Navajo phonology is intimately connected to its morphology. Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words For example, only at the beginning of word stems is the entire range of contrastive consonants found — in stem-final position and in prefixes the number of contrasts is drastically reduced. Similarly, vowels contrasts (including their prosodic combinatory possibilities) found outside of the stem are significantly neutralized.

Like most Athabascan languages Navajo is coronal heavy having many phonological contrasts at coronal places of articulation and correspondingly less at other places. Athabaskan or Athabascan (also Athapascan, Athapaskan, Athabasca Indians or Athapaskes) is the name of a large group of closely Navajo or Navaho ( native name: Diné bizaad) is an Athabaskan language (of Na-Dené stock spoken in the southwest United States by Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part of the Tongue. Also typical of the family, Navajo has a defective number of labial sounds both in terms of its phonemic inventory and in their occurrence in actual lexical items and displays consonant harmony. Consonant harmony is a type of "long-distance" phonological assimilation akin to the similar assimilatory process involving Vowels i

History of research

Consonants

The consonants of Navajo are listed below:

Stops. In Phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a Consonant articulated with both Lips The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. Laterals are "L"-like Consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both Affricate Consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or) but release as a fricative (such as or or occasionally into Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips ( bilabial articulation or with the lower lip and the upper teeth ( labiodental articulation Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips ( bilabial articulation or with the lower lip and the upper teeth ( labiodental articulation In Phonetics, articulation may be divided into two large classes obstruents and Sonorants An obstruent is a Consonant sound formed by A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Description Voiceless consonants are produced with the Vocal cords open and voiced consonants are produced when the vocal folds are fractionally closed In Phonetics, ejective consonants are Voiceless Consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the Glottis. A continuant is a Sound produced with an incomplete closure of the Vocal tract. In Phonetics and Phonology, a sonorant is a Speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the Vocal tract. A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the Glottis during the articulation of another sound Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants All stops, except for the bilabial, have a three-way laryngeal contrast between unaspirated, aspirated, and ejective. Most of the contrasts in the inventory lie within coronal territory at the alveolar and palatoalveolar places of articulation.

The aspirated stops /tʰ, kʰ/ (orthographic t, k) are typically aspirated with velar frication [tx, kx] as shown in the table above (they are phonetically affricates — homorganic in the case of [kx], heterorganic in the case of [tx]). Affricate Consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or) but release as a fricative (such as or or occasionally into In Articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a Consonant is the point of contact where an Obstruction ^[1] The velar aspiration is also found on a labialized velar [kxʷ] (orthographic kw). There is variation within Navajo, however, in this respect: some dialects lack strong velar frication having instead a period of aspiration. ^[2][3]

Similarly the unaspirated velar /k/ (orthographic g) is realized as with optional voiced velar frication following the stop burst: [kɣ ~ k]. Likewise, the unaspirated lateral affricate /tɬ/ (orthographic dl) typically has a partially voiced frication component (i. e. [l]) following the stop release: [tl].

Continuants. Navajo voiceless continuants are realized as fricatives. Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together They are typically noisier than the fricatives that occur in English. The palato-alveolars /ʃ, ʒ/ are not labialized unlike English and other European languages (McDonough 2003: 130).

Navajo also does not have consistent phonetic voicing in the "voiced" continuant members. Although [z, l, ʒ, ɣ] are described as voiced in impressionist descriptions (such as Hoijer 1945a), data from spectrograms shows that they may be partially devoiced during the constriction. The spectrogram is the result of calculating the Frequency spectrum of Windowed frames of a compound signal. In stem-initial position, /l/ tends to be fully voiced, /ʒ/ has a slight tendency to be devoiced near the offset, /z/ is often mostly devoiced with phonetic voicing only at the onset, /ɣ/ is also only partially voiced with voicing at onset. A more consistent acoustic correlate of the "voicing" is the duration of the consonant: "voiceless" consonants have longer durations than "voiced" consonants. Based on this, McDonough 2003 argues that the distinction is better captured with the notion of a fortis/lenis contrast. A further characteristic of voicing in Navajo is that it is marginally contrastive. (See the voicing assimilation section. )

Navajo lacks a clear distinction between phonetic fricatives and approximants. Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together Although the pair [ɬ] : [l] has been described as a fricative and an approximant, respectively, the lack of a consistent contrast between the two phonetic categories and a similar patterning with other fricative pairs suggests that they are better described as continuants. Additionally, observations have been made about the less fricative-like nature of [ɣ, ɣʷ] and the more fricative-like nature of [j].

