Myrkolð

Features

I managed to get the consonant inventory up to what WALS calls "large", which is 34 or more consonant phonemes. What's more interesting is that I managed it without adding any (central) approximants. However, there are two laterals /lˠ, l̻ʲ/ and two trills /r̝ʲ, r̠ˠ/. The trills might need some explanation: /r̝ʲ/ is a fricative trill with the tongue tip just behind the teeth with the dorsum raised to the palate, and /r̠ˠ/ is a regular postalveolar trill with the dorsum raised to the velar ridge.

The phonotactics are still under construction, but I expect them to be quite permissive, with up to two consonants in the onset and coda, and even allowing for consonant nuclei. One thing I finally did was restrict the velar continuants /ŋ, ŋʲ, x, ɣ/ to the coda. Ussualy, I'm really bad about just letting these consonants fall where they may. I've also made a conscious decision to strictly follow the sonority hierarchy and work within those restrictions.

The morphophonology will exhibit polyconsonantal roots: roots specified by two, three or occaisionally four consonants, with vowels are filled in by inflection. Historically, the vowels in these words would have been subjected to vowel harmony, and as the harmony solidified and became unproductive, it left these fossil traces in the inflection system. Ideally, this feature will also guide me to particularly mellifluous word shapes, even if my consonant clusters go bonkers.

Inspirations

• Old Norse - general feel
• Irish - broad/slender distinction
• Old English - use of velar sounds, fun clusters like onset /kn/
• Basque - dental vs. alveolar distinction in stops
• Mari? it seems like I should steal some grammar