Table of Contents

Phonemes

Consonants

Phonemic inventory

Manner / Place Labial Dental Alveolar Post-Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m̥ m   n̥ n     ŋ  
Stop p b   t d     k g  
Fricative f v θ ð s ʃ ç   ɦ
Tap     r̥ r        
Approximant     l   j    
Lateral Fricative     ɬ        

Kolic also has one coarticulated fricative consonant /v͜ð/, represented by ⟨fð⟩ in the romanisation (and with the corresponding glyphs in the orthography). It is pronounced with the tip of the tongue, the the upper teeth, and the lower lip all in contact with each other. Throughout this document, it will instead be represented by the digraph /fð̯/ in phonemic transcriptions, for ease of writing.

Note that all consonants with the exception of m̥, n̥, ʃ, ç, x, ɣ, ɦ, and ɾ̥ have geminate forms, though most of them aren’t realised simply as geminates of the same phone. More in the allophony section.

Allophony

Geminates of a consonant are generally not realised straight-forwardly:

  • /pː/ is realised as [ʰp]
  • /bː/ is realised as [pː]
  • /tː/ is realised as [ʰt]
  • /dː/ is realised as [tː]
  • /kː/ is realised as [ʰk]
  • /gː/ is realised as [kː]
  • /vː/ is realised as [fː]
  • /ðː/ is realised as [θː]
  • /lː/ is realised as [ɬ]

Other allophonic variations:

  • /k/ can be realised as [x] intervocalically (optionally)
  • /g/ is realised as [ɣ] intervocalically
  • /r/ and /r̥/ can be realised as [ɾ] and [ɾ̥] respectively (in free variation)
  • /r/ is realised as [r̥] or [ɾ̥] at the end of an utterance, before a pause and before unvoiced consonants.
  • /ŋ/ can sometimes be realised as [ŋg], especially if the speaker puts emphasis on the word or wants to articulate clearly.
  • /f/ is realised as [v] in between two voiced phones (vowels or voiced consonants).
  • /v/ is realised as [β] in between two voiced phones, and as [f] next to unvoiced phones.
  • the voiced dental fricative /ð/ is in an intervocalic position sometimes realised as a voiced dental lateral approximant [l̪] by some, particularly younger speakers.

Vowels

Phonemic inventory

Monophtongs

  Front Mid Back
Close i 〈í, ý〉    
Close-Mid ɪ 〈i, y〉 • ʏ 〈ú〉 ə 〈u〉 o 〈ó〉
Open-Mid ɛ 〈e, ë〉 • œ 〈ö〉   ɔ 〈o〉
Open a 〈ä〉   ɑ 〈a〉

Diphtongs

  Front Back
Close-Mid to Close ei̯ 〈ëë〉 • ɪi̯ 〈ei〉  
Open-Mid to Close ɛi̯ 〈é, äë〉 • œʏ̯ 〈öö〉  
Open to Close   ɑu̯ 〈á〉
Open to Close-Mid ae̯ 〈ää〉 • aɪ̯ 〈ae〉  

Other consecutive vowels can appear in Kolic without forming diphtongs (such as in the native word “jäínnir”), but they are separated by a glottal stop (/ja.ʔin.nɪr/ [jaʔinːɪɾ̥])

Allophony

  • /a/ can be realised anywhere between [a] and [æ]

Wowel length

Realised vowel length is very tightly coupled with syllable structure, described in the syllable structure section.

Vowels in monosyllabic words with either an open syllable, or ending in a single consonant (that is, not a geminate or a consonant cluster) can be pronounced long, or short in rapid speech (gär), unless they’re a historically long vowel (indicated with an acute accent (á) or a vowel digraph (ää)), in which case they’re always long (nú, kú, kól)

Vowels in word-final open syllables (jälgra, ýþa) are short.

Vowels in other open syllables are often pronounced as long, but can also be short in faster speech.

Vowels in other closed syllables are always short (hjappar, jölfar)

An exception to all of these rules are vowels followed by the digraphs ⟨gð⟩, ⟨fð⟩, ⟨ls⟩ and ⟨rs⟩, whose /g/, /l/ and /r/ sounds recently underwent elision (or coarticulation in the case of ⟨fð⟩), triggering compensatory lengthening in the preceding vowel. Therefore, any vowel before ⟨gð⟩, ⟨fð⟩, ⟨ls⟩ or ⟨rs⟩ is always pronounced long, even in rapid speech.

Stress and tone

Neither stress or tone are phonemic in Kolic. Stress can be said to follow a predictable pattern, and tone usually follows stress, but can be overriden by other factors like tone of voice and paralinguistic phenomena.

The stress always falls on the first syllable of a word (except clitics, such as personal pronouns), and after geminated sonorants. These can be analysed as secondary stresses, with the stress on the first syllable being primary. This means that in the name Firra, both syllables are stressed (/ˈfɪrˌrɑ/).

Stress syllables are usually (but not always) pronounced with a falling tone beginning at a higher pitch, or simply a higher pitch throughout the syllable. This is, however, highly situational and personal, with its usage being subjective to the speaker.

