1.1 - Vowels
There are three vowel colours (i, u, a), which exist in both tense and lax varieties, for a total of six phonemes. In orthography, tense vowels are doubled, but this has no relationship with vowel lenght, which is non-phonemic and related to stress. The vowels are:
| Front | Center | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | tense | ii | uu | |
| lax | i | u | ||
| Low | tense | aa | ||
| lax | a | |||
The pronounciation of ii and uu varies between high and mid depending on context, but we are not in position to trace the details; aa is always [a].
Lax vowels are all subject to centralization and reduce to schwa [@].
Lax i causes palatalization of the preceding consonant. In initial position, or when the preceding consonant lacks a palatalized allophone, it is realized as [j@]. Lax u is always realized as [w@]; lax a as a plain schwa [@].
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