Солтүстік Американың жазық алгонкин тілінің фонетикалық ерекшеліктері

Plains Algonquian language of North America
In addition, there are four diphthongs, , and several triphthongs, as well as extended sequences of vowels such as with stress on either the first or the last vowel in the combination. Type Front Back High ⟨i⟩ ⟨u⟩ Mid ⟨e⟩ ⟨o⟩

The phoneme (the voiced bilabial stop) has a voiceless allophone [p] that occurs before other consonants or at the end of a word. The plosives , , and are pronounced without aspiration in most environments, but are aspirated before other consonants or at the end of a word, or when preceding a syllable final sequence of short vowel + In this same environment is aspirated and devoiced. For example, the grammatical prefix cih is pronounced , the grammatical prefix tih is pronounced , and the word héétbihʼínkúútiinoo, 'I will turn out the lights' is hetihʼínkúútiinoo}.

Syllables tend to have the structure CV(C), where the final consonant, if it is present, is either a single consonant, or In general, consonant clusters in Arapaho can only be two consonants long. Consonant clusters do not occur word initially, and is the only that occurs word finally. The only consonant cluster that is "base generated" (exists in the most underlying representation of words) is At the "surface" (at the level of actual pronunciation), other clusters arise by phonological processes including vowel syncope, or by juxtaposition of morphemes. Vowel initial, onset less syllables, however, can occur due to partitioning of vowel clusters. An example of partitioning a cluster of 3 identical vowels into syllables is ní. ii. non, 'tepee'. The vowel cluster is not always split into short vowel followed by long vowel; the location of the partition depends on Arapaho's complex pitch accent system. For example, another word with a sequence of three vowels, but with a different partitioning of vowels into syllables is hóo.ó. 'bed'. However, sometimes the vowel cluster does not divide and the whole cluster becomes the nucleus of the syllable. One example is hi. héio, 'his/her aunt (obviative)'.

Arapaho is a pitch accent language. There are two phonemic tones: high (marked with an acute accent) or "normal" (unmarked). The contrast can be illustrated with the pair hónoosóóʼ, 'it is fancy' and honoosóóʼ, 'it is raining'. Long vowels and vowel sequences can carry a contour tone from high to low, as in hou3íne , 'to hang' (where the first syllable has a normal tone) versus hóu3íne , "to float" (where the first syllable has a high+normal, or falling, tone). Although tonal contrasts are distinctive in Arapaho, minimal pairs such as those listed above are rare.

Arapaho is highly synthetic; verbs in particular take a large number of grammatical and semantic morphemes.

Nouns in Arapaho come in two classes: animate and inanimate. Which category a noun belongs to is part of the lexicon. Being animate does not necessitate "aliveness" (but aliveness does mean animate): doors, planets, ghosts, etc. are considered animate. Some nouns can also be both animate and inanimate, but in these situations, the animate version is more "active" (e. g. a log is inanimate, but a rolling log is animate).

Initial change (IC) can mark tense and aspect (in particular, "present tense and ongoing aspect or present perfect tense and aspect") under affirmative and conjunct orders. Differing phonological changes occur depending on the first vowel of the stem. If the vowel is short, it is lengthened. For example, be’éé 'to be red' becomes bee’éé’ 'it is red'. Otherwise, an infix is placed before the first vowel. The infix is either or and is determined based on harmony with the long vowel. For example, hoowúsee ('to walk downward') becomes honoowúseenoo ('I am walking downward'). If the first vowel is short and is followed by an , some speakers treat the as a vowel and use the infix or to mark initial change. Other speakers treat the as a consonant and perform the vowel lengthening process instead. An irregular form of initial change affects some vowel initial preverbs by appending an before the first vowel, rather than the ordinary that would be prepended to avoid a vowel initial word. For example, the imperfective morpheme becomes nii instead of the expected hii when prefixing verbs that would undergo initial change.

In sentences with an explicit noun phrase, separate from the verb, the verb agrees with the noun in terms of animacy, number, and whether the noun is proximate or obviative. The grammatical category, including person, of the noun also needs to agree with the verb. Note that the categories of subject and object do not affect agreement inflection. As an example of animacy agreement, the intransitive verb for 'to fall' has a form that takes an inanimate subject, nihtéésceníse' (PAST on top fall(II) 0S) and a form that takes an animate subject, nihtéés'cenísi. If a verb has a single noun argument that is composed of two different types of noun, most speakers default to the obviative (over proximate) and inanimate (over animate) forms to refer to the composite noun argument in case of conflict. This can be seen in the example below where 'walk' takes an argument that is composed of a composite proximate and obviative noun. Both nouns are animate, but there is conflict regarding proximate or obviative. The verb thus defaults to the obviative plural (4PL).

Arapaho has a number of derivational affixes and processes. Some operate on nouns to form verb like clauses. For example, the morpheme can prefix a noun to ask 'what kind of <noun>'. A specific example is hoséíno’ ('meat') when prefixed becomes tohúút oséíno’ ('What kind of meat is this?')

Reduplication is prefixal and is formed by taking the first consonant (if there is one) and the first vowel and then adding , where the colon indicates that the preceding vowel is elongated. The is deleted in the presence of a subsequent consonant. For example, cebísee ('to walk past') after reduplication becomes cée[n]cebísee ('to walk back and forth past'). There are multiple usages of reduplication in Arapaho including pluralizing implied, secondary, and inanimate objects of (di)transitive verbs; indicating repeating and habitual action (extend the space and time a verb occurs in general), and intensifying. One example of marking repeating action is as follows

There can be multiple reduplications in compound words, where each reduplication can have an independent effect. Some verbs appear to be only in a reduplicated form; these verbs tend to describe repeating, iterative action.

Arapaho has no canonical word order. Some sentences/clauses consist of only the verb like below.

For a basic sentence with a single verb that takes two noun phrases as arguments, all orderings are possible, but having the verb final is less common.

Generally, noun modifiers occur before the noun. These modifiers additionally tend to occur in a particular order relative each other. For example, in the example below, note that the presentative 'here is' occurs before the demonstrative 'this'

Adverbials are a type of particle. Unlike other particles in Arapaho, however, they are not a closed class and are instead derived from or composed of other morphemes. One purpose of adverbial construction is to emphasize a morpheme by extracting it from a verb and having it stand alone. Another purpose is to convey meaning outside of what can normally be attached to a verb. Adverbials are constructed by appending (which can become after vowel harmony) to the end of the root. A common usage of adverbials is to modify verbs. Adverbials can also act like prepositions and modify noun phrases; such adverbials can occur before or after the noun phrase and are thus exceptions to the rule that nominal modifiers prepose the noun (see example below).