Sonorants. A more abstract analysis of Navajo posits two different /j/ phonemes. (See the Velar /ɣ/, palatal /j/ for elaboration. )

The glottalized sonorants are the result of d-effect on the non-glottalized counterparts. (See the d-effect section for further explanation. ) A strict structuralist analysis, such as that of Hoijer (1945a) and Sapir & Hoijer (1967), considers them phonemic.

Glottal(ized) consonants. Consonants involving a glottal closure — the glottal stop, ejective stops, and the glottalized sonorants — may have optional creaky voice on voiced sounds adjacent to the glottal gesture. Vocal fry registerIn Linguistics, creaky voice (sometimes called laryngealisation, pulse phonation or vocal fry or glottal fry) Glottal stops may also be realized entirely as creaky voice instead of single glottal closure. ^[4] Ejectives in Navajo differ from the ejectives in many other languages in that the glottal closure is not released near-simultaneously with the release of the oral closure (as is common in other languages) — it is held for a significant amount of time following oral release. The glottalized sonorants /m’, n’/ are articulated with a glottal stop preceding the oral closure with optional creaky voice during the oral closure: [ʔm ~ ʔm̰, ʔn ~ ʔn̰].

Labialized consonants. Consonants /kʰʷ, xʷ, ɣʷ, hʷ/ are predictable variants that occur before the rounded oral vowel /o/. However, these sounds also occur before the vowels /i, e, a/ where they contrast with their non-labialized counterparts /kʰ, x, ɣ, h/.

Velar /ɣ/, palatal /j/

The phonological contrast between the velar obstruent /ɣ/ and the palatal glide /j/ is neutralized in certain contexts. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU However, in these contexts, they may often be distinguished from each other by their different phonological patterning.

Before the rounded /o/, /ɣ/ is phonetically strongly labialized as [ɣʷ]; elsewhere, it lacks the labialization. As noted above, the lenis continuants like /ɣ/ are often very weak fricatives somewhere between a typical fricative constriction (e. g. [ɣ]) and a more open approximant constriction (e. g. [ɰ]) — this will be symbolized here as [ɰ˔]. Hoijer (1945a) describes the [ɰʷ˔] realization as being similar to English [w] but differing in having slight frication at the beginning of the articulation. The realization before /a/ varies between an approximant [ɰ] and a weakly fricated approximant [ɰ˔]. ^[5] The following verb stem^[6] has different velar allophones of the stem-initial consonant:

Underlying	Phonetic	Orthography	Gloss
/ɣàʃ/	[ɰ˔àʃ]	-ghash	"make bubbling noise" (iterative, continuative)
/ɣòʃ/	[ɰʷ˔òʃ]	-wosh	"make bubbling noise" (iterative, repetitive)

The palatal glide /j/ is also phonetically between an approximant [j] and a fricative [ʝ]. Hoijer (1945a) compares it to English [j] with a "slight but audible 'rubbiness' or frication".

The contrast between velar /ɣ/ and palatal /j/ is found before both back vowels /a, o/ as the following contrasts demonstrate:

	Underlying	Phonetic	Orthography	Gloss
contrast before /a/	/pìɣàːʔ/	[pɪ̀ɰ˔àːʔ]	bighaa’	"its fur, wool"
	/pìjàːʔ/	[pɪ̀j˔àːʔ]	biyaa’	"its lice"
contrast before /o/	/pìɣòl/	[pɪ̀ɰʷ˔òl]	biwol	"its marrow"
	/pìjòl/	[pɪ̀j˔òl]	biyol	"its breath"

Before the front vowels /i, e/, however, the contrast between /ɣ/ and /j/ is neutralized to a palatal articulation much like the weakly fricative [j˔] realization of /j/ that occurs before back vowels. However, the underlying consonant can be ascertained in verb stems and noun stems via their different realizations in a voiceless (i. e. fortis) context. The underlying velar surfaces as a voiceless palatal fricative [ç] in these environments:

Fortis context			Lenis context
Phonetic	Orthographic	Gloss	Phonetic	Orthographic	Gloss
[çéːɬ]	hééł	"bundle"	[pɪ̀j˔éːl]	biyéél	"her bundle"
[j˔ɪ̀ʃçɪ̀ʒ]	yishhizh	"I pick (corn)"	[j˔ɪ̀j˔ɪ̀ʒ]	yiyizh	"she picks (corn)"

