Upper Arrernte phonology

Consonants

	Peripheral			Coronal
				Laminal		Apical
	Bilabial	Velar	Uvular	Palatal	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex
Stop	p pʷ	k kʷ		c cʷ	t̪ t̪ʷ	t tʷ	ʈ ʈʷ
Nasal	m mʷ	ŋ ŋʷ		ɲ ɲʷ	n̪ n̪ʷ	n nʷ	ɳ ɳʷ
Prestopped nasal	ᵖm ᵖmʷ	ᵏŋ ᵏŋʷ		ᶜɲ ᶜɲʷ	ᵗn̪ ᵗn̪ʷ	ᵗn ᵗnʷ	ᵗɳ ᵗɳʷ
Prenasalized stop	ᵐb ᵐbʷ	ᵑɡ ᵑɡʷ		ᶮɟ ᶮɟʷ	ⁿd̪ ⁿd̪ʷ	ⁿd ⁿdʷ	ⁿɖ ⁿɖʷ
Lateral Approximant				ʎ ʎʷ	l̪ l̪ʷ	l lʷ	ɭ ɭʷ
Approximant	β̞	ɰ ~ ʁ̞		j jʷ			ɻ ɻʷ
Tap						ɾ ɾʷ

/ɰ ~ ʁ̞/ is described as velar ([ɰ]) by Breen & Dobson (2005), and as uvular ([ʁ̞]).

Stops are unaspirated. Prenasalized stops are voiced throughout; prestopped nasals are voiceless during the stop. These sounds arose as normal consonant clusters; Ladefoged states that they now occur initially, where consonant clusters are otherwise forbidden, due to historical loss of initial vowels; however, it has also been argued that such words start with a phonemic schwa, which may not be pronounced (see below).

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	(i)		(u)
Mid		ə
Low		a

All dialects have at least /ə a/.

The vowel system of Arrernte is unusual in that there are only two contrastive vowel phonemes, /a/ and /ə/. Two-vowel systems are very rare worldwide, but are also found in some Northwest Caucasian languages. It seems that the vowel system derives from an earlier one with more phonemes, but after the development of labialised consonants in the vicinity of round vowels, the vowels lost their roundedness/backness distinction, merging into just two phonemes. There is no allophonic variation in different consonantal contexts for the vowels. Instead, the phonemes can be realised by various different articulations in free variation. For example, the phoneme /ə/ can be pronounced [ɪ ~ e ~ ə ~ ʊ] in any context.

Phonotactics

The underlying syllable structure of Arrernte is argued to be VC(C), with obligatory codas and no onsets. Underlying phrase-initial /ə/ is realised as zero, except before a rounded consonant where, by a rounding process of general applicability, it is realised as [ʊ]. It is also common for phrases to carry a final [ə] corresponding to no underlying segment.

Among the evidence for this analysis is that some suffixes have suppletive variants for monosyllabic and bisyllabic bases. Stems that appear monosyllabic and begin with a consonant in fact select the bisyllabic variant. Stress falls on the first nucleus preceded by a consonant, which by this analysis can be stated more uniformly as the second underlying syllable. And the frequentative is formed by reduplicating the final VC syllable of the verb stem; it does not include the final [ə].

Orthography

Arrernte orthography does not write word-initial /ə/, and adds an e to the end of every word.

Peripheral Coronal Laminal Apical Bilabial Velar Uvular Palatal Dental Alveolar Retroflex Stop p pw k kw ty tyw th thw t tw rt rtw Nasal m mw ng ngw ny nyw nh nhw n nw rn rnw Prestopped nasal pm pmw kng kngw tny tnyw tnh/thn tnhw/thnw tn tnw rtn rtnw Prenasalized stop mp mpw ngk ngkw nty ntyw nth nthw nt ntw rnt rntw Lateral ly lyw lh lhw l lw rl rlw Approximant w h y yw r rw Tap/Trill rr rrw

Front Central Back High (i/ey) (u/we) Mid e Low a

External links

• Upper Arrernte language