Yil is a Torricelli language of Papua New Guinea spoken in twelve villages in Sundaun province.
Phonology This section follows Martens and Tuominen (1977). Yil has a small inventory of ten consonants: BilabialAlveolarVelarStopptkFricativesɣNasalmnŋTrillrLaterall And seven vowels: FrontCentralBackunroundedroundedCloseiyə~ɵuMidɛ~æoOpena In addition there are the diphthongs /ai̯ au̯ ay̯ ei̯/. /i u/ have non-syllabic allophones [j w~β] in onset or coda position. /ɣ/ is devoiced to [x] word-finally, e.g. /uəmaɣ/ [wəmax] 'hawk'.
Phonotactics Maximum syllable structure is (C) (C) V (C) (C). Syllables with two-consonant codas only occur word-finally. Distribution of phonemes in different syllable types is shown in the table below. Syllable typePhoneme distributionExample(s)VAny vowels may occur/i/ "I"CVAny consonant or vowel may occur/ni/ "water"CVC/sak/ "pig"VCV: /i ə o ɛ a/ C: /p s m n ŋ l r u i//an/ "he" /ar/ "she"C₁C₂VC₃C₁: /p t k/ C₂: /r/ V: /u o a/ C₃: /p k r//prok/ "quickly" /trok/ "thigh" /krup/ "white bird"C₁VC₂C₃C₁: any consonant may occur V: /u o a/ C₂: /ɣ m n ŋ l r/ C₃: /p t k ɣ r//lank/ "night" /nakalp/ "back of house" /namaŋalk/ "bird"VC₁C₂Rarely observed/ark/ "termite"*C₁C₂VC₃C₄ Not observed Stress usually falls on the first syllable, although it is contrastive in some verb forms, e.g. /əˈŋati/ "I bury a man" vs. /ˈəŋati/ "I hurry"
External links Paradisec has a collection of Don Laycock's (DL2) that includes Yil language materials.
References