Möxali

Möxale is the primary language of the Lavondu people of T'ugü, and a lingua franca throughout surrounding coastal regions of Fountainhead, particularly those connected to T'ugü by maritime trade. Möxale emerged as a mixed language in bilingual communities of Xiyeru in T'ugü following the Xiyeru Exodus.

Phonology
Möxale is most commonly spoken as a second language, by many peoples over a wide area throughout its long history, so there is much variation in the phonology. There are, however, some patterns and general tendencies common to all speakers or particular subgroups. In order to view Möxale as a whole, its phonology is discussed here using the romanisation of its core phonemic inventory, which is common to almost all varieties of the language. Each phoneme can be understood as representing a diaphoneme, an abstracted phonological unit with an analogous phoneme in each variety of Möxale which may have different phonetic realisations depending on the dialect or historical stage. Particular phonetic varieties are also given in square brackets where relevant.

Front-back allophones
Some consonants have a pair of major allophones determined by the presence of a front (ä ö e i) or back (a o u) vowel in the host syllable. These allophonic pairs or some variants of them are present in the vast majority of speakers, particularly those who speak Möxale as a first language or are in regular contact with those who do. The typical phonetic values of these allophonic pairs are shown below: Öb speakers commonly realise j as [dʒ] at the start of syllables and use bilabial and bidental fricatives [ɸ β θ ð] in all phonological environments where Lavondu and most other speakers have labiodental and dentalised sibilant fricatives [f v s̪~θ z̪~ð] for f v s z. For all speakers, v is typically a bilabial approximant when acting as the medial approximant in an onset cluster, but with no velar coarticulation (i.e. [β̞] not [w]).

Vowels
The vowels (a e i o u) are most typically realised as [ɑ e i ɔ o], though Öb tend to realise e u as [ɪ ʊ]. The vowels ä ö can vary in height quite freely between [e̞ ø] and [æ œ] depending on speaker and phonological environment, but the height hierarchy ä < ö < e is usually maintained. Adjacent vowels at the phonemic level are always separated by a non-phonemic glottal stop [ʔ], which is not represented in the native script but romanised as ⟨’⟩ within words.

Phonotactics
Möxale's syllable structure is (OR/C)V(F), where O is an obstruent (p t c k b d f s x v z j), R is an approximant (v l y) with a different place of articulation to O, C is any consonant, V is any vowel (ä ö e i a o u), and F may be any of (f s x h v z j n l). Coda n nasalises the preceding vowel and, if there is a following consonant, manifests as a nasal stop which phonetically assimilates to the place of articulation of that consonant. since v patterns both as a fricative and an approximant in the context of syllable structure, it is the only consonant that can occur as a single onset, be either consonant in an onset cluster or be a syllable coda. The allowed syllable onsets are shown in the table below. Those shown in red are merged, single-consonant forms that surface when forbidden clusters are forced together. For example, |-h-y-| surfaces as - x -.

Morphophonology
It is useful to analyse the structure of Möxale as having an underspecified morphophonemic level, with phonotactic constraints and other regular processes yielding the phonemic level. Morphophonemic forms are shown in |vertical bars|. There are four important phenomena; soft morphemes, inversion, vowel elision, and coda neutralisation.

Soft morphemes
Soft morphemes carry a special property which triggers regular internal sandhi processes on its initial phonological segment. This can be any vowel or one of a limited set of consonants which are underspecified and subject to a voicing rule which then yields the surface level phoneme. Soft morphemes with an initial vowel (V₂) avoid placing that vowel adjacent to a previous vowel (V₁) by a process determined by the qualities of the two vowels. The pairs of vowels (ä ö), (o u) and (e i) are labelled Ä, O and E respectively and follow a height hierarchy a < Ä < O < E. If V₁ is higher on this hierarchy than V₂, either y or v is inserted between the vowels, else the two vowels merge. Note that the height hierarchy of the vowel pairs does not necessarily coincide with the relative heights of individual vowels, thus u-o and i-e do not yield *uvo and *iye, but u and i respectively. A table of all possible combinations of vowels V₁-V₂ is shown below: The vowels in brackets are subject to regular elision as described in the next section. Note that these processes apply only to the initial segment, thus soft morphemes are free to express the full range of Möxale’s phonology elsewhere within the morpheme, e.g. |naäm| manifests as na’än, not *nän.

