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2.1 Consonants
According to my analysis, Mono has 33 consonant phonemes, shown in Figure
2.1. Three of these phonemes are given in parentheses, indicating that I consider them to
be marginal in nature: , , and D. The implosive stops and are voiced and are
produced with the ingressive glottalic airstream mechanism. All voiceless stops are
unaspirated.
labial alveolar palatal velar labial-velar glottal
implosives ()
vl. stops F J J5 J5 F F F F
vd. stops > @ @ @ @ @ C C>
C>
prenas. stops > >> > @ @@ @ @ @ @ @ C CCC C> C> C> C>
vl. fricatives B I 5 (D)
vd. fricatives L
nasals ()
flaps/trills M H
laterals
semi-vowels M
Figure 2.1: Consonant phonemes in Mono
The pronunciation of each phoneme is the same as the identical symbol in the
International Phonetic Alphabet, except where explicitly noted. Note that though some
phonemes are shown as digraphs or trigraphs (e.g. F F F F and @ @), @ @ they are considered to be
single phonemes. The choice of these particular representations is to avoid undue
complexity in transcription. The phonetic detail of the phonemes will be discussed below.
Several typological observations concerning the Mono consonant system are
worth noting. First, the implosive consonants follow the typological tendencies for such
segments—they are voiced, and they show a preference for fronted place of articulations,
i.e. labial is preferred to coronal, and coronal is preferred to velar (Maddieson 1984: 111).
Second, Mono has a labial flap M which is rare in the world’s languages. Because little
has been written on this segment, I devote Appendix D to a cross-linguistic study of the
sound.
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