The Phonology of Ega

Page Index

• Harmony and tones
• Vowels
• Consonants
• Follow the path of the Ega data

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Harmony and tones

Ega has ATR vowel harmony, and three discrete level register tones (low, mid and high). There are no coda consonants in Ega, and onsets may be complex: i.e. syllables in Ega are one of V, CV or CCV. Tone in Ega is morphosyntactic, and marks tense on verbs:

1. ta_H : I speak
2. ta_M : I have spoken

However, these underlying tones may surface differently in the context of certain consonants. For example, high vowels in syllables with voiced onsets surface with a rising tone:

1. / E_BgU_H /

   [EgU_R ]

   canary

Vowels

The vowels are a, e, i, o, u, E, I, O, U, where the uppercase are the lax [-ATR] equivalents of their lowercase counterparts.

	front	central	back
high	i I		u U
mid	e E		o O
low		a

Consonants

Among the consonants are five implosives (bilabial, dental, palatal, velar, labio-velar)

	labial	dental	palatal	velar	labio-velar
plosive	p b	t d	c ɟ	k g	k͡p g͡b
nasal	m	n	ɲ	ŋ	(ŋʷ)
fricative	f v	s z		x ɣ
continuant		l	j		w
implosive	ɓ	ɗ	ʄ	ɠ	ɠ͡ɓ

Follow the path of the Ega data

1. Get Started: Summary of the Ega conversion
2. Build a Lexicon: Lexicons page (Classroom)
3. Encode Characters: Unicode pages (Classroom)
4. Create an IGT: IGT pages (Classroom)
5. Convert Audio Data: Audio pages (Classroom)
6. Convert Video Data: Video pages (Classroom)
7. Utilize an Ontology: Ontology pages (Classroom)