A vowel that carries a tone constitutes a minimal syllable. This
may be followed or preceded by a consonant. Thus the structure
of the syllable may be defined as + consonant + vowel &
tone + consonant where the maximum number of consonants
is two. This structure gives two main types of syllables : open
and closed.
1.5.2. An
open syllable has the structure + consonant + vowel &
tone.
Examples for
open syllable are as follows :
í
‘wine, beer’
tí
‘eight’
ú
‘leave’
kú
‘hair’
1.5.3. A
closed syllable has the structure + consonant + vowel &
tone + consonant.
ák
‘pig’
sák
‘open (eyes)’
l
‘sew’
lá
‘her’
1.5.4. Since
the phonological system of Ao allows consonant clusters, it is
possible that a syllable begins or ends with more than one
consonant. For instance --
pó
‘both’
tok
‘six’
à?
‘dirt’
mac?k
‘flatten’
ayp
‘perch’
1.6.
Consonant clusters :
There are
clusters of two consonants in Ao, which occur in the initial,
medial and final positions of the word. But the three consonant
clusters are found in the medial position only.There is only one
example of four consonants cluster which occurs in the medial
position.
1.6.1. Initial two consonant clusters : In
the initial two consonant clusters the first phoneme may be /p/
or /t/ while the second phoneme is always / /.
p-
pó
‘both’
pápu
‘gun’
t-
tok
‘six’
tonam
‘scent’
1.6.2.
Medial two consonant clusters : The possible two consonant
clusters in the medial position are shown in the table. The
consonants given in the vertical column are the first members
and those given in the horizontal row are the second members.
In the medial two consonant clusters the first member is any
consonant other than the fricatives /s/ and /z/. The affircate
/c/ occurs as the first member only when followed by /s/. And
the lateral /l/ occurs as the first member only when followed
by /t/, /k/ or /s/. The second member is any consonant other
than the velar nasal //.
The semi-vowel /w/ occurs as the second member only with //,
/c/ or /y/ as the first member.
?k
