Phonology
Consonants The voiced velar affricate is pronounced with lateral release before front vowels. Doble describes both /k/ and /ɡʟ̝/ as being labialized after the back vowels (i.e., , ), with having 'varying' degrees of the lateral. Vowels Staroverov & Tebay (2019) describe five vowel qualities plus length and diphthongs. Doble (1987) analyses the long vowels and diphthongs as sequences. Tone Ekari has pitch accent. One syllable in a word may have a high tone, contrasting with words without a high tone. If the vowel is long or a diphthong and not at the end of the word, the high tone is phonetically rising. CV words have no tone contrast. CVV words may be mid/low or high. (In all of these patterns, here and following, initial C is optional.) Words of the following shapes may have a contrastive high tone on the final syllable: CVCV, CVCVV. Words of the following shapes may have either a rising or a falling tone on the first long syllable: CVVCV, CVVCVV, CVCVVCVV, CVVCVCV (rare), CVVCVCVV (rare). The following word shapes do not have contrastive tone: CVCVCV, CVCVVCV, CVCVCVV, and words of 4 or more syllables. ==References==