A DT word, like an English word, can be formed by only one syllable or several syllables, with the two syllables being the general typicality. Each syllable in DT follows one of the six underlying patterns:
Alphabet The DT alphabet adopts the
Latin alphabet of 19 letters, 4
digraphs, and 6
diacritics to express the basic sounds of
Taiwanese:
Initials bh, z, c, gh, h, r, g, k, l, m, n, ng, b, p, s, d, t Note that unlike their typical interpretation in modern
English language,
bh and
gh are
voiced and
unaspirated, whereas
b,
g, and
d are plain unvoiced as in
Hanyu Pinyin.
p,
k, and
t are unvoiced and aspirated, corresponding closer to
p,
t, and
k in English. It is inconsistent with the use of h's in the
Legge romanization and the use of the diacritic in the
International Phonetic Alphabet to signal consonantal
aspiration.
Finals •
Vowels: a, i, u, e, or, o •
Diphthongs: ai, au, ia, iu, io, ui, ua, ue •
Triphthongs: iau, uai •
Nasals: m, n, ng The nasals
m, n, and
ng can be appended to any of the vowels and some of the diphthongs. In addition,
m and
ng can function as independent syllables by themselves. The stops
h,
g,
b and
d can appear as the last letter in a syllable, in which case they are pronounced with
no audible release. (The final
h in DT stands for a glottal stop.)
Delimiting symbols All syllables in each word are normally separated by the
dash (-) mark. Generally, syllables before the dash which must undergo
tone sandhi. == DT examples ==