Consonants Babanki has 25 consonant phonemes. Most consonants also appear in phonemic
prenasalized,
labialized, and
palatalized forms, although it remains ambiguous as to whether Babanki actually has these
secondary articulations or if they are simply
consonant clusters of simple consonants with
placeless nasals, , or , respectively.
Phonotactics Typically, Babanki words are composed of a CV(C) stem with optional (C)V prefixes and suffixes. The stem-initial
onset is where the majority of Babanki consonants occur exclusively; onsets of affixes and function words only permit the phonemes , and the only permissible
coda consonants are .
Allophony is much more distinct in coda consonants; is realized as a
glottal stop , and rimes ending in the
alveolar nasal whose nuclei are the non-high vowels (i.e. )
diphthongize, surfacing as .
Vowel coalescence is also quite significant in Babanki. It occurs in and sequences (excluding those where is ), where the final
close-mid central unrounded vowel and (in the case of the latter) the coda consonant coalesce to a single phonetically long vowel , the quality of which cannot necessarily be determined by either vowel (although in sequences the phonetic long vowel is usually of the same quality as the phonemic first vowel). For example, the phrase "my
speargrass" would be phonemically parsed: {{interlinear|top='''' Here, the sequence coalesces into the long vowel . Although virtually all long vowels that occur in Babanki are due to this process, there are a few instances of long vowels that are not clearly derived, such as in the words "which" and "term of address for
fon". == Sample ==