Niuean language: Encyclopedia II - Niuean language - Phonology

Niuean language - Phonology

The phonology of Niuean consists of the consonant phonemes f, ŋ, h, k, l, m, n, p, t, v and the vowels a, ā, e, ē, i, ī, o, ō, u, ū.

There are also two marginal consonant phonemes, r and s, which only occur in loanwords; some speakers substitute the sounds l and t, respectively, in words where r and s occur.

Note that [s] is also an allophone of [t] before the front vowels e ē i ī. This probably arose from a pronunciation of /t/ as [ts] before these vowels, which eventually became simply [s].

Foreign words which begin with [t] in the source language usually retain this pronunciation even before front vowels; however, very old borrowings shift this to [s], as in tī from English tea, pronounced [si:].

Niuean language - Vowel length

Vowel length is distinctive in Niuean; vowels are either long or short. Furthermore, two adjacent identical vowels (whether short-short, short-long, long-short, or long-long) form a rearticulated vowel; the sound is distinct from one long vowel.

Both short and long vowels can occur in any position.

Niuean language - Diphthongs

All short vowels may combine with one another to form diphthongs. The possible diphthongs are, therefore:

• ae, ai, ao, au
• ea, ei, eo, eu
• ia, ie, io, iu
• oa, oe, oi, ou
• ua, ue, ui, uo

Niuean language - Rearticulation

Rearticulation is the separate pronunciation of two adjacent vowels, as opposed to diphthongs which are written as two letters but pronounced as one sound. These two vowels may be the same or be different ones.

Rearticulation typically occurs across morpheme boundaries, for example, when a suffix ending with a vowel comes before a root beginning with that same vowel. It may also occur, rarely, within monomorphemic words (words that consist of only one morpheme) as a result of the elision of a historical intervocalic consonant.

Two adjacent identical short vowels are always rearticulated, as are combinations of any two long vowels or a short and a long vowel; two adjacent different short vowels may be rearticulated or form a diphthong, and this has to be determined from the morphology or history of the word.

Niuean language - Syllable structure

The basic structure of a Niuean syllable is (C)V(V); all syllables end in a vowel or diphthong, and may start with at most one consonant. Consonant clusters in borrowed words are broken up with epenthetic vowels, e.g. English tractor becomes tuleketā.

Niuean language - Stress

The stress on a Niuean word is nearly always on the penult (second-to-last syllable), though multi-syllable words ending in a long vowel put primary stress on the final long vowel and secondary stress on the penult. Long vowels in other positions also attract a secondary stress.

Niuean language - Glottal stop

The Niuean language does not contain the glottal stop which is present in its closest relative, Tongan; this has caused some distinct words to merge. For example, Tongan ta'u year and tau fight have merged in Niuean as tau.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Phonology", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki