Consonants[]
| Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar/ Palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | palat. | plain | palat. | plain | palat. | plain | palat. | |||
| Nasal | m | mʲ | n | nʲ | ɲ | ŋ | ŋʲ | |||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | pʲ | t | tʲ | c | k | kʲ | ʔ | ʔʲ |
| voiced | b | bʲ | d | dʲ | ɟ | ɡ | ɡʲ | |||
| Affricate | voiceless | pf | ts | tʃ | kx | ʔh | ||||
| voiced | bv | dz | dʒ | ɡɣ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | fʲ | s | sʲ | ʃ | x | xʲ | h | hʲ |
| voiced | v | vʲ | z | zʲ | ʒ | ɣ | ɣʲ | ɦ | ɦʲ | |
| Approximant | central | ʋ | ʋʲ | ɹ | ɹʲ | j | ɰ | ɰʲ | ||
| lateral | l | lʲ | ʎ | ʟ | ʟʲ | |||||
| Trill | ʙ | ʙʲ | r | rʲ | ||||||
Palatalization[]
In general, palatalizable consonants are palatalized allophonically before a front vowel. However, palatalized consonants also occur in other environments, especially in word-final position or in word-final clusters.
There are some cases where the front vowel /i/ is preceded by a non-palatalized consonant. In native Finnic vocabulary, this occurs where inflectional endings beginning with /i/ are attached to words with a stem ending in a non-palatalized consonant. The consonant is not palatalized by /i/ in this case, but remains non-palatalized by analogy with the other inflected forms. The vowel /i/ is backed to [ɨ] in this case, as in Russian, making it unclear whether the palatalization is a consequence of the front vowel, or the backing is the result of the lack of palatalization. Either analysis is possible.
Compare:
- norʹ /norʲ/ ("young"), genitive singular noren /norʲen/, partitive plural norid /norʲid/
- nor /nor/ ("rope"), genitive singular noran /norɑn/, partitive plural norid /norid/ (or /norɨd/)
Russian loanwords have also introduced instances of non-palatalized consonants followed by /i/, which are much more frequent in that language.
Vowels[]
| Front | Central | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unr. | Rnd. | Unr. | Rnd. | ||
| Close | i | y | ɨ | ɯ | u |
| Mid | e | ø | ə | ɤ | o |
| Open | æ | ɶ | ɐ | ɑ | ɒ |
The status of /ɨ/ is marginal; it occurs as an allophone of /i/ after a non-palatalized consonant. See above under "Palatalization" for more information. It does not occur in the first syllable of a word.
Vowel harmony[]
Like many other Finnic languages, Veps has vowel harmony but in a much more limited form. Words are split into back-vowel and front-vowel words based on which vowels they contain:
- Back vowels: /ɑ/, /o/ and /u/
- Front vowels: /æ/, /ø/ and /y/
However, the front vowels can only occur in the first two syllables of a word. In a third or later syllable, and also sometimes in the second syllable, they are converted to the corresponding back vowel. Thus, vowel harmony only applies (inconsistently) in the second syllable, and has been lost elsewhere. It is not applied for inflectional endings except in a few exceptional cases, but is retained more frequently in derivational endings.
For example:
- korged ("high", back-vowel harmony), genitive singular korktan, derived noun korktuz' ("height"); compare Finnish korkea, korkeus.
- pimed ("dark", back-vowel harmony), genitive singular pimedan, derived noun pimeduz' ("darkness"); compare Finnish pimeä, pimeys.
- hüvä ("good", front-vowel harmony), illative singular hüväha, derived noun hüvüz' ("goodness"); compare Finnish hyvään. hyvyys.
- päiv ("day", front-vowel harmony), genitive singular päivän, illative singular päivhan; compare Finnish päivä, päivään.
- pä ("head", back-vowel harmony), illative singular päha; compare Finnish päähän.
- keza ("summer", back-vowel harmony); compare Finnish kesä.
- vävu ("son-in-law", back-vowel harmony); compare Finnish vävy.
- üldüda ("to rise", front-vowel harmony in second syllable, back-vowel in third); compare Finnish yltyä.
- küzuda ("to ask", back-vowel harmony); compare Finnish kysyä.