Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Open-mid | ɛ (è) | ɔ (ò) | |
| Open | a |
These vowels can also occur long; the phonemic status of long vowels hangs on the interpretation of Leti's pervasive metathetic processes.
The mid vowels /e, o, ɛ, ɔ/ are restricted to the penult of lexical morphemes, which is stressed. The majority of these morphemes provide no evidence for the height contrast — /ɛ, ɔ/ are found before an ultimate /a/ and /e, o/ in other positions — and diachronically there was no contrast. However, the contrast is set up synchronically on account of certain exceptions (/ea/ 'he, she', /msena/ 'refuse', /dena/ 'stay'), and the fact that when suffixed the conditioning vowel can disappear:
- /kɛrna/ 'dry' → /ŋkɛrnulu/ 'it dries first'
- /kernu/ 'descend' → /ŋkernulu/ 'he descends first'
Read more about this topic: Leti Language, Phonology
Famous quotes containing the word vowels:
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