Vowels The following table sets out the vowels of Palula. Nasalization is found; however, it typically limited to vowels preceding sibilants and nasals and word finally.
Consonants The
consonant inventory of Palula is shown in the chart below. ; Notes • The phonemes /ʐ, ʐʱ, ʑʱ/ have a limited distribution throughout the language. • The aforementioned /ʐ/ phoneme appears to have an even more rare realization; ⟨ɖʐ⟩, which appears in the word ẓhaṇẓíir: [ɖʐʱaɳɖʐîːɾ], meaning chain. ⟨ɖʐ⟩ and ⟨ʐ⟩ are most likely allophones. • The phonemes /q/ and /f/, which are only used in loanwords from foreign languages, are often realized as the native consonants ⟨x⟩ and ⟨pʰ⟩ respectively. • The phonemic status of the voiceless aspirate and breathy voiced series are debatable. The breathy voiced series is generally considered lexical—a cluster of a consonant + /h/. • Neither voiceless aspiration nor breathy voicing co-occur with the voiceless fricatives /(f) s ʂ ɕ x h/, the distributionally limited /ɳ ɽ/, along with the newly borrowed phonemes /ɣ (q)/ in a syllable onset. • The phonemes /t/ and /d/ are realized as ⟨t̪⟩ and ⟨d̪⟩ respectively. • Similarly to the ⟨ʐ⟩~⟨ɖʐ⟩ connection, the phoneme /ʑ/ is often realized with an affricate pronunciation, similar to ⟨dʑ⟩. This might be because /ʑ/ represents both ج and ژ. • The phoneme /n/ has many different realizations depending on context. It is realized as a palatal nasal ⟨ɲ⟩ when /n/ precedes a palatal consonant. Similarly, /n/ is realized as a velar nasal ⟨ŋ⟩ when /n/ precedes a velar stop. When preceding a retroflex consonant, nasals assimilate and are thus realized as ⟨ɳ⟩. However, /ɳ/ appears to be a phoneme independent from /n/ as it distinguishes from it and can create minimal pairs such as "/kan/: shoulder" and "/kaɳ/: ear". In all other cases, /n/ is realized as its baseline pronunciation of ⟨n̪⟩, thus classifying /n/ as a dental nasal as opposed to an alveolar one. • The phoneme /r/ is realized as a ⟨ɾ⟩, often being a tap instead of a trill. • As with the case of
Urdu, /ɽ/ cannot occur word-initially. However in
Ashret, word-initially, /ɽ/ may be realized as a variation of /l/ (/lo/~/ɽo/: he, that). • The lateral approximant /l/ is velarized ⟨ɫ⟩ if preceded by a back vowel (a, aa, o, oo, u, uu), otherwise, it's realized as ⟨l⟩. This means that the word "khéeli" is pronounced as "[kʰêːli]", but the word "khúulu" is pronounced as "[kʰûːɫu]". • Depending on the speaker, the phoneme /w/ can be realized as either bilabially ⟨β̞⟩, or similar to a labiodental ⟨ʋ⟩, as is the case with
Urdu.
Tone Like many
Dardic languages, Palula shows either
tone or, as in Palula, a
pitch accent. Words may have only one accented
mora, which is associated with high pitch; the remaining mora have a default or low pitch. == Writing system ==