Phonemic inventory Vowels Ho-Chunk's vowel sounds are distinguished by nasality and length. That is to say, the use of a
nasal vowel or a
long vowel affects a word's meaning. This is evident in examples such as compared to , and compared to . All of Ho-Chunk's vowels show a length distinction, but only have nasal counterparts.
Consonants Ho-Chunk's consonants are listed in the following table: Typical of Mississippi Valley Siouan languages, Ho-Chunk has aspirated and phonemes but no aspirated .
Nasalization patterns In Ho-Chunk, vowels always occur as nasalized when they follow nasal consonants . Nasality spreads to an adjacent vowel if that vowel is nasalizable as well. • pVnV • pVrV • kVnV • kVrV • kVwV • sVnV • sVrV • sVwV • šVnV • šVrV • šVwV • cVwV • xVnV • xVrV • xVwV Multiple sources advocate that Dorsey's law is a
synchronic process in the language because of the way that other processes like stress assignment and the morphological process of
reduplication are affected by it. Dorsey's law can apply within a single morpheme, as in /pra/ becoming [para] in the word
paras '(be) wide, flat', or across morpheme boundaries, as in /šra/ becoming [šara] in the word
šaraše 'you go there', where
š is the second person pronominal prefixing to the verb
rahe 'to be going there'.
Metrical structure Ho-Chunk is a
mora counting, but syllable accenting language. The stress placement of words spoken in isolation is extremely regular. Single-syllable words always have a long vowel (two moras), and stress falls on the first mora (e.g.
áa 'arm'). Two-syllable words have two moras, and primary stress falls on the second mora (e.g.
wajé 'dress'). In words longer than two syllables, primary stress most often falls on the third syllable, with secondary stress on each even numbered vowel after the point of primary stress (e.g.
waǧįǧį́ 'ball', or
hocįcį́k 'boy'). A few rare examples of words with primary stress not on the third syllable include
booráxux 'you break something into pieces' and
gikąnąhé 'to invite somebody'. These and other exceptions are a result of syllable weight affecting stress location. As seen in
booráxux 'you break something into pieces', when one of the first two syllables of a multiple-syllable word is a heavy syllable, then the main stress falls on the second syllable Generally when words are spoken in sequence to form sentences, each retains its own stress domain. However, when two or more words are
compounded, they are treated as a single word and form a new single stress domain in which the aforementioned patterns apply. Examples include
hąąbókahi 'every day' (a compound consisting of
hąąp 'day' and
hokahí 'every') and
wąągwácek 'young man' (
wąąk 'man' and
wacék 'young'). Ho-Chunk's stress system is substantially different from that of other Siouan languages, which have main stress on the second syllable or second mora. It is theorized that Ho-Chunk underwent a stress shift one mora to the right at some point in its history. == Orthography ==