User:40bus/Conlangs/Hokian/Phonology

Hokian is a constructed language designed to have easy phonology.

Origins

The Hokian sound inventory and phonotactics are very close to those in Slavic languages (especially in consonants). The primary difference is the absence of palatalization (although this was present in Old Hokian [nacjes, now nacioj 'nations'; familje, now familio 'family'] and arguably survives marginally in the affectionate suffixes -njo and -ĉjo, and in the interjection tju!), presence of dental fricatives, distinguishing of /h/, /x/ and /ɣ/ and presence of front rounded vowels.

Orthography and pronunciation

The Hokian alphabet is nearly phonemic; the letters, along with the IPA and nearest English equivalent of their principal allophone, are:

Consonants				Simple vowels
Letter	English	IPA		Letter	English	IPA
b	b	[b]		a	spa	[a]
c	bits	[t͡s]		e	bet	[e]
č	choose	[t͡ʃ]		i	machine	[i]
cg	Spanish amigo	[ɣ]		o	fork	[o]
ch	loch	[x]		u	rude	[u]
d	d	[d]		y	French tu	[y]
dh	this	[ð]		ø	French feuille	[ø]
dz	beds	[d͡z]
dž	gem	[d͡ʒ]
f	f	[f]
g	go	[ɡ]
h	h	[h]
j	young	[j]
k	k	[k]
l	l	[l]
m	m	[m]
n	n	[n]
p	p	[p]
r	r   (rhotic sound, usually rolled r)	[r]
s	s	[s]
š	ship	[ʃ]
t	t	[t]
th	thing	[θ]
v	v	[v]
z	z	[z]
ž	pleasure	[ʒ]

Allophonic variation

With only seven oral and no nasal or long vowels, Hokian allows a fair amount of allophonic variation. The /v/ may be a labiodental fricative [v] or a labiodental approximant [ʋ], again in free variation; or [w], especially in the sequences kv and gv ([kw] and [ɡw], like English "qu" and "gu"), but with [v] considered normative. Alveolar consonants t, d, n, l are acceptably either alveolar [t, d, n, l] (as in English) or dental [t̪, d̪, n̪, l̪] (as in French). Postalveolars č, dž, š, ž may be palato-alveolar (semi-palatalized) [t̠ʃ, d̠ʒ, ʃ, ʒ] as in English and French, or retroflex (non-palatalized) [t̠ʂ d̠ʐ ʂ ʐ] as in Polish, Russian, and Mandarin Chinese. H may be voiced [ɦ], especially between vowels.

Assimilation

In Hokian there should be place-assimilation of nasals before another consonant, such as n before a velar, as in banko [ˈbaŋko] ('bank') and sango [ˈsaŋɡo] ('blood'), or before palatal /j/, as in smenja [ˈsmeɲja] ('throat') and denja [deɲja] ('money'). Nonetheless, although the desirability of such allophony may be debated, the question almost never arises as to whether the m in zømfø ('rain') should remain bilabial or should assimilate to labiodental f ([ˈzøɱfø]), because this assimilation is nearly universal in human language. Indeed, where the orthography allows (e.g. bombono 'bonbon'), we see that assimilation can occur.

In addition, speakers of many languages (including Zamenhof's, though not always English) have regressive voicing assimilation, when two obstruents (consonants that occur in voiced-voiceless pairs) occur next to each other. Zamenhof did not mention this directly, but did indicate it indirectly, in that he didn't create compound words with adjacent obstruents that have mixed voicing. For example, by the phonotactics of both of Zamenhof's mother tongues, Yiddish and (Belo)Russian, rozkolora ('rose-colored', 'pink') would be pronounced the same as roskolora ('dew-colored'), and so the preferred form for the former is rozokolora. Indeed, Kalocsay & Waringhien state that when voiced and voiceless consonants are adjacent, the assimilation of one of them is "inevitable". Thus one pronounces okdek ('eighty') as /oɡdek/, as if it were spelled "ogdek"; ekzisti ('exist') as /eɡzisti/, as if it were spelled "egzisti"; ekzemple ('for example') as /eɡzemple/, subteni ('support') as /supteni/, longtempe ('for a long time') as /lonktempe/, glavsonoro ('ringing of a sword') as /ɡlafsonoro/, etc. Such assimilation likewise occurs in words that maintain Latinate orthography, such as absolute ('absolutely'), pronounced /apsolute/, and obtuza ('obtuse'), pronounced /optuza/, despite the superficially contrastive sequences in the words apsido ('apsis') and optiko ('optics'). Instead, the debate centers on the non-Latinate orthographic sequence kz, frequently found in Latinate words like ekzemple and ekzisti above. It is sometimes claimed that kz is properly pronounced exactly as written, with mixed voicing, [kz], despite the fact that assimilation to [ɡz] occurs in Russian, English (including the words 'example' and 'exist'), Polish (where it is even spelled ⟨gz⟩), French and many other languages. These two positions are called ekzismo and egzismo in Esperanto. In practice, most Esperanto speakers assimilate kz to /ɡz/ and pronounce nk as [ŋk] when speaking fluently.

