Phonology
Sui has seven vowels, /i e ə a aː o u/. Diphthongs are /ai̯ aːi̯ oi̯ ui̯ au̯ aːu̯ eu̯ iu̯/. There are six or seven tones, reduced to two in checked syllables. The tones of the Sandu Sui Autonomous County, Guizhou, listed by conventional tone numbers, are:
| # | Sandu Sui county | |
|---|---|---|
| description | IPA | |
| 1 | low rising | ˩˧ |
| 2 | low falling | ˧˩ |
| 3 | mid | ˧ |
| 4 | high falling | ˥˧ |
| 5 | high rising | ˧˥ |
| 6 | 6a: high (6b: mid rising) | 6a: ˥ (6b: ˨˦) |
| 7 | checked high (checked high rising) | ˥C (long: ˧˥C) |
| 8 | checked falling | ˦˨C |
The alternate checked tone 7 is found on the long vowel /aːC/. Tone 8 is somewhat variable on a long vowel, appearing in different locations either higher or lower than the short allophone, but always falling, as in tones 2 and 4.
In some villages, tone 6 is two phonemes, /˨˦/ in native words and /˥/ in Chinese loanwords. In the village of Ngam, Libo county, tone 1 is low, the others as above.
| Labial | Denti- alveolar |
Apical alveolar |
Laminal postalveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosives | pʰ | t̪ʰ | kʰ | kʷʰ | qʰ | |||||
| p | t̪ | k | kʷ | q | ʔ | |||||
| ᵐb | ⁿd̪ | (ɡ) | (?) | (ɢ) | ||||||
| ʔb | ʔd | (ʔɡ) | ||||||||
| Affricates | t̪sʰ | tʃʰ | ||||||||
| t̪s | tʃ | |||||||||
| Fricatives | f ~ ɸ | s | ʃ | (x) | h | |||||
| z | ||||||||||
| Nasals | m̥ | n̪̥ | ɲ̊ | ŋ̊ | ŋ̊ʷ | |||||
| m | n̪ | ɲ | ŋ | ŋʷ | ||||||
| ʔm | ʔn | ʔɲ | ʔŋ | |||||||
| Approximants | ʋ ~ w | l | j | ɣ | ʁ | |||||
| ʔj | ʔɣ | ʔw | ||||||||
Consonants in parentheses were reported by the 1956 dialectology study Shuiyu diaocha baogao, but not in Li Fang Kuei's 1942 research in Libo County. (Labio-velars were not listed separately, so it's not clear if they also existed.)
The laminal postalveolar affricates are not palatalized like the Mandarin postalveolars /tɕ/, /tɕʰ/. /w/ is classed as a labial because it can be followed by a glide /j/. The prenasalized stops have very short nasalization. The voiceless nasals are actually voiced at the end, as most voiceless nasals are around the world. The preglottalized stops are truly preglottalized, not ejective or creaky voiced. The gammas have been described as fricatives, but here have been placed in the approximant row because of the preglottalized phone and the frequent ambiguity between dorsal fricatives and approximants.
In several locations in the Sandu Sui Autonomous County, the preglottalized consonants and the voiceless sonorants do not exist, having merged with the other consonants.
Syllable structure is CjVCT, where /j/ may follow one of the labial or coronal consonants, other than /m̥ ʔm/ (and /ʔw/) and the affricates. (/tsj, tsʰj, tsw, tsʰw/ occur in recent Chinese loans.) All syllables start with a consonant, unless initial is analyzed as phonetic detail of an initial vowel. The final C is one of /p t k m n ŋ/. Final plosives are both unphonated (have glottal closure) and are unreleased; the coronal is apical alveolar: . They reduce the tonic possibilities to two, "tones" 7 or 8.
Read more about this topic: Sui Language