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Phonemic diphthongs contrast with long vowels while inflecting nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs. Non-phonemic diphthongs historically are sequences of two vowels and with an exeption of äi and ai do not contrast with anything. | Phonemic diphthongs contrast with long vowels while inflecting nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs. Non-phonemic diphthongs historically are sequences of two vowels and with an exeption of äi and ai do not contrast with anything. | ||
===Consonants=== | ===Consonants=== | ||
The consonant system is different from such neighbouring languages, as West Carpathian lacks voiced/voiceless contrast, typical for Slavic languages and Hungarian. Instead it has an opposition of plain vs geminated consonants, which take part in a [[w:Consonant gradation|consonant gradation]] similar to some Uralic languages, for instance: ''koatta''-''kōtak'' ("branch"-"branches"). Almost all consonants (except for ť, h, v, j and r) have phonemic geminated forms. These are independent phonemes, but can occur only medially. Also a rather unique feature, found only in West Carpathian, is a phonemic dental approximant, which | The consonant system is different from such neighbouring languages, as West Carpathian lacks voiced/voiceless contrast, typical for Slavic languages and Hungarian. Instead it has an opposition of plain vs geminated consonants, which take part in a [[w:Consonant gradation|consonant gradation]] similar to some Uralic languages, for instance: ''koatta''-''kōtak'' ("branch"-"branches"). Almost all consonants (except for ť, h, v, j and r) have phonemic geminated forms. These are independent phonemes, but can occur only medially. Also a rather unique feature, found only in West Carpathian, is a phonemic dental approximant, which sounds between English /l/ and /ð/. | ||
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