Voicing assimilation

Voiceless obstruent	p	t	c	č	k	f	s	š	ch	th
Pronunciation before any voiced obstruent but v	b	d	dz	dž	g	v	z	ž	cg	dh
Voiced obstruent	b	d	dz	dž	g	v	z	ž	cg	dh
Pronunciation before a voiceless obstruent	p	t	c	č	k	f	s	š	ch	th

In compound lexical words, Zamenhof himself inserted an epenthetic vowel between obstruents with different voicing, as in rozokolora above, never *rozkolora, and longatempe, never *longtempe as with some later writers; mixed voicing only occurred with grammatical words, for example with numbers and with prepositions used as prefixes, as in okdek and subteni above. V is never found before any consonant consonant in Zamenhof's writing, because that would force it to contrast with ŭ.

Similarly, mixed sibilant sequences, as in the polymorphemic disĵeti ('to scatter'), tend to assimilate in rapid speech, sometimes completely (/diĵĵeti/).

Like the generally ignored regressive devoicing in words such as absurda, progressive devoicing tends to go unnoticed within obstruent–sonorant clusters, as in plua [ˈpl̥ua] ('additional'; contrasts with blua [ˈblua] 'blue') and knabo [ˈkn̥abo] ('boy'; the kn- contrasts with gn-, as in gnomo [ˈɡnomo] 'gnome'). Partial to full devoicing of the sonorant is probably the norm for most speakers.

Voicing assimilation of affricates and fricatives before nasals, as in taĉmento ('a detachment') and the suffix -ismo ('-ism'), is both more noticeable and easier for most speakers to avoid, so [ˈizmo] for -ismo is less tolerated than [apsoˈlute] for absolute.

Phonotactics

A syllable in Hokian is generally of the form (s/ŝ)(C)(C)V(C)(C). That is, it may have an onset, of up to three consonants; must have a nucleus of a single vowel or diphthong (except in onomatopoeic words such as zzz!), and may have a coda of zero to one (occasionally two) consonants.

Any consonant may occur initially, with the exception of j before i (though there is now one word that violates this restriction, jida ('Yiddish') which contrasts with ida "of an offspring").

Any consonant except h may close a syllable, though coda ĝ and ĵ are rare in monomorphemes (they contrast in aĝ' 'age' vs. aĵ' 'thing'). Within a morpheme, there may be a maximum of four sequential consonants, as for example in instruas ('teaches'), dekstren ('to the right'). Long clusters generally include a sibilant such as s or one of the liquids l or r.

Geminate consonants generally only occur in polymorphemic words, such as mal-longa ('short'), ek-kuŝi ('to flop down'), mis-skribi ('to mis-write'); in ethnonyms such as finno ('a Finn'), gallo ('a Gaul') (now more commonly gaŭlo); in proper names such as Ŝillero ('Schiller'), Buddo ('Buddha') (now more commonly Budho); and in a handful of unstable borrowings such as matĉo ('a sports match'). In compounds of lexical words, Zamenhof separated identical consonants with an epenthetic vowel, as in vivovespero ('the evening of life'), never *vivvespero.

Word-final consonants occur, though final voiced obstruents are generally rejected. For example, Latin ad ('to') became Esperanto al, and Polish od ('than') morphed into Esperanto ol ('than'). Sonorants and voiceless obstruents, on the other hand, are found in many of the numerals: cent ('hundred'), ok ('eight'), sep ('seven'), ses ('six'), kvin ('five'), kvar ('four'); also dum ('during'), eĉ ('even'). Even the poetic elision of final -o is rarely seen if it would leave a final voiced obstruent. A very few words with final voiced obstruents do occur, such as sed ('but') and apud ('next to'), but in such cases there is no minimal-pair contrast with a voiceless counterpart (that is, there is no *set or *aput to cause confusion). This is because many people, including the Slavs and Germans, do not contrast voicing in final obstruents. For similar reasons, sequences of obstruents with mixed voicing are not found in Zamenhofian compounds, apart from numerals and grammatical forms, thus longatempe 'for a long time', not *longtempe. (Note that /v/ is an exception to this rule, like in the Slavic languages. It is effectively ambiguous between fricative and approximant. The other exception is /kz/, which is commonly treated as /ɡz/.)