Supyire Language - Phonology - Consonants

Consonants

Supyire has a voicing distinction and contains a glottal stop, a common characteristic in African languages. However, it does not have labio-velar consonants.

Voiceless stops have particular limitations and are only used in three environments: word initial, such as tàcwɔ̀ (“fiancée”) medially in a stressed syllable, as in nupéé or following a nasal, such as in kàntugo (“behind”). Also, almost every /ɡ/-initial word is a borrowed word from either French or Bambara.

Although both voiceless and voiced fricatives are found, voiceless fricatives such as /f/ and /s/ are much more common than the voiced fricatives /v/, /z/, and /ʒ/.

There is no labial approximant.

In speech, /w/ does not come after a short stressed syllable.

Although Supyire contains nasal consonants, there is considerable debate over their phonemic status. According to a well-formulated hypothesis, the predecessor of Supyire had no nasal consonants but nasalized vowels did exist. Some linguists thus categorize nasal consonants as simple variants of the approximants that occur before nasal vowels.

Supyire is reported to have the rare uvular flap as an allophone of /ɡ/ in unstressed syllables. This parallels /d/ surfacing as in the same environment.