Sound System
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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.
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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.
Read more about this topic: Picuris Dialect
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