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There
are 33 consonantal phonemes in Lotha language. These consonants
are grouped into different classes on the basis of point and manner
of articulation. On the basis of the point of articulation Lotha
has seven way opposition, these are 1. Bilabial 2. Labiodental 3.
Dental 4. Alveolar 5. Palatal 6. Velar 7. Glottal. On the basis
of the manner of articulation also Lotha has seven way opposition,
there are 1. Stops 2. Affricates 3. Fricatives 4. Nasals 5. Laterals
6. Trills 7. Frictionless continuants (semi-vowels).
In
addition to the above mentioned interclass opposition, there are
intra-class oppositions i.e., Stops, Affricates, Nasals, Laterals
and Trills show the opposition for aspiration. Opposition for voicing
is found only in Fricatives except glottal fricative which does
not have the voiced counter part. Lotha does not have voiced stops
at the phonemic level. Hence /pv/ which is voiced labiodental unaspirated
affricate starts with voicelessness and ends in a release. Lotha
does not have voiced bilabial stop, this gap is substituted by the
voiced Labiodental Affricate /pv/. Most of the Lotha consonantal
phonemes occur only initially and medially except /k/, /v/, /s/,
/h/, /n/, / /,
/l/, /r/ and /y/ which occur in all the three positions of a word
i.e., initially, medially and finally.
All
aspirated consonants are treated as unit phonemes rather than sequences
of two consonants because of the following reasons.
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3.
Contrast is not found between single aspirated consonant and sequence
of a single consonant plus h. In other words contrast is not found
in Lotha for th-th, ph-ph,
kh-kh etc.
On
the basis of the above reasons aspirated consonants are treated
as unit phonemes rather than sequence of two consonant phonemes.
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m
]
n
]
]
kchyà
‘across’ kh
