Iðâɣ phonology

Main article: Iðâɣ

This page gives an extensive description of Iðâɣ phonological features.

Consonants

The consonant system distinguishes 20 phonemes, traditionally arranged in the following scheme:

		IPA			Transcription
plosive	voiceless	[p]	[k]	[t]	p	k	t
	voiced		[g]			g
nasal		[m]		[n]	m		n
liquid		[r]		[l]	r		l
fricative	dental		[ð]			ð
	sibilant		[s]			s
	alveolar		[ʃ]			š
	glottal		[h]			h
	palatal		[ç]			ç
	bilabial	[ɸ]		[β]	ɸ		β
	velar	[x]		[ɣ]	x		ɣ
approximant		[j]		[w]	j		w
affricate			[ʧ]			č

The group of the plosive consonants is essentially scarce. It distinguishes two sub-groups: voiceless and voiced, and the voiced sub-group includes the phoneme [g] alone.

The group of the nasal and of the liquid consonants is similarly scarce, but anyway quite developed. The group of the fricative is substantially richer in its amount of phonemes and points of articulation.

The phoneme [w] can have both semivocalic and consonantal value, while the phoneme [j] has always a full consonantal value and it is never regarded as a semivowel.

Vowels

There are 6 vocalic phonemes, which display other forms of distinction:

IPA			Transcription
[i]		[u]	i		u
[e]	[ə]	[o]	e	ə	o
	[a]			a

5 vowels are framed in a complex tonal system. Conversely, the mid-central phoneme, [ə], makes no distinction in tone.

The tonal system is thoroughly described below.

Tones

All vowels, with the exception of the mid-central phoneme [ə], make a distinction among five different tones. Tone is a clearly distinctive feature:

na - nâ
star - pure

Using the vowel [a] as an example, the tones, and their graphic transcription, are:

• a: [a˧], mid tone.
• á: [a˧˥], rising tone.
• à: [a˧˩], falling tone.
• â: [a˧˥˧], rising-falling or apical tone.
• ǎ: [a˥˧˥], falling-rising or bottom tone.

The mid tone is usually regarded as a neutral tone, not being graphically expressed by any diacritic mark. The rising and the falling tones are regarded as linear tones. The rising-falling and the falling-rising tones are regarded as spike tones. This distinction is relevant for stress positioning.

Tone variations are abundant among dialects, both diachronically and synchronically. Generally speaking, however, five tonal types are always distinguished.