The stem-initial velar of the noun stem /xéːɬ/ has a voiceless fortis realization of [ç] (as [çéːɬ]) when word-initial. When intervocalic, it is realized as lenis [j˔] (as [-j˔éːl]). Likewise, the underlying velar of the verb stem /xɪ̀ʒ/ is voiceless [ç] before the preceding voiceless [ʃ] and lenis [j˔] when intervocalic. Thus, the alternation of [ç ~ j˔] in the two contexts is indicative of an underlying velar consonant. Similarly before the back vowels, the velar continuant has the alternations [x ~ ɰ˔] and [xʷ ~ ɰʷ˔] as shown in the examples below:

	Fortis context			Lenis context
	Phonetic	Orthographic	Gloss	Phonetic	Orthographic	Gloss
before /a/	[hànɪ́ɬxáːʃ]	haníłháásh	"you make it boil"	[hànɪ́lɰ˔áːʃ]	hanílgháásh	"it comes to a boil"
before /o/	[ʔàɬxʷòʃ]	ałhosh	"he's sleeping"	[ʔáhòtɪ̀lɰʷ˔òʃ]	áhodilwosh	"he's pretending to be asleep"

An underlying palatal /j/ can determined by alternations which differ from the the velar alternations. However, /j/ has two different alternation patterns which have led to the positing of two distinct phonemes. Incidentally, the two different phonemes are also connected to two different reconstructed consonants in Proto-Athabascan. One of these /j/ phonemes is considered an obstruent as it has a fricative realization of [s] in fortis contexts. It is often symbolized as a palatalized (or front velar) fricative /ɣ̑/ (in Americanist phonetic notation) and is a reflex of Proto-Athabascan *x̯. Americanist phonetic notation (variously called American Phonetic Alphabet or APA is a system of phonetic notation originally developed by European and Euro-American It may be considered coronal because of its coronal voiceless allophone.

	Fortis context			Lenis context
	Phonetic	Orthographic	Gloss	Phonetic	Orthographic	Gloss
before /i/	[sɪ̀n]	sin	"song"	[pɪ̀j˔ìːn]	biyiin	"her song"
before /a/	[hònɪ̀sːã́]	honissą́	"I'm wise"	[hój˔ã́]	hóyą́	"she's wise"
before /o/	[hànɪ̀sːóːt]	hanisóód	"I drive them out"	[hàɪ̀nɪ̀j˔óːt]	hainiyóód	"she drives them out"

In the above examples, the fortis realization is [s] in the stems [sɪ̀n], [-sã́], [-sóːt] while the lenis realization is the glide [j˔] in the corresponding [-j˔ɪ̀n], [-j˔ã́], [-j˔óːt]. ^[7]

The other palatal is considered a sonorant and has an invariant [j˔] realization in both fortis (voiceless) and lenis (voiced) contexts. This phoneme is relatively rare, occurring in only a few morphemes. In Morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning. It is a reflex of Proto-Athabascan *y. Two examples are below:

	Fortis context			Lenis context
	Phonetic	Orthographic	Gloss	Phonetic	Orthographic	Gloss
before /a/	[j˔àːʔ]	yaa’	"louse"	[ʃɪ̀j˔àʔ]	shiya’	"my louse"
before /o/	[hònɪ̀ʃj˔óɪ́]	honishyóí	"I'm energetic"	[hònɪ́j ˔óɪ́]	honíyóí	"you're energetic"

A further distinction between the different phonemes are found in the context of d-effect (for which, see the d-effect section).

The varying contextual realizations of these three underlying segments are summarized in the following table:

Underlying segment	Lenis			Fortis	D-effect
	before /a/	before /o/	before /i, e/
/ɣ/	ɰ˔	ɰʷ˔	j˔	x	k
/j/ < Proto-Ath. *x̯	j˔	j˔	j˔	s	ts
/j/ < Proto-Ath. *y	j˔	j˔	j˔	j˔	j’˔

Voicing assimilation

The voiced continuants [z, l, ʒ, ɰ˔] at the beginning of stems vary with their voiceless counterparts [s, ɬ, ʃ, x], respectively. The voiceless variants occur when preceded by voiceless consonants, such as [s, ɬ, ʃ, h] while the voiced variants occur between voiced sounds (typically intervocalically). For example, the verb stems meaning "spit it out", "be burning", "spit", and "be ticklish" have the following forms with alternating voiced and voiceless stem-initial consonants:

