Yivrian phonology

Consonants

Consonants

The following chart gives all of the consonant phonemes in Yivrian in the linguistic orthography, together with their core phonetic values.

	Labial	Interdental	Dental	Palatal	Velar
Voiceless stop	p [p]		t [t]		k [k]
Voiced stop	b [b]		d [d]		g [g]
Voiceless fricative	f [f]	th [θ]	s [s]		h [x]
Voiced fricative	v [v]
Nasal	m [m]		n [n]
Liquid			l [l]
			r [r]
Semivowel	w [w]			y [j]

Vowels

Yivrian has five simple vowels and three diphthongs. The following table shows the vowels with their orthography in italics where relevant.

Oral vowels

  i        u
   ɪ    
    e      o
     ɛ    
         a

In the romanization, the vowels [i e] are spelled ii ei, while the corresponding lax vowels [ɪ ɛ] are spelled i e.

In word-final positions a is reduced to [ɐ]. The lax vowels i e don’t occur in word-final positions, nor in hiatus before another vowel; an underlying vowel of that type is always rendered as ii ei. Similarly, the vowels o u tend to be higher and tenser (but of shorter duration) in word-final positions.

There is also an exceptional vowel aa which is pronounced [a:] in contexts where the simple a would be pronounced [ɐ]. This quasi-phonemic long vowel is found almost exclusively as a verb ending (with a few rare instances in other contexts), but never in stems, and it is not productive (ie. new words with aa are never coined, not even in loan words).

Diphthongs

 ai [aj]
 oi [oj]
 ui [uj]

While the tables above show the usual phonetic realization of the Yivrian vowels, there is reason to regard the vowels ii [i] and ei [e] as phonological diphthongs. In particular, the following similarities may be observed between the long vowels ii and ei and the diphthongs:

• The vowels ii and ei, along with the diphthongs ai oi ui, only occur in open syllables (without a coda consonant).
• The distinction between i/ii and e/ei is neutralized word-finally and in hiatus before another vowel. In those positions, only the tense vowels [i e] occur.
• For the purposes of determining syllable weight (see below), the vowels ii and ei are considered “heavy”.

Prosody and word stress

Yivrian phonology distinguishes between “heavy” and “light” syllables for the purpose of assigning phonological stress and vowel reductions. A “heavy” syllable is one in which one or more off the following applies:

• Contains one of the vowels o u ii ei.
• Contains any of the diphthongs ai oi ui.
• Ends with a coda consonant

Other syllables are considered “light”.

Syllable weights establish the fundamental rule of Yivrian stress:

Stress in a Yivrian word falls on the penultimate syllable unless the penultimate syllable is light and the preceding syllable is heavy. In that case, stress falls on the antepenultimate syllable.

Stressed vowels in open syllables are usually lengthened when there is no coda consonant, but see below for the treatment of i e in stressed syllables. This gives, for example:

Orthography	IPA
kenda	ˈkɛn.dɐ
iilil	ˈiː.lɪl
gaimeko	’gai.mɛ.ko
ennura	ɛ.’nuː.rɐ

Yivrian prefers that stressed syllables always be heavy. In the case of an intrinsically heavy vowel, no change is required, but when the stressed vowel is one of i e followed by a single consonant, that consonant is geminated to ensure that the stressed syllable is heavy.

Orthography	IPA
akind	ak.kɪnd
illo	ɪl.lo

As you can see above, the usual romanization uses a double consonant in this case to indicate this phonetic gemination. This double consonant is preserved (for the sanity of the reader) even in derived words where the stress has moved to a different syllable. For example, the word ennura is spelled with nn just like its root word enna, even though gemination is only observed in the latter.