Garonnian/Phonology

Consonants

	Labial		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal		/m/		/n/		/ɲ/		/ŋ/
Plosive	/p/	/b/	/t/	/d/			/k/	/ɡ/
Affricate			/ts/	/dz/	/tʃ/	/dʒ/
Fricative	/f/	/v/	/s/	/z/	/ʃ/	/ʒ/			/h/
Trill				/r/
Approximants				/l/		/ʎ/

Unlike many Gallo-Romance languages (French technically lacked this), Garonnian lacks final obstruent devoicing. Unusually among Romance languages, Garonnian exhibits initial consonant mutations and contain somewhat unusual phoneme /ŋ/ which can occur in any positions.

Orthography

Spelling		Pronunciation value
		Major	Examples	Minor	Examples
b		/b/	bull
c	Before a, o, u	/k/	cur
	Before e, i	/tʃ/	ciul

Vowels

	Front		Central		Back
	Short	Long	Short	Long	Short	Long
Close	/i/	/iː/			/u/	/uː/
Mid	/ɛ/	/ɛː/			/ɔ/	/ɔː/
Open			/a/	/aː/

In unstressed positions, only the vowels /a, i, u/ are allowed. Vowel length are phonemicized as a result of losses of certain consonants (these are, */β, ð, ɣ/), but also as a result of simplification of certain vowel hiatuses (teer */tɛ.ˈɛr/ → /ˈtɛːr/ "to hold", aad /ˈaːd/ "(s)he had").

Consonant structure

The maximal consonant structure in Garonnian is C¹C²S¹VS²C¹C². However, there are many synchronic metatheses called Nicholshill's law (named after the fictional female linguist named Annett Nicholshill) that could occur at unpleasant consonant clusters. The rules include:

• Liquids always precede other consonants when word-final.
• Nasals always precede other consonants when word-final.

Some examples:

• **gëdr → gërd "to sell"
• **Alrigs → Arligs "Alaric, a male given name"
• **ponms → pomns "we put"

Stress

Like French, Garonnian words are always stressed in the last syllable. However, words containing vowel hiatuses are stressed in the second-to-last (penultimate) syllable (bua /ˈbu.a/ "good (fem. sg.)"). As previously I, Willett said, only /a, i, u/ are allowed in unstressed syllables.

Phonological changes

See Garonnian/Sound changes