# Phonemes

## Consonants

|           | labial | alveolar | palatal | velar | glottal |
|-----------|--------|----------|---------|-------|---------|
| nasal     | m      | n        | ɲ       | ŋ     |         |
| plosive   | p b    | t d      | c       | k g   | ʔ       |
| fricative | f v    | s z      | (ç) j   | x     | h       |
| liquid    |        | l r      |         |       |         |

Ravna consists of 22 standard consonants.

- /t/, /d/, and /c/ are aspirated [tʰ], [dʰ], [cʰ] in Ravin dialect, but
  unaspirated elsewhere
- /x/ can be realized as [χ] in some dialects
- [ç] is realization of /h/ at coda, which can be realized as [ʂ] in some rare
  dialects or by non-native speakers
- /s/ and /z/ is realized as [ʂ] and [ʐ] in Ravin dialect, but not others
- Some dialects don't have phoneme /ʔ/
- In modern Ravna dialect that Ravin people speak, /l/ and /r/ are merged to [ɺ]
- /r/ can be either approximant [ɹ], tap [ɾ], or trill [r] in other dialects

## Vowels

|        | front | central | back |
|--------|-------|---------|------|
| open   | i     | (ɨ)     | u    |
| mid    | e ɛ   | (ə)     | o    |
| closed | a     |         | ɔ    |

Ravna consists of 9 vowels.

- /ə/ occurs as unstressed /e/
- /ɨ/ occurs as unstressed /i/, which disappears when possible
- /a/ and /o/ have umlauts /ɛ/ and /u/ respectively.

## Umlaut

Umlauts are the vowels that are modified when forming inflected forms.  These
vowels are the stressed vowels of the main root, which is usually the last
root.

## Stress

Ravna is a stress-accent language with clear pitch accent patterns.

If the word has 3 syllables or less:

- The primary stress is on the first syllable.
- The low pitch is on the first syllable and the high pitch is on the last
    syllable.  All other syllables have low pitches.

If the word has more than 3 syllables:

- The primary stress is on the first syllable.
- The secondary stress is on the third syllable.
- The high pitches are on the stresses, and low pitches are on other syllable.

These rules don't apply for prefixes---prefixes are never stressed.  For
prefixed words, stress rules apply starting from the main stem.

Another exception in compound:

- Compound with colliding vowels have the syllable with colliding vowels as
    primary stress, and the first syllable being secondary stress if there are
    more than two syllables.
- Compound with more than four syllables has the first syllable of the first
    root as primary stress and the first syllable of the second root as
    secondary stress.