Teiwo

tentatively the phonology looks as follows

the abrupt release clicks are ǂ series before front vowels and ǃ series before back/central vowels. the ǁ clicks do not appear before front vowels

the prenasalization on the clicks is not really audible word-initially, also the nasal aspirated clicks are voiceless all the way through (i.e. [ᵑ̊ǀʰ] etc)

the tenuis plosive series is actually somewhat aspirated, and the difference between that and the aspirated series is a matter of degree as well as the fact that the ‘aspiration’ on the aspirated series is closer to an [x] or [χ] before /a o/. they do not contrast before high vowels.

/d/ is offset a bit from /t/, being more alveolar while /t/ is basically dental or dental-alveolar

/w l ɰ/ are /m n ŋ/ following nasal vowels. /w l/ are also [m n] word-initially (/ɰ/ is not [ŋ]).

/ɰ/ is written 〈g〉, the ""aspirated"" series is written with h ie 〈ph th čh kh〉 (not sure im a fan) (maybe 〈px tx čx kx〉 looks cooler)

short vowels are kinda reduced, particularly /i o/ are generally [ɪ ʊ]

diphthongs /ai au ąį ąų oi ǫį/ come from coda /w y/ (see below)

long vowels are written kinda inconsistently, /iː aː/ are 〈ii aa〉 but /eː/ is 〈ei〉 and /oː/ is not currently distinguished from /o/ because i think most ways of writing long o look like trash (the name is /teːwoː/ btw)

as hinted above theres some nasal harmony involving the nasal vowels, /w~m l~n ɰ~ŋ/, and the nasalized clicks, essentially like so:

the nasal vowels are marked for nasalization (the clicks are not). nasalization spreads rightwards through vowels and rhinophilic consonants (/w l ɰ wˀ lˀ yˀ ɰˀ h/ + the clicks) and is blocked by rhinophobic consonants (everything else).

the nasalized clicks have a bit of an unusual distribution wrt nasality: they are allowed morpheme-initially and do not trigger nasalization on the following vowel, but otherwise they are only found following a nasal vowel. morphological processes can result in a click following a non-nasal vowel and they don't trigger nasalization of it (however they maintain their own prenasalization).

syllables are maximally (C)C(y)V(C)

the coda consonant is restricted to /p t k 7 š h w l y ɰ/

/Ṽl Ṽɰ/ ⇒ [Vn Vŋ] aw/ay/oy = au ai oi

possibly /b d/ are allowed after long vowels or ptk voice after long vowels or something

there are three types of initial 2-clusters:


 * C₁ is a tenuis click, C₂ is one of /k kʰ kʼ x xʼ/ (other clicks are not allowed in clusters)
 * C₁ is a voiceless sibilant and C₂ is a voiceless unaspirated plosive
 * sč is banned but šč exists
 * C₁ is one of /p t k b d h/ and C₂ is /y/

there is one type of initial 3-cluster:


 * C₁ is /s š/, C₂ is /p t k/, and C₃ is /y/

in general word-internal consonant clusters are kind of rare, ie in most cases a cluster onset occurs word-initially and coda occurs word-finally. word-internal 3-clusters from a coda + onset 2-cluster are possible but rare. 4-clusters do not seem to exist. internal 2-clusters consisting of a coda plosive + onset plosive have a tendency to become geminates.

single-syllable words are necessarily bimoraic ie their nucleus is either a long vowel or a diphthong.

tone.

example words (these have no meaning as of yet)

nąįzą hąųmį gisʼąį xʼo:ga šehai tłeho:

it is not a coincidence that they have 1 heavy syllable and 1 light syllable

Nouns
nouns have basically a free form and a combining form, where the former is derived from the latter by an unpredictable morphological process. (generally, prefixation, suffixation, reduplication, -7- infixation, …)

noun classes are basically phonological and more or less correspond with how a noun's free form is derived from its combining form

probably some semantically based noun classes for animates?

number of nonce noun classes for a few nouns + ""light nouns""

the GIMMICK here is basically to get converbs out of agreement markers (?)

4 agreement types: A, P, X, attributive/possessive animates agree nom-acc non-animates agree erg-abs and dont have A

theres probably a certain level of direct-inversion going on

Verbs
triple agreement


 * intransitive (S-V)
 * extended intransitive (S-V-X)
 * transitive (S-O-V)
 * extended transitive (S-O-V-X)

-GERund to which noun class agreement markers are added to form relative clauses (attributively agree with the head)