What is phonology?
Phonology is, basically, how a language is pronounced. It includes, but is not limited to, a phonemic inventory, syllable structure, and allophony. This guide will focus mostly on phonemic inventories.
Tendencies and universals
While there is no single phoneme that every language has, these are some tendencies that most natlangs follow. Even though there are exceptions to some of these, it is usually a good idea to follw these tendencies to get a naturalistic (or at least plausible) phonemic inventory.
Consonants
- Almost all languages have /p/, /t/, and /k/.
- Most languages have nasals. /m/ and /n/ are the most common. If you decide not to give your conlang nasals, you should be able to explain how that happened diachronically. Maybe the nasals turned into voiced plosives and nasalized surrounding vowels.
- Very few languages distinguish bilabials from labiodentals. Ewe is one of the few languages to have /ɸ β/ and /f v/. The labiodentals are “stronger” than the bilabials, making them more distinctive. Kukuya, AKA Southern Teke, is the only known language with /ɱ/.
- Nasals do not have more places of articulation than obstruents.
- Almost all languages have /a/, /i/, and /u/. Edit: Some languages, including many North American languages, have /o/ without /u/.
- Front vowels are prototypically unrounded, and back vowels are prototypically rounded. Some languages, like Alekano, have no rounded vowels at all.
- Back vowels (almost) never have more height contrasts than front vowels. I’ve stumbled across some languages with /a ɔ i u/, but I assume /ɔ/ can also be pronounced /ɒ/. The following vowel system would be very unlikely and implausible:
Code: Select all
i u
ʊ
e o
o̞
ɔ
a ɑ
- Lower vowels usually do not have more backness distinctions than higher vowels. A big exception is /ə/. Having /ə/ doesn’t imply /ɨ/ or/ʉ/.
- Low vowels usually do not have more than two backness distinctions. Even in languages with only two low vowels, the more front vowel is usually /æ/, a near-low vowel.
The next post will probably be about making sense of all of this and designing a phonemic inventory.