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Southern Pumi (Xinyingpan)

Phylum: Sino-Tibetan

Genus: Qiangic

Lat/lon: 27.164195, 100.921264

ISO code: pmj

Consonants

Basic short series

bilabiallabio-velarlabio-palataldentalalveolarpostalveolarretroflexpalatalvelar
stopb, p, pʰ, b˞, p˞, pʰ˞d̪, t̪, t̪ʰg, k, kʰ, g˞, k˞, kʰ˞
fricativez, sʒ, ʃʐ, ʂɣ, x
affricatedz, ts, tsʰdʒ, tʃ, tʃʰɖʐ, ʈʂ, ʈʂʰ
nasalm, m̥n̪, n̪̊
approximantwɥɻ, ɻ̊j
lateral approximantl̪, l̪̊

Vowels

Basic short series

frontcentralback
closei, yɨ, ʉu
close-mideo
midə
open-midɜ
openaɑ

Short nasalised series

frontback
closeĩ, ỹ
close-mid
openɑ̃

Diphthongs

/ɜj/, /ɑw/

Tones

55, 15, 51

Licit initial clusters

CG

Licit finals

G

Licit syllabic templates

(C)(G)V(G)

Source: Ding, Picus Sizhi. 2014. A Grammar of Prinmi: based on the central dialect of northwest Yunnan, China. Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library - languages of the greater Himalayan region 14. Boston, MA: Brill.

Comments: G — glide. Numerous rising diphtongs are posited (ju, wa, etc.) and even one triphthong, but they seem to look more like glide + vowel/diphthong combinations. The author treats them as syllable nuclei since that permits a more parsimonious description of verbal alternations, but the vowel inventory then blows up to 30+ segments.

Contributed by: Dmitry Nikolaev (dnikolaev@fastmail.com)