Fon Language - Phonology

Phonology

Fon has seven oral vowel phonemes and five nasal vowel phonemes.

/p/ only occurs in mimesis and loanwords, though often it is replaced by /f/ in the latter, as in cɔ́fù 'shop'. Several of the voiced occlusives only occur before oral vowels, while the homorganic nasal stops only occur before nasal vowels, indicating that and are allophones. is in free variation with ; Fongbe therefore can be argued to have no phonemic nasal consonants, a pattern rather common in West Africa. /w/ and /l/ are also nasalized before nasal vowels; /w/ may be assimilated to before /i/.

The only consonant clusters in Fon have /l/ or /j/ as the second consonant; after (post)alveolars, /l/ is optionally realized as : klɔ́ 'to wash', wlí 'to catch', jlò ~ 'to want'.

Tone

Fon has two phonemic tones, HIGH and LOW. High is realized as rising (low–high) after a voiced consonant. Basic disyllabic words have all four possibilities: HIGH–HIGH, HIGH–LOW, LOW–HIGH, and LOW–LOW.

In longer phonological words, such as verb and noun phrases, a high tone tends to persist until the final syllable; if that syllable has a phonemic low tone, it becomes falling (high–low). Low tones disappear between high tones, but their effect remains as a downstep. Rising tones (low–high) simplify to HIGH after HIGH (without triggering downstep) and to LOW before HIGH.

/ xʷèví-sà-tɔ́	é	kò	xɔ̀	àsɔ̃́	wè /
[ xʷèvísáꜜtɔ́ ‖	é	kó	ꜜxɔ̂ |	àsɔ̃́	wê ‖ ]
fish-sell-aɡent	s/he	PERF	buy	crab	two

Hwevísatɔ́, é ko hɔ asón we.

"The fishmonger, she bought two crabs"

In Ouidah, a rising or falling tone is realized as a mid tone. For example, mǐ 'we, you', phonemically high-tone /bĩ́/ but phonetically rising because of the voiced consonant, is generally mid-tone in Ouidah.