Mehêla Phonology: view article

/e o/ are mid [e̞ o̞].
/u/ is rounded heavily, but /o/ only slightly.
/a/ is near-low central [ɐ]. It may even be [ə] in casual speech, or in loan words where it may be added epenthetically due to phonotactical constraints.

All vowels have long versions, but they are analysed as being a sequence of two identical vowels. The long vowels are pronounced identically to the short ones except for /a/, whose long version is fully front [aː].

[edit] [top]Consonants

		Labial	Coronal	Dorsal	Glottal
Nasal	Short	m	n ~ ɾ̃	ŋ
Nasal	Geminate	mː	nː	ŋː
Stop	Prenasalized	ᵐb	ⁿd
Stop	Voiceless	p	t	k	ʔ
Oral Sonorant		w ~ ʋ	l ~ ɺ ~ ɾ	j ~ ɰ

The coronals /n ⁿd t/ are laminal denti-alveolar [n̪ ⁿd̪ t̪], except for when they preceed /u/, where they are apical alveolar [n ⁿd t].
The consonants /w l j n/ are generally pronounced [w l j n] in careful speech. They may be pronounced [ʋ ɺ/ɾ ɰ ɾ̃] in casual speech or in loan words where the original pronounciation is closer to the casual allophones.
All consonants are labialised before /u/.

[edit] [top]Phonotactics

The syllable structure is (C)V(V), where C is a consonant, V is a vowel, and VV is two identical vowels.

[edit] [top]Tone

Mehêla has two phonemic tones. Short vowels have either high (H) or low (L) tone, but long vowels can have high, low or falling and falling tone is usually resticted to occur only after /p t k/. The tone is analysed as being on an individual vowel, and so the long high, low, and falling tones are analysed as sequences of tones HH, LL, and HL respectively. A three-toneme analysis would also be possible, where tone is a feature of a syllable, with falling tone resricted to occur only in syllables with a long vowel. That is not the analysis I will use here, though. High tone is the default, and is therefore unmarked in the phonemic transcription and the orthography for short vowels.

Phonemic	Phonetic	Orthographic
/ka/	[k´ɐ]	ka
/kà/	[k`ɐ]	kà
/kaa/	[káː]	kâ
/kàà/	[kàː]	kā
/kaà/	[kâː]	kã

[edit] [top]Phonological Processes

The sequences /Vja/ & /Vwa/ are often pronounced without the final /a/ in casual speech. ✎ Edit Article ✖ Delete Article

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