Simple vowels

Medumba has 10 phonemic vowels given in the following inventory:

Diphthong vowels

Medumba has five phonemic diphthongs.

Diphthongs involve a combination of a closed (high) vowel (V1) /i,ʉ,u/ with a non-closed (non-high) vowel (V2) /a,ə,ɑ/, as follows:

• front /i/ combines with front or centre /a/ and /ə/ to form /ia/ and
  • front /i/ does not combine with back /ɑ/, so */iɑ/ is not a possible diphthong
• central /ʉ/ combines with front or back /a/ and /ɑ/ to form /ʉa/ and /ʉɑ/
  • central /ʉ/ does not combine with central /ə/; so */ʉə/ is not a possible diphthong
• back /u/ combines with back /ɑ/ to form /uɑ/
  • back /u/ does not combine non-back vowels, so */ua/ and */uə/ are not possible diphthongs

Simplex consonants

There are 18 simplex consonants in Medumba (Voorhoeve 1965).

Medumba has 18 simple consonants, with three of them (placed in parentheses in the table below) being extremely rare.

Note the absence of the following segments:

• there is a voiced bilabial stop /b/, but no counterpart voiceless bilabial stop */p/
  • but [p] occurs as an allophone of /b/
• there is a voiceless palatal fricative /ʃ/ (with limited distribution), but no counterpart voiced palatal fricative */ʒ/
  • but [ʒ] occurs as an allophone of /ɟ/
• there are velar nasal and oral stops, but no counterpart velar fricatives */ɣ/ or */x/
  • but [ɣ] occurs as a release in the /ᵑg/~[ᵑgɣ] alternation, and [x] occurs as a release in the /ᵑk/~[ᵑkx] alternation

Complex consonants

There are 24 complex consonants found in Medumba (Voorhoeve 1965:326, section 3.1.9). Complex consonants only occur in onset position.

Note the following gaps in the inventory of complex consonants:

• no labialized labial nasal or voiceless stop: */mʷ/, */pʷ/, */ᵐpʷ/
• no labialized alveolar (nasal or oral) stop: */nʷ/, */dʷ/, */ⁿdʷ/, */tʷ/, */ⁿtʷ/
• no labialized voiceless labial, palatal or velar fricative: */fʷ/, */ᵐfʷ/, */ʃʷ/, */ᶮʃʷ/, */xʷ/, */ᵑxʷ/

Final consonants

Of the 40 consonants found in Medumba, only 7 can be coda consonants: the 3 nasal stops /m, n, ŋ/, the 3 counterpart voiced oral stops /b, d, ɡ/, and the glottal stop /ʔ/.

Initial consonants

The below table presents the inventory of onset consonants and their allophones. The only consonant excluded from onset position is the glottal stop /ʔ/. All other consonants occur in onset position, so there are 39 possible onset consonants. In onset position, nasals may be plain (C) or labialized (Cʷ). All other consonant types (voiced plosives, voiceless plosives, fricative) occur as plain (C), labialized (Cʷ), pre-nasalized (ⁿC), or pre-nasalized and labialized (ⁿCʷ). In addition, onset consonants display allophonic variation that is conditioned by the following vowel.

Vowel insertion

Consonant-final words - which are generally CVC because of the size constraint that favours CV or CVC words - are often augmented by a final vowel. This process of vowel insertion happens in one of two contexts: (i) before a pause; (ii) at the end of a sentence. The quality of the inserted vowel is conditioned by the final consonant: if the final C is a glottal stop, then the inserted vowel is schwa; elsewhere, the inserted vowel is a copy of the stem vowel. Examples illustrating vowel insertion are given in (60).

(60) a. koo                          b.  cintEE
       ko-o                             cin-te-e
       love-FV                          xx-yy-FV
       'to want, to love'               'to urinate'
       (adapted from Voorhoeve 1965:332)

Consonant mutation

Consonants in onset position surface with different variants. This consonant allophone, a form of consonant mutation, is conditioned by the following vowel. There are seven conditioning contexts, as follows:

1. the non-closed vowels
2. the closed vowels
3. the high front vowel /i/
4. the high non-front vowels /ʉ/ and /u/
5. the high central (non-front, non-back) vowel /ʉ/
6. the high back vowel /u/
7. the vowels /o/ and /ə/

Tone contrasts with verbs

Verb stems come in two shapes, CV and CVC, with each one contrasting Low and High tone. See (1-5) for examples of High/Low tone contrast with CV stems, and (6-6) for examples of High/Low tone contrast with CVC stems.

Tone contrasts with nouns

In principle, given the possibility of a stem bearing associated with one of four tone melodies — namely L(L), L(H), H(L) and H(H) for nouns and L or H for verbs — one expects to find a four-way tone contrast for a given segmental base (either CV or CVC). No such examples are attested within a given word-class, but there is one instance elf a 4-way contrast across word-classes. In addition, there are a few three-way contrasts for a given noun base, and numerous many four-way tone contrasts with the same base, if one looks at tone melodies across word-classes.

• CV tɔ, which has L(H), H(L) and H(H) stems
• CVC m-vɛd, which has L(L)
• CVC lɛn, to, and mvdd.

Examples are given in (1-3).

(3)  Low-tone           fù                          (4) High-tone          tʃə́ŋ   
                       [fù]                                                [tʃə́ŋ]
                       'medicine'                                           'food'         

(From Kouankem 2013:60; Mucha 2017: 8)

Tone contrasts with prepositions

(5)  Low-tone    (a)   mbàŋ       [ᵐbàŋ]      (b)   nùm     [nùm]       (c)   ɲàm     [ɲàm]                                                             
                       'next to'                    'on'                      'behind'

(6) High-tone          mʙə́    [ᵐʙə́]
                       'in front of'  (from Hawkes et al. 2015:122)

Tone contrasts with complementizers

(7)  Low-tone    (a)   ndà                        (8) High-tone         mbʉ   
                       [ⁿdà]                                           [ᵐbʉ́]
                       'C'                                              'C'    

(From)

Tone contrasts with demonstratives

(9)  Low-tone    (a)    s-ə̂n                     (10) High-tone         N yə́n   
                       [s-ə̂n]                                           [N  yə́n]
                       AGR-this                                          N    Dem.Dist
                                                                       'that N'    

(Kouankem 2013:60)

Tone contrasts with plural-marking

(11)  Low-tone    (a)   bà   N                    (12) High-tone        ba N 
                       [bà]                                             [bá]
                       'PL'                                            'PL'   

(Kouankem 2013:62)