Lampung Languages - Phonology

Phonology

Voiceless stops occur in word-initial, word-medial, and word-final position. Word-final stops are generally unreleased. Voiced stops generally do not occur word-finally. There seems to be only moderate evidence for a phonemic glottal stop. /r/ has a range of phonetic realizations but is most often a velar or uvular fricative ,, ,.There is minor disagreement between the two earlier phonologies about /r/, described as an apical trill by Abdurrahman and as a voiceless velar fricative by Walker. Walker stated that this phoneme (written as /x/ in 1976 and as /r/ in his 1975 word lists) occurs in all major environments and is sometimes voiced intervocalically. Walker (1976:3) noted that (apical trill) ‘occurs in unassimilated loanwords’ and alternates with in many cases.

The nasals occur in word-initial, word-medial and word-final positions, with the exception of /ɲ/, which does not occur word-finally. /l/ occurs in word-initial, word-medial, and word-final position. /w/ and /y/ occur word-initially and word-medially and, depending on one’s analysis, word-finally as part of diphthongs discussed below. Both phonemes occur word-medially in positions where they are not considered as transitions from and respectively.