The Sound System of Ezha, Ethio-Semitic

Abstract

This article is devoted to present a descriptive account of Ezha phonology. The various speech sounds of the language are approached from the perspective of their individual articulatory characteristics and from the perspective of the ways in which they pattern together. A total of thirty-three consonant and seven vowel phonemes are attested. In terms of phoneme clustering, Ezha sounds can assume four different patterns: Sonorant-Obstruent, Obstruent-Sonorant, Sonorant-Sonorant, and Obstruent-Obstruent sequences. Concerning the syllable structure, nine different syllable types are identified. These are: V, VC, CV, CVC, VCC, CVCC, CCV, CCVC and CCVCC where a CC sequence at the onset position is limited to syllables whose second consonant is r.

Keywords: Ezha, Phoneme, co-occurrence, Phonotactics, syllable

Cite this Article

Endalew Assefa. The Sound System of Ezha, Ethio-Semitic. Omniscience: A Multi-disciplinary Journal. 2017; 7(1): 14–23p.