Phonotactics

Syllable structure

Kolic syllables follow a (F)(P)(N)(f)V(N)(F)(P)(P) syllable structure, where V are all vowels (including diphtongs), F are fricatives, P are plosives (stops), N are sonorants (nasals, taps/trills and approximants), and minuscule f are the non-sibilant fricatives /f/, /v/, /θ/, and /ð/. The two consecutive in the coda plosives may either be two different plosives (TODO: provide example), or a geminate plosive (þreitt) — although these are not always realised as true geminate plosives (see the consonant allophony section), they are nonetheless still analysed as such for the way they behave within the word.

Syllables of a word are always analysed in a way that minimises the coda — that means that most often (as long as the phonotactic rules allow), geminates are analysed as one consonant in the coda, and one in the onset. (for example, hjappar is analysed as /çɑp.paɾ̥/, while hjapp is /çɑpp/). This has an effect on vowel length, more in the vowel length section.

Other phonotactic constraints

🚧 This section is a Work In Progress 🚧

Kolic displays a range of other phonotactic constraints:

  • voiceless nasals and /ç/ (which is a voiceless counterpart to the approximant /j/) can only appear at the onset syllable boundary (that is, they can’t be preceded by any other phone within a syllable). Note that this would also be the case with /ɬ/ — the voiceless counterpart to /l/ — except the geminate /lː/ evolved into the same sound, making this constraint not apply to /ɬ/ in that case.
  • /ŋ/ can only appear in the coda, as it evolved as a slur between /n/ an /g/.
  • /v/ and /f/ are generally allophonic, except in a word-initial position. Both phonemes underwent phonological changes that made them behave identically in all other environments. They are sometimes analysed separately for historical reasons, and sometimes

Phonological processes

Umlauts

I-umlaut

🚧 This section is a Work In Progress 🚧

The vowel glyphs 〈i〉 and 〈í〉 trigger retrograde fronting most vowels found in the immediately preceding syllable. Mostly back and mid vowels are affected.

Note

The reason this umlaut is triggered by the glyphs 〈i〉 and 〈í〉 and not simply the vowels /ɪ/ and /i/ is because of Kolic’s historic spelling. Kolic’s letters i, í, y, and ý used to represent four different phonemes — /ɪ/, /ɪː/, /ɘ/, and /ɘː/ respectively. Kolic underwent this umalut triggered by /ɪ/, and then lost the distinction between front and near-front vowels, merging these two pairs (along with 〈e〉 and 〈ë〉).

Common environment glyph Pronunciation Umlauted glyph Pronunciation
e /ɛ/ ë /ɛ/
é /ɛi̯/ ëë /ei̯/
ä /a/ ë /ɛ/
ää /ae̯/ ëë /ei̯/
a /ɑ/ ä /a/
á /ɑu̯/ ää /ae̯/
o /ɔ/ ö /œ/
ó /o/ ú /ʏ/
u /ə/ ú /ʏ/
ei /ɪi̯/ í /i/
ae /aɪ̯/ äë /ɛi̯/

The umlaut is no longer an active phonological process in Kolic. However, it’s so prevalent in its fossilised form, that it warrants a thorough description. It’s present in many roots (like kääri, originally kári), but more importantly, it is grammaticalised, meaning suffixes with a triggering nucleus still shift the vowels in the last syllable of the root (eg. kaevra (wave) → käëvri (waves), tanna (she goes) vs. tänni (he goes)). Note that younger affixes (such as direct object infixes) don’t trigger the umlaut (therefore jäftar (to feel) keeps the 〈ä〉 when it becomes järiftar)

Front umlaut

🚧 This section is a Work In Progress 🚧

An ongoing phonological process in Kolic is a new form of umlaut, triggered by all front vowels. Unlike the i-umlaut, this one is prograde and only applies to some grammatical affixes clitics, not affecting roots.

Examples:

  • “Aeraga ár …” (is she…?) vs “Äërigä ór …” (is he…?)
  • “Kólra” (on the island) vs “Kyfðrä” (in the house)

Vowel-triggered consonant alteration

🚧 This section is a Work In Progress 🚧

Historically front vowels (specifically vowels that were front after the i-umlaut, but before the i-y merger) lenite voiced that appear before them. This phenomenon is entirely predictable from spelling. The affecting vowel letters and digraphs are the following: i, í, ë, ëë, ä, ää, ö, öö, ú, äë. The voiced plosives are lenited accordingly:

Fortis phoneme lenis phoneme
/b/ /ʋ/
/d/ /d͡ʒ/
/g/ /j/

This means that the word ändir (to catch) is pronounced /an.d͡ʒɪr/, but its neuter atemporal form andu is pronounced /ɑn.də/.

Note that while this phenomenon does affect voiced plosives at the end of consonant clusters, it does not affect geminated voiced plosives, nor does it affect a voiced plosive that is separated from the front vowel by another consonant (i.e. voiced plosives in a different position in a consonant cluster than the final one are not affected).