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Hello all! I am new to this forum and I just wanted some feedback on the phonology of my conlang, Rèn Kyèč . I feel like there is so much more that needs to be cleared up and fleshed out in this phonological sketch and I would appreciate any aid anyone could offer me.
The part that I am really unsure of is gemmination. I should probably just do some more research but I would be interested to hear what other people had done with gemmination in their langs.
I am also concerned over the explanation of the palatalization. I feel it is too simplistic and explanation and needs to be expanded upon and clarified.
Thanks for your help in advance!

Chapter 1: Phonology
1. Consonant Inventory

Table
Stops:
Affricates
Fricatives
Nasals
Approximates
Trills
Alveolar
t,t',d
ʦ, ts',ʣ
s, z
n
l,ɹ
r
Palatal
(c)( ʄ)
ʧ,ʧ', ʤ
ʃ,ʒ,(ç)

j

Velar
k,k',g

x

The consonants in parentheses are only executed as a result of palatalization and are not independent of those sounds from which they arise. This is explained later in the sketch

Rules Pertaining to Consonants

1.1. Contrast:
The voiced and unvoiced variants of all obstruents are contrastive.
The voiced, unvoiced, and ejective allophones of each stop and affricate are contrastive.
1)

• [tust] ‘head’
• [dust] ‘egg’
• [gust] ‘rope’

1.2. No Audible Release:
Stops which are followed by other stops word internally have no audible release. However, all word final stops are released, as are stops followed by vowels.
2)

• tkřelnoji [t̚kɹəlnoʒi] ‘wing’
• gřakt'èx [gɹak̚t’ɛx] ‘to dig’
• gdèšéx [g̚dɛʃex] ‘to hear’

1.3. Gemination:
When two of the same fricatives, nasals, laterals, approximants, and trills are adjacent, whether at a syllable boundary or word boundary, they are simply prolonged.
3) dorts skanak’o [dortsːkʲanak'o] ‘He eats a fish.’

When two identical stops are adjacent the release of the consonant is delayed meaning that the obstruction of the airway is prolonged. The stop also undergoes anticipatory voicing assimilation. I interpret this as:

4) dort t'ék'odgat [dort:'ʲek'odʒat] ‘the near cake’ or ‘the cake which is near’
dortk k'ósk [dortk:’ ɔsk] ‘to a large cake’

2. Vowels

Table
High
Mid-High
Mid
Mid-Low
Low
Front Unrounded
i

e
ɛ

Central unrounded


ə

a
Back Rounded
u

o
ɔ
.

Rules Pertaining to Vowels
2.1. Nasalization
Nasalization is present within Rèn Kyèč but it is non-contrastive. Because all vowels preceding nasal consonants are nasalized, nasalization is not marked in the phonetic transcriptions of my words except for as demonstration within the following examples.
5)

• t'enéló [t'ə̃nɛlɔ] ‘to push’
• tén [tʲɛ̃n] ‘eight’
• anzo [ãnzo] ‘louse’

3.Minimal Words
Content words must contain at least one non-syllabic consonant and one vowel or syllabic consonant. Words can begin or end with any of these elements.
6)

• [ok] ‘Soul (essence)’
• [ʧ’i] ‘Soup (more like hot liquid)’
• [drsk] ‘beauty’

4. Stress
4.1. In Rèn Kyèč, stressed syllables are slightly lengthened and pronounced with a slightly elevated pitch.
4.2. Stress is non-consistent in the verbs of Rèn Kyèč. This is because the last syllable of the root verb stem is stressed within the verb rather than any affixes which are attached to it. This is important due to the heavy morphology present in the language. Here, the stressed syllable is underlined.
7)

• /k’uʧorra/ Stem: /ʧor/ ‘I run away’
• /kaajara/ Stem: /aja/ ‘I have it’
• /stelrazg/ Stem: /stel/ ‘I was’ (imperfective)

4.3. Within nouns and adjectives, the stress is penultimate. Therefore, in multi-syllable words, the stress always appears on the second to last vowel or syllabic consonant containing syllable.
8

• /tsia/ ‘forest’
• /tsiaɛl/ ‘forest dweller’
• /dortat/ ‘the cake’

4.4. All content words containing a vowel are stressed, even if they are only one syllable. Therefore, the word [prsk] ‘beautiful’ would not be stressed while the word [tust] ‘head’ would be. Function words such as pronouns are not stressed.
4.5. There is no vowel reduction in Rèn Kyèč.

5. Syllabification
5.1. Syllabification in Rèn Kyèč consists of an onset, nucleus, and a coda. The onset of a syllable consists of at most three consonants, which are can be either obstruents or sibilants. The nucleus can be either one syllabic consonants or one vowel. The coda can be made of up to six consonants.
9)

• /strunkts/ ‘badge; nametag’
  onset: /str/ nucleus: /u/ coda: /kts/

5.2. Larger consonant clusters are the result of multiple syllables coinciding within a word.
10)

• /zdrk.tank.tsk/ ‘to a nipple’
• /krst.ɛg/ ‘far’
• /strunk.tsk/ ‘to a badge’

5.3. There are few actual phonotactic constraints in this language due to the free nature of the syllable structure. One is that words the cluster /gn/ may not occur word initially.

6. Allophonic Rules
6.1. Palatalization
Alveolar and velar stops are palatalized before front vowels.
/t, t’,d, k, k’ x, g/→ [tʲ, tʲ', dʲ, kʲ, kʲ’ xʲ, gʲ]/ _/e,ɛ,a/
11)

• /dort/ + /at/ → [dortʲat] ‘the cake’
• /lɛʒɔd/ + /at/ → [lɛʒɔd ʲat] ‘the neck’
• /lik/ + /ɛl/ → [likʲɛl] ‘a city person’

6.2. The vowel /i/ produces a more extreme sort of palatalization upon alveolar and velar stops.
/t, t’, d, k, k’, g, x/→ [tʃ, tʃ', ʒ, c, c’, dʒ, ç] _/i/
12)

• /dort/ + /ig/ → [dortʃig] ‘cake’ -GEN
• /lɛʒɔd/ + /ig/ → [lɛʒɔʒig] ‘neck’ -GEN
• /lik/ + /ig/ → [licig] ‘city’ -GEN

6.3. Alveolar fricatives and affricates are palatalized before front vowels. /i/ also produces a more extreme palatalization upon fricatives and affricates.
/s,z,ʦ,ʣ/→[sʲ,zʲ,ʦʲ,ʣʲ]/ _/e,ɛ,a/
/s,z,ʦ,ʣ/→[ʃ,ʒ,ʧ,ʤ]/ _/i/
13)

• /ʣʲɛs/ + /ɛlɔ/ → [ʣʲɛsʲɛlɔ] ‘to claw’ -INF
• /dorts/ + /at/ → [dortsʲat] ‘the cake’ –ACC
• /dorts/ + /ig/ → [dortʃig] ‘a cake’ –GEN

Oh goody! A language without bilabials! I love those!

I feel like the fact that the speakers are cat people is vital information that you forgot.

Lol. I figured that they would not be able to form bilabials very well due to their cat mouths. Unfortunately, I also included rounded vowels, so I should probably to get rid of those for consistency.

KartuliLuc wrote:Lol. I figured that they would not be able to form bilabials very well due to their cat mouths. Unfortunately, I also included rounded vowels, so I should probably to get rid of those for consistency.

Come on dude, cats say "meow." Clearly they can form bilabials and rounded vowels.

Besides the problems with my conceit, what needs to be clarified or changed to improve this conlang? I am currently overhauling the whole language, starting with the phonology.

I like the phonotactics, it seems very Kartvelian to me.

cromulant wrote:

KartuliLuc wrote:Lol. I figured that they would not be able to form bilabials very well due to their cat mouths. Unfortunately, I also included rounded vowels, so I should probably to get rid of those for consistency.

Come on dude, cats say "meow." Clearly they can form bilabials and rounded vowels.

It could just be the cats I've heard, but the beginning of a meow has never particularly sounded like a [m] to me. It typically sounds more like a nasalized rhotic.

Also, it's worth remembering that you can generate vowel qualities acoustically similar to roundedness via other means, such as sulcalization. This goes double for something with a somewhat different mouth anatomy to humans'.

KartuliLuc, do whatever you want WRT labial consonants and rounded vowels. Even if you decide the speakers should be capable of producing labial consonants, that certainly doesn't stop human languages such as Mohawk and Tlingit from not having them. I do think it's entirely possible that a population with different lip anatomy from humans', while still able to pronounce labial consonants, might have them be uncommon in their languages due to requiring more articulatory effort to produce, similar to, say, voiced oral or nasal uvular stops for humans.

In Japanese, cats say "nya," and in Malayalam, they say something like [ˈŋjaːʋu].

Bristel wrote:I like the phonotactics, it seems very Kartvelian to me.

Georgian was on of main influences for this language. The language is a very agglutinative language which exhibits verbal polypersonalism, split ergativity, and, drawing some influence from Old Georgian, suffixaufnahme.

Chengjiang wrote:It could just be the cats I've heard, but the beginning of a meow has never particularly sounded like a [m] to me. It typically sounds more like a nasalized rhotic.

Also, it's worth remembering that you can generate vowel qualities acoustically similar to roundedness via other means, such as sulcalization. This goes double for something with a somewhat different mouth anatomy to humans'.

I also had this thought when I started this lang. The phonology originally included what I was calling super nasalized vowels--that is, vowels which were almost exclusively nasal with little to no airflow through the oral cavity. I dropped this idea because I did not know how to notate it our explain it well enough to make it worthwhile and I had a deadline because this was originally created for a conlanging class I was taking at my university.