Phonetic forms	Orthographic forms	English gloss
[zóːh ~ sóːh]	-zóóh ~ -sóóh	"spit it out"
[lɪ̀t ~ ɬɪ̀t]	-lid ~ -łid	"be burning"
[ʒàh ~ ʃàh]	-zhah ~ -shah	"spit"
[ɰʷ˔òʒ ~ xʷòʒ]	-wozh ~ -hozh	"be ticklish"

Since the voicing is predictable, it can be represented more abstractly as an underlying consonant that is underspecified with respect to voicing. In Morphophonology, the underlying representation (UR or underlying form (UF of a Morpheme is the abstract form the morpheme is postulated to have before In Theoretical linguistics, underspecification is a phenomenon where certain features are omitted in Underlying representations Restricted underspecification These archiphonemes can be indicated with the capital letters /Z, L, Ʒ, Ɣ/. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU ^[8] The variant voicing of the stem-initial consonant can be found in the context of subject person prefixes which are added to the verb stem:

Phonetic form	Orthographic form	Underlying segments[9]	English gloss
[hàɪ̀tɪ̀zóːh]	haidizóóh	hàìtì-Ø-Zóːh	"he spits it out"
[hàtɪ̀sóːh]	hadisóóh	hàtì-ʃ-Zóːh	"I spit it out"
[hàtòhsóːh]	hadohsóóh	hàtì-oh-Zóːh	"you two spit it out"
[tɪ̀lɪ̀t]	dilid	tì-Ø-Lìt	"he's burning"
[tɪ̀ʃɬɪ̀t]	dishłid	tì-ʃ-Lìt	"I'm burning"
[tòhɬɪ̀t]	dohłid	tì-oh-Lìt	"you two are burning"
[tɪ̀ʒàh]	dizhah	tì-Ø-Ʒàh	"he spits"
[tɪ̀ʃàh]	dishah	tì-ʃ-Ʒàh	"I spit"
[tòhʃàh]	dohshah	tì-oh-Ʒàh	"you two spit"
[jɪ̀ɰʷ˔òʒ]	yiwozh	Ø-Ɣòʒ	"he's ticklish"
[jɪ̀ʃxʷòʒ]	yishhozh	Ø-ʃ-Ɣòʒ	"I'm ticklish"
[wòhxʷòʒ]	wohhozh	Ø-oh-Ɣòʒ	"you two are ticklish"

As the above examples show, the stem-initial consonant is voiced when intervocalic^[10] and voiceless when it is preceded by a voiceless /ʃ-/ sh- first person singular subject prefix^[11] or a voiceless [h] in the /oh-/ oh- two person dual subject prefix.

Another example of contextual voicing of verb-stem-initial consonants occurs when a voiceless /-ɬ-/ -ł- classifier prefix occurs before the stem as in the following:

Phonetic form	Orthographic form	Underlying segments	English gloss
[tìːlzáːs]	diilzáás	tì-Vt-ɬ-Záːs	"we two dribble it along"
[jɪ̀tɪ̀sáːs]	yidisáás	jìtì-ɬ-Záːs	"he dribbles it along"
[tɪ̀sáːs]	disáás	tì-ʃ-ɬ-Záːs	"I dribble it along"
[tòhsáːs]	dohsáás	tì-oh-ɬ-Záːs	"I spit it out"

In the verb-form [tìːlzáːs] diilzáás "we two dribble it along", the /Z/ occurs between a voiced [l] and the voiced stem vowel [áː]. Thus it is realized as a voiced [z]. Here the /-ɬ-/ classifier is voiced due to the d-effect of the preceding /Vt-/ first person dual subject prefix. (See the section on Navajo d-effect for further explanation. ) In the other verb-forms, the stem-initial /Z/ is preceded by voiceless /-ɬ-/ classifier which results in a voiceless realization of [s]. In the surface verb-forms, the underlying /-ɬ-/ classifier is not pronounced due to a phonotactic restriction on consonant clusters. Phonotactics (in Greek phone = voice and tactic = course is a branch of Phonology that deals with restrictions in a Language on the

The initial consonant of noun stems also display contextual voicing:

