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Consonant-stacking principle

1 min read · 296 words

For the rest of this paper about CSP, we'll be denoting:

  • C a consonant sound

  • V a vowel sound

  • # the rest of the word's string whether empty or not

  • Subscripts to give sense of order

  • Macrons over V to signify long vowel sounds: V̄

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Phonotactics

Rule 1: #VC₁C₂C₃ -> #VC₁C₂eC₃

  • Unless it is an unadapted borrowing, a word can't end in more than 2 consonants with a short vowel.

Rule 2: #V̄C₁C₂ -> #V̄C₁eC₂

  • Unless it is an unadapted borrowing, a word can't end in more than 1 consonant with a long vowel.

Rule 3: C₁C₂C₃V# -> C₁eC₂C₃# only when (C₁, C₂) ≠ (fricative, stop)

  • A word isn't generally 3-or-more consonant initial.

Rule 4: #₁eC₁ + C₂#₂ -> #₁eC₁C₂#₂

  • Two words with consonant poles don't clash.

Rule 5: #₁eC + V#₂ -> #₁CV#₂ if C not in {t,k} else #₁eCCV#₂

  • Unless the morpheme ends in "et" or "ek", if put before a vowel initial suffix, the schwa is deleted.

Rule 6: #₁V₁ + (V₂)#₂ -> #₁V̄₁#₂

  • The final vowel of a word is lengthened and the initial vowel of the suffix is deleted, if there was one.

Examples

If I want to say "He wrote it", I'd need to combine kteb + o. According to Rule 5 that's ktbo and according to Rule 3 that latter becomes ketbo, which is the correct spelling.

For "She wrote it", we do ketbet + o which according to Rule 5 becomes ketbetto.

For "We wrote them", we do ktebne + hom that becomes ktebneehom according to Rule 6.

It goes further to explaining why conjugation forms are the way they are. If grasped, one would no longer need to memorize the forms