Otseqon phonology

Vowels
/e/ is somewhat low, perhaps closer to canonical [ɛ] than [e].

Short /i/ tends to become [ɪ] word-initially and before a syllabic nasal. Short /i/ becomes [ɨ] following /t tʼ/.

/o/ raises to [u] when the following syllable has an /i/. The pattern CoCoCi can go either to [CoCoci] or [CuCuCi]; this is somewhat idiosyncratic depending on the speaker/word. There are no minimal pairs between them.

Syllabic nasal
There is a syllabic nasal, denoted as /N/. Its place of articulation assimilates to the place of the following consonant, or tends to be [ŋ] pre-pausa.

Like other syllables, /N/ can bear tone. /N/ is generally not found at the beginning of a word, with the exception that word-initial /iN/ tends to be pronounced as [nn] / [mm] / [ŋŋ] (depending on the following consonant).

Consonants
/ʔ/ predictably occurs at the beginning of words otherwise beginning with vowels. There is an in-progress sound change causing it to be phonemic in some cases; see below. It also occurs in the common morpheme /ʔwa/ progressive auxiliary (< /iwa/ ‘stand’), as a result of reduction of the word-initial vowel.

The clicks are rare in basic vocabulary. They occur mostly in ideophones and in species names (including words for types of mythological creatures). The distinction between the two types of clicks is mainly one of [±abrupt release], i.e. the sharp release of /ᵑǃ/ versus the noisier more affricate-like release of /ᵑǀ/. Their POA is somewhat variable: the ǃ-clicks are dental-alveolar [ᵑǃ ᵑǃʼ] before non-front vowels and palatal [ᵑǂ ᵑǂʼ] before front vowels; the ǀ-clicks are generally dental, but are sometimes alveolar lateral clicks ([ᵑǁ ᵑǁʼ]).

/z/ is an affricate [ʣ] word-initially. It devoices and merges with /s/ following a syllabic nasal.

Sonorants
/m n/ are realized as [w ɾ] between vowels. They are nasals everywhere else: [m n] word-initially and following a syllabic nasal (the sequences /Nm Nn/ are [mm nn]), and voiceless nasals in the clusters /hm hn/ [hm̥ hn̥].

Palatalization
Most consonants palatalize before /i/. /c cʼ s/ go to [ʨ ʨʼ ɕ]; /z/ goes to [ʥ] word-initially or [ʑ] otherwise; /p k/ are [pʲ kʲ]; /ᵑǃ ᵑǃʼ/ are [ᵑǂ ᵑǂʼ]; non-intervocalic /m n/ are [mʲ ɳ]; /h/ becomes [ç]. The [w ɾ] allophones of /m n/ and the ǀ-clicks are largely unaffected.

The one exception to palatalization is that /t tʼ/ centralize the vowel instead: [tɨ tʼɨ]. If the next consonant is voiceless this can go even further and the vowel optionally becomes a syllabic fricative [ts̩ tʼs̩].

There formerly used to be two different versions of /e/, one palatalizing like /i/ and one not. Some older speakers maintain this distinction, in which case consonants before /ʲe/ show the same allophones as before /i/.

Plosive realization
/p t k/ are aspirated word-initially and when geminated. /p t/ are voiced [b d] intervocalically (but not following a syllabic nasal). The realization of /k/ is a bit more complicated, and it can be any of [k q g x ɣ]. Generally /k/ is [q] in the vicinity of /o/ or /a/, unless in contact with an /i/; intervocalic /k/ is otherwise [g], except that /k/ the sequence /aka/ is optionally lenited to [x] or [ɣ]. It is probably helpful to list the possibilities:


 * q: oqo, aqo, oqa, aqa, eqo, ɴqo, #qo, #qa, hqo, hqa, ɕqo, ɕqa
 * k: ikV́, ekV́, akV́, ŋka, ŋke, #ka, #ke, hka, hke, ɕka, ɕke
 * g: igV̀, egV̀, agV̀
 * kʲ: kʲí, hkʲi, ɕkʲi
 * gʲ: gʲì
 * x: axá
 * ɣ: aɣà

Intervocalic voicing is restricted to the onset of a low-toned syllable. Intervocalic plosive onsets of a high tone syllable are unaspirated and unvoiced.

/c/ is immune to voicing.

Marginal phonemes
pʲ, pʲʼ occur in some ideophones. They are also used to substitute for /p pʼ/ when talking to certain animals.

kʷ, kʷʼ are used to substitute for /p pʼ/ when reading sufficiently old texts, or generally when trying to make something sound archaic (they are the relatively recent diachronic source of /p pʼ/). They also occur in some ideophones.

ʲe is the palatalizing version of /e/. As mentioned some older speakers preserve the distinction between /e ʲe/. It is otherwise present in /sʲesʲesʲe/, the sound of smug laughter.

In-progress sound changes
The following sound changes are not fully complete: they may not be used by all speakers, not used all the time, do not affect all words, etc. In general they are much more likely to affect more common words than less common ones.

ari > ai
This does not further coalesce to /eː/.

#ye > ɪ
Word-initial /ye/ is occasionally pronounced as [ɪ]. This almost merges with /i/, which is also pronounced [ɪ] initially, but word-initial /i/ has a preceding glottal stop which is missing from the vowel resulting from this sound change. This makes /ʔ/ phonemic in this one instance.