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This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 14 Feb 2022, 10:43.

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Temay has a large consonant inventory with 49 consonants distinguished in onset position. Oral occlusives have a four-way distinction between tenuis, aspirated, breathy voiced and prenasalised; fricatives and liquids also occur in voiced and voiceless pairs.

Intials

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɳ		ŋ
Stop	tenuis	p	t	ʈ		k	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	ʈʰ		kʰ
	breathy	bʱ	dʱ	ɖʱ		ɡʱ
	prenasalised	ᵐb	ⁿd	ᶯɖ		ᵑɡ
Affricate	tenuis		t͡s	ʈ͡ʂ	t͡ɕ
	aspirated		t͡sʰ	ʈ͡ʂʰ	t͡ɕʰ
	breathy		d͡zʱ	ɖ͡ʐʱ	d͡ʑʱ
	prenasalised		ⁿd͡z	ᶯɖ͡ʐ	ⁿd͡ʑ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ʂ	ɕ		h
Fricative	voiced	v	z	ʐ	ʑ		ɦ
Liquid	voiceless		ɬ	r̥
Liquid	voiced		l	r
Glide		w			j

Rhymes
Finals are comprised of a vowel nucleus and an optional consonant coda. There are 9 phonemic vowels in Temay, though vowel distribution is uneven with the full range of vowel qualities only distinct when followed by a glottal stop.
Vowel nuclei:

	Front		Central	Back
	unrounded	rounded	Central	Back
Close	i	y		u
Close-mid	e	ø	ə	o
Open-mid	ɛ
Open			a

Finals:

Coda			Open	Glide			Nasal			Stop
Coda			Open	j	w	r	m	n	ŋ	p	ʔ
Nucleus	a		a			a˞	am	ã	aŋ	ap	aʔ
	ɛ			ɛ:				ɛ̃			ɛʔ
	ə	Ø	ə	əi	əu	ɚ	əm		əŋ	əp	əʔ
		j	iə			iɚ	iəm		iəŋ	iəp	iəʔ
		w	uə			uɚ	uəm		uəŋ	uəp	uəʔ
	e	Ø	e	ei	eu		em	ẽ	eŋ	ep	eʔ
		j	ie				iem	iẽ	ieŋ	iep	ieʔ
		w	ue				uem	uẽ	ueŋ	uep	ueʔ
	ø			ø:				ø̃			øʔ
	o		o	oi			om		oŋ	op	oʔ
	i		i	i:	iu		im	ĩ	iŋ	ip	iʔ
	y			y:				ỹ			yʔ
	u		u				um	ũ	uŋ	up	uʔ

The syllable structure of Temay has been highly eroded, with the complex consonant clusters of Old Temay being merged into new consonant distinctions or lost entirely; in codas, only six to eight consonants are permitted, with the number sometimes reduced to two in the colloquial language.
The minimum syllable type in Temay is a single vowel plus tone, with a non-phonemic glottal stop preceding the vowel. This may be proceeded by a glide and/or consonant and followed by one of /m ŋ p ʔ j w/. Thus the syllable canon in Temay is seemingly (C)(G)V(C) + tone.
However, there exist some words in Temay which appear to end in clusters of a sonorant plus a glottal stop, violating the above template; examples include ghäiq, khenq or bharq. These may be analysed in two ways. The simplest method is merely to analyse these as clusters of glides, nasals or a rhotic plus a glottal stop: /ɡʱɛjʔ/, /kʰenʔ/, /bʱərʔ/. This allows for minimal vowel inventory at the cost of adding a single slot to the syllable canon as well as adding /n r/ to the list of possible finals.
The other method adds a separate 'prosodic' slot following the vowel nucleus: this prosody may manifest as nasalisation, r-colouring or length, which matches the phonetic realisation of these words: [ɡʱɛ:ʔ], [kʰẽ:ʔ], [bʱɚʔ]. This approach has the advantage of simplifying the syllable canon and removing all consonant clusters from the language; however, it has the disadvantage of almost tripling the vowel inventory.

Tone
Tone is a distinct phonological feature in Temay. Traditional analyses consider the language to have six tones, which is the number of phonetically distinct tones in monosyllables. However, certain tones only occur in complementary distribution - the first/fifth and second/sixth tones only appear after voiceless and voiced initials, respectively; the fifth and sixth tones themselves only occur in 'checked' syllables (i.e. those that end in a labial or glottal stop). This leaves only three phonemic tones, which may be further reduced to two in the colloquial language.

	High	Rising	Falling	Checked
Voiceless	Tone 1	Tone 3	Tone 4	Tone 5
Voiced	Tone 2		Tone 4	Tone 6

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