Samwe language
Gur language of Burkina From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Samwé (samoe), also known as Wara (ouara, ouala), is a Gur language of Burkina. Dialects are Negueni-Klani, Ouatourou-Niasogoni, and Soulani. Niasogoni speakers have difficulty with Negueni, but not vice versa.
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Phonology
Summarize
Perspective
Consonants
- /b/ can be lenited to [β̞] between vowels.[3]
- /t/ has a free variant [d] after nasals, vowels, and other consonants.[3]
- /c/ is voiced [ɟ] after nasals and between vowels.[3]
- /k/ is often [g] or [ɰ] between vowels. It tends to stay voiceless at morpheme boundaries.[4]
- /kp/ becomes voiced [gb] between vowels or after nasals. /kp is not allowed before /u/.[4]
- [ʔ], which is not phonemic, occurs intervocalically between the same vowel.[5]
- /f/ is always voiceless.[6]
- /s/ is voiced [z] intervocalically and after nasals, [ʃ] before /ia/ and /ie/, and [s] elsewhere. /s/ can be lenited to [ɹ], which Ouattara represents as [z̞]. As with stops, voicing and lenition are in free variation.[7]
- /ɾ/ can also be realized as [r] or [ɹ].[8] /ɾ/ is also in free variation with /n/ in some words. Sometimes, /ɾn/ becomes /nn/ or /rr/.[9]
- /l/ and /n/ are contrastive, but roughly 20 words have /l~n/ in free variation.[9]
Vowels
Samwe has 20 vowels: 7 short oral vowels, 7 long oral vowels, 3 short nasal vowels, and 3 long nasal vowels.
Samwe has two types of vowel harmony: ATR harmony and front-back harmony. /ɛ, ɔ/ do not occur in stems with /i, e, o, u/.[11] Front and back vowels (/i, e/ and /u, o) do not co-occur in disyllabic imperative verb stems, but this rule is not followed in other verb forms.[12] /a/ is neutral in both types.[13]
Notes
References
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