Overview

1.1 Overview

1.1.1 Consonants

	bilabial	labiodental	dental & c.	velar & c.	glottal∼pharyngeal

plosive	p [p^h]		t [t^h, t], d	k [k^h, k], g
affricate			dz [ʣ]
fricative		f, v	s	ch [x]	h [h, ħ]
nasal	m [m]		n	n [ŋ]
liquid			l [l^j], r [ɾ, r]
prelabialized liquid			wr, wl [wɾ, wl]

Phonotactical restriction include:

f only before o, u, r, l
ð, ch only medially
medial g, d only in ng, nd, medial p only in pp and in transparent compounds, otherwise p-, d-, g- only initially
wr-, wl- only initially
n = [ŋ] before k, g
r is trilled [r] initially (by compensatory lengthening of the sound change *[pɾ-, k^hɾ-, gɾ-] > [r]), otherwise [ɾ]

Anaptyxis in consonant clusters:

num for *nm
sum/dzum for *sm
mul, mur for *ml, *mr
lin, rin for *ln, *rn
liþ, riþ, þin for *lþ, *rþ, *þn
in Moluma also lum, rum for *lm, *rm

Positional change of s to h:

hi, hy for *si, *sy
lh, rh [lħ, rħ] for *ls, *rs (cf. the ruki sound shift)

There is a twofold lenis-fortis distinction:

voiceless aspirated stops p, t, k (lenis) vs. voiced unaspirated d, g (as in English) or voiced spirant v (fortis)
voiceless fricative s (lenis) vs. voiced affricate dz (fortis)
no aspiration in st, sk (again as in English)

Stress:

on antepenultimate if it has a long vowel (wrā́nende ’fought’) or the last three syllables are short (tálena ’warm’)
otherwise on penultimate (sechrénde ’wrote’)
some exceptions with stress on the ultimate, e.g. predicative adjectives: kronumṓn ’is powerful’; and and preverbs: pyrū́m ’is below’
the imperfective prefix a- is never stressed: alë́y(u)m ’to shine’ (ipf.) from pf. lëy(u)m

1.1.2 Vowels

i, ī [i, i:]	y, ȳ [ʏ, y:]	u, ū [u, u:]
e [ε]	ë [œ]	o, ō [ɔ, o:]
a, ā [a, a:]

The diphthongs can be represented in a neat little diagram. Kymna only employs ’homorganic’ diphthongs:

Hostorically, the mid long vowels [ε:, œ:, ɔ:] broke into ei, ëy, ou [εı̯, œy̯, ɔu̯], wherefore long variants of e, ë do not appear in the language, although long ō has been recreated by other changes. The diphthong ae [aæ̯]∼[ɑʌ̯] only appears in Moluma where it is the result of long [a:]∼[ɑ:].