Picuris Dialect - Sound System

Sound System

		Bilabial	Dental		Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
			central	lateral
Plosive		(b)	(d)				(ɡ)
		p	t			tʃ	k	ʔ
Fricative				ɬ	s		x	h
Nasal		m	n
Approximant		w		l		j
Flap					(ɾ)

• The consonants /b, d, ɡ, ɾ/ are only found in recent Spanish loanwords.
• G. Trager (1942, 1943) analyzed Picuris as also having aspirated stops /pʰ, tʰ/, ejective stops /pʼ, tʼ, tʃʼ, kʼ/, and labialized /kʷ, kʷʼ, xʷ/. These are considered by F. Trager (1971) to be sequences of /ph, th/, /pʔ, tʔ, tʃʔ, kʔ/, and /kw, kʔw, xw/.
• Velar /x/ has strong frication.
• Stops /p, t, ʔ/ are unaspirated while /k/ may be slightly aspirated.
• The affricate /tʃ/ freely varies with a more forward articulation : for example, F. Trager recorded the word /ˈtʃāˈxʌ̀nē/ "witch" with an initial but the related word /ˈtʃāˈxʌ́ˈɬāwēnē/ "witch chief" with initial .
• The sequence /kʔw/ is only found in a single word /kʔwìatʃéne/.
• Alveolar /n/ has an assimilated velar variant when it precedes labio-velar /w/.
• Nasal /m/ in a low-toned syllable is partially devoiced and denasalized before a glottal stop /ʔ/, as in /ˈʔʌ̀mʔēnē/ "chokecherry" which is phonetically .
• Fricative /ɬ/ freely varies between a lateral fricative and an central-lateral fricative sequence
• Lateral /l/ is palatalized before the high front vowel /i/.
• Only the sonorants /m, n, l, w, j/ can occur in syllable coda position.

Picuris has three degrees of stress: primary, secondary, and unstressed. Stress affects the phonetic length of syllable rimes (lengthening the vowel or the syllable-final sonorant consonant).

Additionally, there are three tones: high, mid, and low — the mid tone being the most frequent.