Makassarese phonology

The following description of Makassarese phonology is based on Jukes (2005).

Vowels

Makassarese has five vowels: a, e, i, o, u.

	Front		Central		Back
	unr.	rnd.	unr.	rnd.	unr.	rnd.
Close	i	y	ɨ	ʉ	ɯ	u
Mid	e	ø			ɤ	o
Open	æ		a	ɒ	ʌ	ɔ

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t	c	k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d	ɟ	ɡ
Fricative	voiceless		s	ç	x	h
	voiced	v		ʝ	ɣ
Semivowel				j	w
Lateral			l	ʎ	ʟ
Trill		ʙ	r

• /ɲ/ is written ⟨ny⟩ before a vowel, ⟨n⟩ before ⟨c⟩ and ⟨j⟩
• /ŋ/ is written ⟨ng⟩
• /ɟ/ is written ⟨j⟩
• /j/ is written ⟨y⟩
• /h/ only occurs in loanwords
• The glottal stop /ʔ/ only occurs in syllable-final position and is usually written as an apostrophe ⟨'⟩
• /ʙ/ is written ⟨f⟩
• /ʝ/ is written ⟨z⟩

Phonotactics

All consonants except for /ʔ/ can appear in initial position. In final position, only /ŋ/ and /ʔ/ are found.

Consonant clusters only occur medially and (with one exception) can be analyzed as clusters of /ŋ/ or /ʔ/ + consonant. These clusters also arise through sandhi across morpheme boundaries.

	nasal/lateral					voiceless obstruents					voiced stops + r
	m	n	ɲ	ŋ	l	p	t	c	k	s	b	d	ɟ	ɡ	r
/ŋ/	mm	nn	ɲɲ	ŋŋ	ll	mp	nt	ɲc	ŋk	ns	mb	nd	ɲɟ	ŋg	nr
/ʔ/	ʔm	ʔn	ʔɲ	ʔŋ	ʔl	pp	tt	cc	kk	ss	ʔb	ʔd	ʔɟ	ʔg	ʔr

The geminate cluster /rr/ is only found in root-internal position and cannot be accounted for by the above rules.

Sequences of like vowels are contracted to a single vowel, e.g. sassa "to wash" + -ang 'nominalizing suffix' > sassáng "laundry", ca'di "small" + -i 'third person' > ca'di "it is small".

External links

• Makassarese language