Caerimoscnë

Caerimoscnë ((SCRIPT HERE), pronunciation: [t͡se̞ɾʲimo̞ɕt͡ɕɲə]) is a Mallo-Brausian language native to the Brausian country of Caerimrodhë. It is also spoken in (GFHGJFGJKSJ).

History

Within the Mallo-Brausian language family, Caerimoscnë appears to exist on a separate branch from all other extant Mallo-Brausian languages.

Phonology

Caerimoscnë's phonology involves many morphophonological processes that can be seen to occur at morpheme boundaries upon affixation. When looking at these processes, certain consonant phonemes in some cases pattern differently to their phonetic pronunciation.

The following is a table showing the consonants of Caerimoscnë as they are pronounced.

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Alveolo-Palatal	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	Voiced	m		n		ɲ	(ŋ)
	Voiceless			n̥		ɲ̊
Plosive		p		t		c	k	q
Affricate		p͡f		t͡s	t͡ɕ
Fricative		f	θ	s	ɕ	ç			h
Approximant	Voiced	w		ɾ l		j
	Voiceless	ʍ		ɾ̥ l̥

However, in terms of phonological patterning, the consonants may be better described like this:

		Labial	Dental	Coronal		Palatal	Dorsal
				Plain	Palatalized
Nasal	Voiced	m		n	ɲ		(ŋ)
	Voiceless	ʍ		n̥	ɲ̊
Plosive	Non-tone-causing	p		t	c		k
	Tone-causing	b		d	ɟ		g
Affricate	Non-tone-causing	p͡f		t͡s	t͡ɕ		q
	Tone-causing
Fricative	Non-tone-causing	f	θ	s	ɕ	ç	h
	Tone-causing
Approximant	Voiced	w		ɾ l	ɾʲ~rj lʲ~lj	j
	Voiceless			ɾ̥ l̥	ɾ̥ʲ~ɾ̥j l̥ʲ~l̥j

Note: for the "tone-causing" obstruents, refer to the section on Tone.

As shown in the table, the phoneme /ʍ/ in fact patterns as the voiceless counterpart to /m/, and /q/ patterns as the dorsal affricate. This table also shows the patterning between plain and palatalized equivalences for the coronal series.

Vowels

	Front		Central	Back
	Unrounded	Rounded
Close	i iː	y yː	ɨ ɨː	u uː
Mid	e eː	ø øː	ə əː	o oː
Low	æ æː		a aː

Phonotactics

Caerimoscnë's syllable structure allows for large consonant clusters, including those which violate the sonority hierarchy, e.g. (SCRIPT HERE) /fθfɾweː/ "to blow a dandelion".

All consonants apart from /w/, /j/, /ɾ/, /h/, and the voiceless resonants are able to be geminated, though this may be better analyzed as a sequence of two of the same consonant, rather than separate phonemes.

Tone

Caerimoscnë is a tonal language, distinguishing two tones, a lower and a higher tone. The lower is far more common than the higher, and can be analyzed rather as the absence of tone.