Tahitian features a very small number of
phonemes: five vowels and nine consonants, not counting the lengthened vowels and
diphthongs. Notably, the consonant inventory lacks any sort of phonemic
dorsal consonants. There is a five-vowel inventory with vowel length: When two vowels follow each other in a V1V2 sequence, they form a diphthong when V1 is more open, and as a consequence more sonorant, than V2. An exception to this rule is the sequence , which never becomes the diphthong . Two vowels with the same sonority are generally pronounced in hiatus, as in 'November', but there is some variability. The word 'June' may be pronounced , with hiatus, or , with a diphthong. Next follows a table with all phonemes in more detail. The
glottal stop or is a genuine consonant. This is typical of
Polynesian languages (compare to the
Hawaiian okina and others). See
Typography below. Tahitian makes a phonemic distinction between long and short vowels; long vowels are marked with
macron or . For example, , meaning 'to pick, to pluck' and , 'to break out', are distinguished solely by their
vowel length. However, macrons are seldom written among older people because Tahitian writing was not taught at school until 1981. In rapid speech, the common article is pronounced with a schwa, as . Also in rapid speech, sequences are
dissimilated to , so 'man, male' is pronounced , 'president' becomes . Intervening syllables prevent this dissimilation, so 'eye' is never pronounced with a . For example, inhabitants of
Maupiti pronounce their island's name . If a
content word is composed of a single syllable with a single vowel, its vowel must be long. Thus, every Tahitian content word is at least two
morae long.
Stress Stress is predictable in Tahitian. It always falls on one of the final three syllables of a word, and relies on the distinction between
heavy and light syllables. Syllables with diphthongs or with long vowels are both considered to be
heavy. Other syllables are considered to be light. Heavy syllables always bear secondary stress. In general main stress falls on the penultimate syllable in a word. However, if there is a long vowel or diphthong in the last syllable, that syllable receives main stress. If there is a long vowel in the antepenultimate syllable, and the penultimate syllable is light, the antepenultimate syllable receives main stress. There is another type of words whose stress pattern requires another rule to explain. These include 'first', 'shoe', 'king', all of which are stressed on the antepenultimate syllable. In all these words, the last two vowels are identical, and are separated by a glottal stop. One can posit that in such words, the last syllable is
extrametrical, and does not count towards stress assignment. This extrametricality does not apply in the case of words with only two syllables, which remain stressed on the penultimate syllable. In compound words, each morpheme's stressed syllable carries secondary stress, and the stressed syllable of the last morpheme carries primary stress. Thus, for example, 'airplane', from 'bird' and 'leave', is pronounced . Tahitian has
reduplication as well. The endings of some verbs can be duplicated in order to add a repetitive sense to the verb. For example, becomes , 'do quickly' becomes , and 'to tear' becomes . In reduplicated verbs, the final verb ending bears main stress while the earlier ones bears secondary stress. When suffixes are added to a word, primary and secondary stresses in the root word are maintained as secondary and tertiary stresses, and a new primary stress is calculated for the word. Tertiary and secondary stress are often merged. The suffix does not always carry main stress. For example, when the
nominalizing suffix is applied to verbs, regular stress assignment results in the last syllable of the root verb being stressed. This is due to the destressing of the V in . To give an example, the word 'life', from 'to live' and , is pronounced with antepenultimate stress. Prefixes added to a root word do not carry primary stress. For example, 'vision', related to 'vision', is stressed on the second syllable, and not the first, even though it has a long vowel. This can also be seen with the verb 'to be understood'. When combined with the causative prefix , it becomes , which is stressed on the penultimate syllable. == Typography ==