Consonants Lizu stops have a three-way distinction,
aspirated,
voiceless, and
voiced. Velar and uvular stops only contrast before /o/, and are in
complementary distribution otherwise. Similarly, /n/ and /ɲ/ only contrast before /æ e o/. /ŋ/ is the only
syllabic consonant in Lizu, and is very rare, only occurring after /k/ in a few words.
Nasalization occurs in words beginning with glottal consonants, which is an
areal feature, and is common in
Ngwi languages such as
Lahu.
Consonant clusters Consonant clusters are prominent in Lizu, and often contain bilabials or laterals. /j/ occurs after bilabials and laterals, and occurs before /æ e/ after bilabial plosives, and before /e o/ after laterals, such as in /EPkʰoljo/ "amulet box" and /RPbje-bje/ "thick, coarse" respectively. /w/ occurs after postalveolars, velars, uvulars, velar and glottal fricatives, and /ɹ/, such as /Rʃwɐ/ "
mosquito", /RPqwɐ-qwɐ/ "hard", /Rxwɐ/ "
bird", /EPhwæ-se/ "Maple (Acer spp.)", and /LPɹwæ-ɹwæ/ "noisy". /ɹ/ typically occurs after bilabials and glottal fricatives before /æ/ and /ə/, for example /LPpɹə-pɹə/ "
spider" and /Rhɹɐ/ "to obtain". /b/ permits /ʑ z/ following it, before front vowels and /ɐ/ respectively, as in /Fbʑe/ "to fly; pleasant" /EPɲibzɐ/ "green". /ʑ/ also occurs after /p/, along with /ɕ/ and /ʃ/, such as in /RPde-pʑæ/ "to hang", /Fpɕi/ "to throw", /Fpʃə/ "Tibetan". /ptsʰ/ is also found before low vowels, such as in /RPkʰe-ptsʰæ/ "to taste".
Prenasalized clusters also occur, involving voiced and aspirated stops and affricates. The
place of articulation for the nasal is
homorganic with the following consonant, and is thus represented with /N/. They are also contrastive, as can be observed in /Fge/ "wolf" as opposed to /FNge/ "nine", and /Rtʃʰæ/ "
ghost" against /RNtʃʰæ/ "skirt". Prenasalized clusters are also found in
loanwords from Tibetan and Chinese, due to a resyllabification process wherein the nasal
coda joins the
onset. The preceding vowel is also audibly
nasalized, such as in /EPkuNtsʰe/ [REPkũntsʰe] "
coffin" from
Southwest Mandarin 棺材 /kuan44tsʰai21/. Occasionally the nasal is entirely dropped, such as /RPjɐy/ [RPjɐɥy] "
potato" from Southwest Mandarin
洋芋 /iaŋ21y213/.
Vowels The Luzi
vowel system consists of 8
monophthongs, and
diphthongs are only found in loanwords from Southwest Mandarin (such as /RPʃətsai/ "really" from
实在 /ʂʅ21tsai213/). /u/ is somewhat centralized and is produced with higher lip compression, and is realized as [] after alveolar and bilabial stop initials. This is a common areal phenomenon, and can be found in many neighboring languages, including
Nuosu,
Yongning Na, and
Namuzi. Unlike Nuosu however, where only one side of the lip is trilled, in Luzi both lips vibrate to produce the trill. Luzi also features an additional set of nasalized vowels from Tibetan and Mandarin loanwords, which is different from nasalization triggered by glottal consonants, but is generally considered subphonemic.
Tone Similar to other Western
Tibeto-Burman languages in
Sichuan and
Yunnan, Lizu has a sparse
tone system, where only one pitch pattern is pronounced in a word. Monosyllabic words have two contrasting tones, low rising (R) and high falling (F),
minimal pairs include /Rne/ "two" and /Fne/ "you, thou". Disyllabic words have three contrasting tones, equally-prominent contour (EP), where both syllables are equally prominent and long, and both syllables have a mid-pitch
contour, however the first syllable is slightly higher. There is also left-prominent contour (LP), where the last syllable is shorter and less prominent, the
pitch peaks in the first syllable before falling which continues through the second syllable. This is contrasted with right-prominent contour (RP), where the last syllable is relatively longer and there is a rise in the first syllable before peaking in the second syllable and then falling. Trisyllabic and tetrasyllabic words feature the same three patterns comparable to those found in disyllabic words, with minimal differences. Multisyllabic words also have a
prominence difference between syllables, akin to
stress patterns in
Germanic languages.
Sandhi in compounds Tonal sandhi is also observed in
compound words, namely in tri- and tetrasyllabic words, as disyllabic compounds have been largely
lexicalized. Compounds largely take the tone of the initial word, which can be seen in /RPɹwæ meNtʃʰo/ "chicken tail" derived from /Rɹwæ/ "chicken" and /LPmeNtʃʰo/ "tail". ==References==