
Most prominent feature: Infixes between the consonants of the cluster
Members: All words ending in a (not nasal-plosive) cluster
	Singular		Plural
	Infix	Suffix	Infix	Suffix
Vocative	-	-	-ä-	-
Nominative	-i-	-as	-ä-	-as
Accusative	-i-	-an	-ä-	-an
Dative	-i-	-al	-ä-	-al
Genetive	-i-	-ú	-ä-	-ó
Locative	-i-	-ava	-ä-	-ava
Prepositional	-	-e	-ä-	-e