Consonants Spirantisation of // and // is quite common in Punjabi, but this is less apparent in Doaba. Similarly, other Persian-borrowed phonemes are also pronounced in a more indigenous manner. are pronounced respectively. Another surprising aspect is that is almost always pronounced as .
Debuccalisation of , to in between vowels also occurs. Among youngesters, and are often replaced with and . Though, some will replace all instances of alveolar and with retroflex and as a form of
hypercorrection. Consonants and are often realised as
nasal and
lateral flaps respectively. Doabi's
fortition at the start of a stressed syllable to as in (big) to . Doabis often substitute /z/ with /d͡ʒ/, especially in uneducated speech. Also, the vowel is pronounced . Accordingly, (happy) becomes or (to beat - noun form) becomes . In Doabi, any word beginning with stressed is pronounced . For example, the word (to pull - noun form) is pronounced as or the word (in [something]) is pronounced as . Similarly, can be realised as [o] in certain enviroments, such as in (dream) to . The Doabi dialect in its eastern part blends with the Malwai dialect of Ludhiana District, and in its Northern side, it shares the linguistic features of Pahari. • does not occur word initially
Vowels Doabi has ten vowels. These are Nasalisation in Punjabi is phonemic too, with nasal equivalents of all peripheral vowels vowels. For example: One of the most distinctive features of Doabi is how its short close vowels are pronounced. Phonemically, they are: • • But are phonetically: • •
Tone Three tones are used in Doabi: low, mid and high. For example; This
tonogenesis occurred from the historic loss of
breathy voiced consonants. Word-initially, they became voiceless plosives, but remained voiced word-medially and finally. This loss of
phonemes led to tone to distinguish between similar
morphemes. When the consonant (that was breathy-voiced) is word initial, the vowel that follows has a falling tone. When the consonant is medial or word-final, it has a rising tone. Loss of word-final also led to a rising tone in the preceding vowel.
Stress, however can change what tone on what syllable is present.
Stress Stress in Doabi is realized in two ways, syntagmatically and paradigmatically. Syntagmatically, stress-shift results in change of meaning. This kind of stress is often orthographically unmarked, and may shift any tone present in a word to the stressed syllable. For example: Paradigmatically, Doabi has stressed and unstressed syllables; == Grammar ==