Hard morphemes are those morphemes that do not undergo these processes when preceded by a vowel, either retaining their intrinsic onset consonant unchanged, or by inserting an epenthetic glottal stop before an initial vowel. Vowel-initial hard morphemes may be analysed as having an underlying glottal stop which only arises following vowels:


 * ʼañon| → añon (lid)
 * xu-ʼañon| → xuʼañon (ᴘʟ-lid)

Inversion
Inversion is an ablaut process which acts on both vowels in a disyllabic stem. It developed out of an archaic stress rule in Xiri which is no longer active in Möxale, and through analogy has become a regular process triggered by certain suffixes. Vowels e i u in the first syllable are lowered to ä e o, and vowels ä e o ö in the second syllable are raised to e i u i. For example, consider the noun stem |Fedo| (clothing):


 * Fedo-∅| → fedo (clothing-ᴀʙꜱ)
 * Fädu\⇵-yo| → fäduyo (clothing-ᴀᴄᴄ)

Inversion is only triggered by a small handful of suffixes, even within a grammatical paradigm only some suffixes may trigger inversion while others do not:


 * Fedo-en| → fedin (clothing-ᴇʀɢ)

An inverted stem cannot be uninverted by some other morphological process. In compounds of two stems, the first stem is inverted.

Vowel elision
Stressed vowels may never be elided, but there are several circumstances which trigger the regular elision of unstressed vowels. One such circumstance is in the consonant epenthesis of vowel-initial soft morphemes described above:


 * su-aze| → *s(o)ˈvaze → ˈsvaze

This elision is blocked by an approximant in the syllable onset:


 * |kyo-aze| ( → *ky(o)ˈvaze → kyoˈvaze

If the approximant has the same place of articulation as that preceding onset, it too is elided:

Some morphemes, particularly short inflectional affixes, have two allomorphs, one with a or ä and one where the vowel is elided. These vowels are shown in square brackets in the underlying morphophonemic notation. The presence of the vowel depends on its morphophonological environment and functions as epenthesis wherever phonotactically required. For example, consider the active voice prefix |F[a]-|:
 * eji-aze| → *ij(e)ˈyaze → *eˈj(y)aze → eˈjaze (Note also the inversion of the initial stem ije- → eji-)


 * When affixed to vowel or approximant-initial stem, the [a] is not necessary and so is not present:
 * F[a]-u-ha| → fuha (ᴀᴠ-eat-ᴘꜰᴠ)
 * F[a]-la-ha| → flaha (ᴀᴠ-cook-ᴘꜰᴠ)
 * When affixed to other stems, the [a] is required to break up the fC- onset cluster:
 * F[a]-mum-ha| → famunha (ᴀᴠ-fill-ᴘꜰᴠ)
 * |F[a]-Ti-ha| → fadiha (ᴀᴠ-bite-ᴘꜰᴠ)

Coda neutralisation
The underlying structure of a morpheme allows a final stop which is altered if it arises as a syllable coda at the phonemic level, i.e. if there is no following syllable in which the consonant can act as the onset. This applies to both hard and soft morphemes and occurs across word boundaries. Nasals neutralise into assimilatory coda n:


 * cipäm-∅| → cipän (needle-ᴀʙꜱ)
 * cipäm-en| → cipämen (needle-ᴇʀɢ)
 * cipäm\⇵-yo| → cepeño (needle\ɪɴᴠ-ᴀᴄᴄ)

Plosives undergo spirantisation, in which they mutate to the corresponding fricative with the same voicedness and place of articulation: p t c k b d → f s x h v z:


 * limok-∅| → limoh (bee-ᴀʙꜱ)


 * |limok-en| → limoken (bee-ᴇʀɢ)


 * limok\⇵-ä| → lemukä (bee-ᴀᴄᴄ)

Grammar
Möxale is an agglutinative language, in which words are formed by attaching several classes of affixes to disyllabic word stems. Transitive verbs, statives and numerals have their stems derived from monosyllabic roots with some classificatory suffix attached, while noun stems are disyllabic morphemes which cannot be broken down.

Transitive verbs take inflectional affixes for mood, voice and aspect but are not inflected for person, number or tense. Tense is generally denoted by temporal adjuncts or understood from context. The person of the subject may optionally be marked with a prefix to refer back to a previously established subject, but this is not strictly part of the verb's inflection. Stative verbs take a single inflectional suffix for the grammatical number of their subject.

Möxale's morphosyntactic alignment has characteristics of ergativity, and its transitive verbs use a system of symmetrical voice to mark the syntactic role of the subject of the verb. Nouns are marked for absolutive, ergative and accusative case and have additional optional number marking.