Phonetic form	Orthographic form	Underlying segments	English gloss
[sàːt]	saad	sàːt	"language"
[pɪ̀zàːt]	bizaad	pì-sàːt	"his language"
[ɬɪ̀t]	łid	ɬìt	"smoke"
[pɪ̀lɪ̀t]	bilid	pì-ɬìt	"his smoke"
[ʃàːʒ]	shaazh	ʃàːʒ	"callous"
[pɪ̀ʒàːʒ]	bizhaazh	pì-ʃàːʒ	"his callous"
[xʷòʃ]	hosh	xòʃ	"cactus"
[pɪ̀ɰʷ˔òʃ]	biwosh	pì-xòʃ	"his cactus"

Here an intervocalic context is created by inflecting the nouns saad, łid, shaazh, hosh with a [pɪ̀-] bi- third person prefix which ends in a vowel. In this context, the stem-initial consonant is voiced. When these nouns lack a prefix (in which case the stem-initial consonant is word-initial), the realization is voiceless.

However, in some noun stems, the stem-initial continuant does not voice when intervocalic: [ʔàʃĩ̀ːh] ashįįh "salt".

Dorsal place assimilation

The dorsal consonants /k, kʰ, k’, x, ɣ/ (orthographic g, k, kʼ, h, gh) have contextual phonetic variants (i. Dorsal consonants are articulated with the mid body of the Tongue (the dorsum e. allophones) varying along place of articulation that depend on the following vowel environment. In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme. In Articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a Consonant is the point of contact where an Obstruction They are realized as palatals before the front vowels i and e and as velars before the back vowels a and o. Additionally, they are labialized before the rounded back vowel o.

Underlying consonant	Phonetic realizations
	Palatal	Velar	Labial
k	[c(ʝ)]	[k(ɣ)]	[k(ɣ)ʷ]
kʰ	[cç]	[kx]	[kxʷ]
k’	[c’]	[kʼ]	[kʼʷ]
x	[ç]	[x]	[xʷ]
ɣ	[j˔]	[ɰ˔]	[ɰʷ˔]

Coronal harmony

Navajo has coronal sibilant consonant harmony. Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part of the Tongue. A sibilant is a type of Fricative or Affricate Consonant, made by directing a jet of air through a narrow channel in the Vocal tract towards Consonant harmony is a type of "long-distance" phonological assimilation akin to the similar assimilatory process involving Vowels i Alveolar sibilants in prefixes assimilate to post-alveolar sibilants in stems, and post-alveolar prefixal sibilants assimilate to alveolar stem sibilants. Assimilation is a common Phonological process by which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like that of another segment in a word (or at a word boundary For example, the si- stative perfective is realized as si- or shi- depending upon whether the stem contains a post-alveolar sibilant:

shibeezh	"it is boiled" (perfective)	s > sh, triggered by the stem-final zh
sido	"it is hot" (perfective)

D-effect

A particular type of morphophonemic alternation (or mutation) occurring in Athabascan languages called d-effect is found in Navajo. Morphophonology (also morphophonemics, morphonology) is a branch of Linguistics which studies The phonological structure Consonant mutation is the phenomenon in which a Consonant in a word is changed according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment The alternation in most cases is a fortition (or strengthening) process. Fortition is a consonantal change from a 'weak' sound to a 'strong' one the opposite of the more common Lenition. The initial consonant of a verb stem alternates with a strengthened consonant when it is preceded by a /-t-/ (orthographic -d-) "classifier" prefix or the /-Vt-/ first person dual subject prefix. ^[12] The underlying /t/ of these morphemes is absorbed into the following stem. D-effect can be viewed prosodically as the result of a phonotactic constraint on consonants clusters that would otherwise result from the concatenation of underlying segments (McDonough 2003: 60). Phonotactics (in Greek phone = voice and tactic = course is a branch of Phonology that deals with restrictions in a Language on the There is thus an interaction between a requirement for the grammatical information to be expressed in the surface form and an avoidance of having sequences of consonants. (See the syllable section for more on phonotactics. )

The fortition is typically a change from continuant to affricate or continuant to stop (i. e. adding a period of closure to the articulation). However, other changes involve glottalization of the initial consonant:

