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# 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.
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