Allophones

When I pposted the draft for the phonology I was asked at the Zompist Boards to explain the allophones (and their use use in the conworld dialects) further.

Velar / Uvular Consonants

As an example, I am not able to hear a difference between an aspirated and an unaspirated consonant. Without direct comparison I have the same problem with a velar/uvular pair. I seem to be deaf to such nuances. In the same sense a 'native' speaker doesn't hear a difference between uvular and velar sounds. Both categories collapse into one, he just hears a so called back or throat sound. So it is actually a free variation.

A foreign linguist might note that the uvular variant usually happens before or after a back vowel and the velar with a front vowel. Maybe. For a native speaker (and for me too) the distinction is meaningless.

Voiced / Unvoiced in Consonant Clusters

It's a free variation. Really. As I mentioned, the voiced variant is often used for more emphasis like we put more stress on certain words in the same circumstances.

[?] / [h]

In general the rule is that the syllable boundaries must be maintained. In casual or fast speech [h] might be substituted for [?] because it is the not silent variant of the phonem. The substitution has four stages, from none at all to completely.

• a always [?] – This is the explicite pronounciation used in relatively slow to normal fast but careful speech.
• a intervocalic [h] – [h] is used between vowels and diphtongs when /'/ is the single consonantic syllable border. This substitution is common in normal, casual speech.
• a always [h] except at the beginning of a word – Used in fast speech.
• a always [h] – Used in very fast speech when the words seem to run tohgether into one continous stream. Imagine an urgent message breathlesly spilled out. If I may mangle English: Hehashellathisheels!

I don't want to touch dialects too much because the conworld I imagine for this conlang is still too vague. I think that the Northern dialect is usually in the range from a) to b) while the Southern one uses b) to c). The last stage d) is an extreme.