Prefix consonant + Stem-initial consonant[13]		Surface consonant	Example
t- + -Z	>	-ts	tʃ’éná-t-Zìt > tʃ’éná-tsìt (ch’énádzid) "he woke up"
t- + -L	>	-tl	ʔánéìnì-t-Laː > ʔánéìnì-tlaː (ánéinidlaa) "you repaired it"
t- + -Ʒ	>	-tʃ	ʔák’ídíní-t-Ʒéːʔ > ʔák’ídíní-tʃéːʔ (ák’ídíníjéé’) "you spit on yourself"
t- + -j	>	-ts	nìː-Vt-jòɬ > nìː-tsòɬ (niidzoł) "we two are driving them along" (cf. yìnòː-jòɬ (yinooyoł) "he's driving them along")
t- + -Ɣ	>	-k	jì-Vt-Ɣòʒ > jìː-kòʒ (yiigozh) "we two are ticklish" (cf. jì-ɣòʒ (yiwozh) "he's ticklish")
t- + -ʔ	>	-t’	nànìʃ-t-ʔìn > nànìʃ-t’ìn (nanisht’in) "I'm hidden"
t- + -m	>	-m’	jì-Vt-màs > jìː-m’às (yii’mas) "we two are rolling along" (cf. jì-màs (yimas) "he's rolling along")
t- + -n	>	-n’	náːtòː-t-nìːt > náːtòː-n’ìːt (náádoo’niid) "she said again"
t- + -j	>	-j’	xònì-Vt-jóí > xònìː-j’óí (honii’yóí) "we two are energetic" (cf. xònìʃ-j’óí (honishyóí) "I'm energetic")

The two occurrences of t- + -j in the chart above reflect two different patterns of d-effect involving stem-initial /j/. Often different underlying consonants are posited to explain the different alternation. The first alternation is posited as a result of underlying t- + -ɣ̑ leading to a d-effect mutation of /dz/. The other is t- + -j resulting in /j’/. (See the velar /ɣ/, palatal /j/ section for further explanation. )

Another example of d-effect influences not the stem-initial consonant but the classifier prefix. When the /-Vt-/ first person dual subject prefix precedes the /-ɬ-/ (orthographic -ł-) classifier prefix, the /-ɬ-/ classifier is realized as voiced [l]:

Prefix consonant + Classifier consonant		Surface consonant	Example
t- + -ɬ-	>	-l-	jì-Vt-ɬ-Ʒõ̀ːh > jìː-l-ʒõ̀ːh (yiilzhǫǫh) "we two tame it"

Other

• n > high tone
• expressive x clusters

Vowels

Navajo has four contrastive vowel qualities [i, e, o, a] at three different vowel heights (high, mid, low) and a front-back contrast between the mid vowels [e, o]. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract There are also two contrastive vowel lengths and a contrast in nasalization. In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound In Phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by This results in 16 phonemic vowels, shown below.

There is a phonetic vowel quality difference between the long high vowel /iː/ (orthographic ii) and the short high vowel /i/ (orthographic i): the shorter vowel is signficantly lower at [ɪ] than its long counterpart. A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward A back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as A close vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as The open-mid vowels make a class of Vowel sounds used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned An open vowel is a Vowel sound of a type used in most spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward A back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as A close vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as The open-mid vowels make a class of Vowel sounds used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned An open vowel is a Vowel sound of a type used in most spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward A back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as A close vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as The open-mid vowels make a class of Vowel sounds used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned An open vowel is a Vowel sound of a type used in most spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward A back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as A close vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as The open-mid vowels make a class of Vowel sounds used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned An open vowel is a Vowel sound of a type used in most spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as This phonetic difference is salient to native speakers, who will consider a short vowel at a higher position to be a mispronunciation.

Although the nasalization is contrastive in the surface phonology, many instances of nasalized vowels can be derived from a sequence of Vowel + Nasal consonant in a more abstract analysis. Additionally, there are alternations between long and short vowels that are predictable.

There have been a number of somewhat different descriptions of Navajo vowels, which are conveniently summarized in McDonough (2003).

Acoustic phonetics

Navajo F1 vs F2-F1 in Hz with mel scaling based on the median formant values in McDonough (2003). Here the vowels are labeled in orthography: ii = /iː/, i = /i/, ee = /eː/, e = /e/, aa = /aː/, a = /a/, oo = /oː/, o = /o/.

F1 vs F2-F1 in Hz with mel scaling (McDonough et al. 1993).

