Guere phonology

The phonology of Guere (here the Zagna dialect of Central Guere / Southern Wè) is briefly sketched out below.

Consonants

The consonant phonemes are as follows:

	Bilabial		Labiodental		Labial-velar		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Labialized velar
Stops	p	b			k͡p	ɡ͡b	t	d	c	ɟ	k	ɡ	kʷ	ɡʷ
Implosives		ɓ
Nasals		m						n		ɲ
Fricatives			f	v			s	z
Lateral approximant								l
Approximants										j				w

Allophones of some of these phonemes include:

• [k͡m] is an allophone of /k͡p/ before nasal vowels
• [ŋ͡m] is an allophone of /ɡ͡b/ before nasal vowels
• [ŋʷ] is an allophone of /w/ before nasal vowels
• [ɗ] is an allophone of /l/ in word-initial position
• [r] is an allophone of /l/ after a coronal consonant (alveolar or palatal)

In addition, while the nasal consonants /m, n/ and contrast with /ɓ/ and /l/ before oral vowels, and are thus separate phonemes, before nasal vowels only the nasal consonants occur. /ɓ/ and /l/ do not occur before nasal vowels, suggesting that historically a phonemic merger between these sounds and the nasals /m, n/ may have occurred in this position.

Vowels

Like many West African languages, Guere makes use of a contrast between vowels with advanced tongue root and those with retracted tongue root. In addition, nasal vowels contrast phonemically with oral vowels.

	Oral		Nasal
	Front	Back	Front	Back
Close (ATR)	i	u	ĩ	ũ
Close (RTR)	ɪ	ʊ	ɪ̃	ʊ̃
Mid (ATR)	e	o		õ
Mid (RTR)	ɛ	ɔ	ɛ̃	ɔ̃
Open (RTR)		a		ã

Tones

Guere is a tonal language and contrasts ten tones:

Tone	IPA	Example	Gloss
Low	˩	ɡ͡ba˩	"to scatter"
Mid	˧	ɡ͡ba˧	"to destroy"
High	˦	mɛ˦	"to die"
Top	˥	ji˥	"full"
Low–high rising	˩˦	ɡ͡bla˩˦	"hat"
Low–top rising	˩˥	k͡plɔ̃˩˥	"banana"
Mid–high rising	˧˦	ɓlo˧˦	"wall"
High–top rising	˦˥	de˦˥	"younger brother"
High–low falling	˦˩	ɡ͡ba˩a˦˩	"goat"
Mid–low falling	˧˩	sre˧˩	"penis"

External links

• Guere language