Mîrkšam: Phonology: Consonant Inventories: Moderately small
Myrkçam has a moderately small inventory of 17 consonant phonemes, summarized thus:
Bilabial Dental Alveolar Alveolopal. Palatal Velar
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Plosive p t c k
Fricative ɸ θ s ɕ ç x~h
Approximant j
Lab. Approx. w
Trill r
The plosive series contains only the four plosives /p t c k/. All plosives remain unaspirated in all positions in the standard central dialect. No dialect maintains any distinctions of aspiration. Plosives can, however, be slightly labialized before rounded vowels: [pʷ tʷ cʷ kʷ].
The nasal plosives correspond to these oral plosives, comprising /m n ɲ ŋ/. Nasal plosives preceding oral plosives, fricatives, or other nasal plosives across syllable boundaries or within the same syllable assimilate to the corresponding place of articulation. Almost always this occurs at syllable boundaries, as, of these combinations, the syllabic structure of Myrkçam would only permit /mn/, /ɲn/, or /ŋn/ to occur tautosyllabically. Additionally, in all positions /ɲr/ becomes [nr], but no other nasal is assimilated by /r/. A phonotactic constraint forbids /tŋ/ from occurring, and so when it would otherwise appear at syllable boundaries it becomes [tk].
The set of fricatives is comparatively large, consisting of /ɸ θ s ɕ ç x/. It is also the set that is subject to the most variation: while the standard central dialect realizes it as [ɸ θ s ɕ ç x~h] when unvoiced, in some dialects its realization can vary to [f θ s ʃ ç x~h]. In particular the nonstandard use of [f~v] for /ɸ/ has become quite widespread in recent times. Regardless of dialect, /x/ is realized as [x] syllable-finally or when in a consonantal cluster but otherwise realized as [h], disregarding voicing.
Myrkçam has one rhotic consonant /r/ and two approximants /j w/. The rhotic /r/ typically averages two or three taps, but in informal speech it may be reduced to [ɾ] when between two vowels. /w/ only occurs before unrounded vowels. In any case, neither /w/ nor /j/ show any significant variation or allophony, and they are primarily found in diphthongs.
If doubled tautosyllabic consonants arise from morphological or other concerns, they are phonologically reduced to single consonants rather than geminated.
