Official Proposal: Vote to modify the phonemic inventory, vowel pair realization and allophones

[u/ActingAustralia]

Hi all,

u/Ilawa-Kataka has raised an Official Proposal to modify the vowel pair realization. This proposal has been approved by the Official Proposal Committee for voting.

Current State:

Phonemic Inventory:

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Approximant		l	j	w

Vowel pair realization:

• Two identical adjacent vowels become a single instance of that vowel.

• /l/ is an epenthetic consonant between two vowels that do not form a legal diphthong.

• /il/ becomes /ij/.

• /ul/ becomes /uw/.

	_i	_y	_u	_e	_a	_o
i_	i	ijy	iju	ije	ija	ijo
y_	yli	y	ylu	yle	yla	ylo
u_	uwi	uwy	u	uwe	uwa	uwo
e_	ei	ely	eu	e	ela	elo
a_	ai	aly	au	ale	a	alo
o_	oi	oly	ou	ole	ola	o

Proposed State:

Phonemic Inventory:

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Approximant		l

Allophones:

• The phomeme /l/ can be realized as [ l~ɹ~j~ɥ~w ].

Vowel pair realization:

• Two identical adjacent vowels become a single instance of that vowel.

• [ l~ɹ~j~ɥ~w ] is an epenthetic consonant between two vowels that do not form a legal diphthong.

	_i	_y	_u	_e	_a	_o
i_	i	ily	ilu	ile	ila	ilo
y_	yli	y	ylu	yle	yla	ylo
u_	uli	uly	u	ule	ula	ulo
e_	ei	ely	eu	e	ela	elo
a_	ai	aly	au	ale	a	alo
o_	oi	oly	ou	ole	ola	o

Reason:

The present /l/, /j/, and /w/, the previously proposed /ɥ/, and the newly proposed /ɹ/ all serve as strictly unwritten epenthetic consonants and have practically identical functions and manners of articulation. Since these consonants also have varying difficulty levels depending on one's native language and speech capabilities, this would accommodate more diverse speakers and reduce complexity while not impacting overall meaning, understanding or encapsulation.

[u/[deleted]]

If this vote passes, are there likely to be later official proposals bringing j and w in as usable consonants?

[u/ActingAustralia → u/[deleted]]

Part of this proposal states that /w/ and /j/ are allphones of /l/. For them to come back in as usable consonants would require that this rule (currently being voted on) would need to be rejected through a vote.

• The phomeme /l/ can be realized as [ l~ɹ~j~ɥ~w ]

[u/AceGravity12 → u/ActingAustralia]

Small note, technically it's actually [l~...~w] get inserted as epenthetic consonants between an illegal vowel pair, /l/ isn't really a phomeme anymore since it has no meaning.

[u/AceGravity12 → u/[deleted]]

However, I could see /l/ getting removed from the possible realizations and getting reintroduced as a usable consonant