McDonough (2003) has acoustic measurements of the formants of Navajo long and short vowel pairs as pronounced by 10 female and 4 male native speakers. A formant is a peak in the Frequency spectrum of a sound caused by acoustic Resonance. Below are the median values of the first (F1) and second (F2) formants for this study. In Probability theory and Statistics, a median is described as the number separating the higher half of a sample a population or a Probability distribution

Oral Vowels (McDonough 2003)

Vowel	F1	F2		Vowel	F1	F2
iː	372	2532		oː	513	957
i	463	2057		o	537	1154
eː	487	2195		aː	752	1309
e	633	1882		a	696	1454

An earlier study (McDonough et al. 1993) has measurements from 7 females:

Oral Vowels (McDonough et al. 1993)

Vowel	F1	F2		Vowel	F1	F2
iː	315	2528		oː	488	943
i	391	2069		o	558	1176
eː	498	2200		aː	802	1279
e	619	2017		a	808	1299

Tones

Navajo has two tones: high and low. Tone is the use of pitch in Language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is to distinguish or inflect words Orthographically, high tone is marked with an acute accent (´) over the affected vowel, while low tone is left unmarked. History An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels. Each mora of a vowel can carry its own tone, which means that while short vowels can be only either high (á) or low (a), long vowels can have a rising tone (aá) or a falling tone (áa) in addition to a steady high (áá) or steady low (aa) tone. Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in Phonology that determines Syllable weight (which in turn determines stress

The sonorant n also carries tone when it is syllabic. Here again, the high tone is marked with an acute (ń) while the low tone is left unmarked (n).

Tonal phonological processes

Syllable

Stems. The stems (e. g. noun stems, verb stems, etc. ) have the following syllable type:

CV(ː)(C)

That is, all syllables must have a consonant onset and a vowel nucleus. A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds In Phonetics and Phonology, a syllable onset is the part of a Syllable that precedes the Syllable nucleus. The vowel nucleus may be short or long and optionally followed by a consonant coda. In Phonology, a syllable coda comprises the Consonant sounds of a Syllable that follow the nucleus, which is usually a Vowel

Prefixes. Most prefixes generally have a syllable structure of CV-, such as chʼí- "out horizontally". Exceptions to this are certain verbal prefixes, such as the classifiers (-ł-, -l-, -d-) that occur directly before the verb stem, which consist of a single consonant -C-. A few other verbal prefixes, such as naa- "around, about" on the outer left edge of the verb have long vowels, CVV-. A few prefixes have more complex syllable shapes, such as hashtʼe- "ready, prepared" (CVCCV-).

In some analyses, such as that of Harry Hoijer, consider conjunct verbal prefixes to have the syllable shape CV-. Harry Hoijer ( September 6, 1904 - March 11, 1976) was a linguist and anthropologist who worked on primarily Athabaskan languages In other generative analyses (e. g. McDonough 2003), the same prefixes are considered to have only underlying consonants of the shape C-. In Morphophonology, the underlying representation (UR or underlying form (UF of a Morpheme is the abstract form the morpheme is postulated to have before Then, in certain environments, an epenthetic vowel (the default vowel is i) is inserted after the consonantal prefix. In Phonology, epenthesis (/əˈpɛnθəsɪs/ Ancient Greek ἐπένθεσις - epenthesis from epi "on" + en "in"

Peg elements, segment insertion

All verbs must be disyllabic. Some verbs may only have a single overt nonsyllabic consonantal prefix or a prefix lacking an onset, or no prefix at all before the verb stem. Since all verbs are required to have two syllables, a meaningless prefix must be added to the verb to fulfill the disyllabic requirement. This prosodic prefix is known as a peg element in Athabascan terminology (Edward Sapir used the term pepet vowel). Edward Sapir (səˈpɪər ( January 26 1884 &ndash February 4 1939) was a Jewish German - American For example, the verb meaning "she/he/they is/are crying" has the following morphological composition: Ø-Ø-cha where both the imperfective modal prefix and the third person subject prefix are phonologically null morphemes and the verb stem is -cha. In morpheme-based morphology, a null morpheme is a Morpheme that is realized by a phonologically null Affix (an empty string of phonological In order for this verb to be complete a yi- peg element must be prefixed to the verb stem, resulting in the verb form yicha. Another examples are verb yishcha "I'm crying" which is morphologically Ø-sh-cha (Ø- null imperfective modal, -sh- first person singular subject, -cha verb stem) and wohcha "you (2+) are crying" which is Ø-oh-cha (Ø- null imperfective modal, -oh- second person dual-plural subject, -cha verb stem). The glide consonant of the peg element is y before i, w before o, and gh before a. Semivowels — also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels —are Vowels that form Diphthongs with full syllabic vowels

Notes

See also

• Navajo language

Bibliography

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