I'm still filling this out as I go, but for consonants, I'm working with something like this:
Code: Select all
+-----------------------+----------+--------------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------+----------------------+
| | Labial | Coronal | Dorsal | Laryngeal |
| +----------+----------+-------------------+-------------------+-------------------+-------------------+---------+------------+---------+
| | Bilabial | Bidental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal |
| +---------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+------------+---------+
| | | | Laminal | Apical | Laminal | Apical | Front | Back | Front | Back | | | |
+---------+-------------+----------+----------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+------------+---------+
| | Nasal | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | Stop | p • b | ʭ • | t̻ • d̻ | t̺ • d̺ | ṯ • ḏ | ʈ • ɖ | ȶ • ȡ | c • ɟ | k̟ • ɡ | k • ɡ | q • ɢ | ʡ • | ʔ • |
| Central | Affricate | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | Fricative | | h̪͆ • ɦ̪͆ | θ • | θ • | θ̱ • | • ɻ˔ | | | | | | | |
| | Approximant | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | Flap | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+---------+-------------+----------+----------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+------------+---------+
| | Affricate | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Lateral | Fricative | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | Approximant | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | Flap | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+---------+-------------+----------+----------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+------------+---------+
1) There are no sibilants
2) In place of the labiodentals and the dentals are the bidentals
3) There are a greater number of possible POA distinctions amongst the dorsal consonants
4) There are no trills
A few other thoughts I had on top of that were:
1) While there are five different dorsal POAs, no Kovur language constrasts more than four of them phonemically
2) The number of phonemic contrasts amongst the coronals, especially of the plosives, is much lower, with most languages only having one or two sets of coronals (if more coronal POAs are used, then the sounds are typically fricatives).
3) Lateral fricatives are cross-linguistically more common amongst the Kovur than they are amongst humans, as are aspirated fricatives.
4) Labialisation does occur, but there is only of the compressed variety, not protrusion.
I had briefly given some thought to tone as well, thinking that the Kovur should be able to distinguish up to seven levels of pitch, as opposed the five of human languages. I was also thinking that tone should be cross-linguistically more common amongst the Kovur.
I'll have to fill out the consonant chart and work on the vowels, but it's been nice to finally make a start on this