It has two allophones [«] and [a]. If in the preceding syllable, [a] occurs in high or level tone, in the next syllable, [«] occurs. If the syllable carries low tone, [«] will occur. It also occurs in vowel nuclei.

6. High back vowel / u /

It has three allophones, ie., [u], [u_] and [U]. The allophone [u] occurs only preceded or followed by /y/, /r/, /l/ and /z/ in high tone. Occurrence of [U] is confined to only vowel clusters and low tone. [u_] occurs elsewhere.

7. Low back vowel /¨/

It has two allophones: [] and [v]. The allophone [v] occurs in vowel clusters, in syllables preceding or following consonant clusters and in the syllables which follow the syllable formed by /i/ or /u/. Elsewhere [¨] occurs.

1.4.2.1. Stops

1. /p/ voiceless bilabial stop

It has three allophones i.e., [ph, [p’] and [p]

[ph] is a slightly aspirated alternant of /p/. It occurs in loan words.

[p] is the checked alternant of /p/. It occurs finally.

[p] occurs in all other environments

2. /b/ voiced bilabial stop.

It has three allophones viz., [bh], [b’] and [b].