Phonological Inventory

Consonant Inventory

A tentative consonant inventory of Serer:

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stops	V'less	p	t	c~ʧ	k	q	ʔ
	Voiced	b	d	ɟ~ʤ	g
	Implosive	ɓ	ɗ	ʄ
	Voiceless Implosive	ƥ	ƭ	ƈ
	Prenasalized	ᵐb	ⁿd	ᶮɟ	ᵑg	ᶰɢ
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Fricative		f	s			χ~h
Tap/Trill			ɾ~r
Liquid			l
Glide		ʋ~β̞~w		j

Notes:

• The modal voice palatal stops tend to be pronounced as affricates word initially, and stops elsewhere. The implosive palatal stops do not exhibit this alternation.
• /r/ can be pronounced as either a tap/flap, or a trill. In slower or more careful speech, the trill is more likely to surface.
• The labial glide is not exactly [w], but there may in fact be a velar or back component to the sound in the environment of back vowels. Before front vowels, the segment seems to be realized as (tongue-body) fronted and labial [ɥ]. Note that in certain morpho-phonological alternations, /w/ and /k/ pattern together, as well as /w/, /b/ and /p/.
• The back fricative /χ/ is alternately pronounced as [χ] or [h]. In quicker speech, [h] is more likely to surface, with [χ] being the more common allophone in slower or more careful speech.
• In quick speech, the prenasalized stop /ɲɟ/ is often pronounced as [ɲj].
• /k/ often has a backed allophone [q] in the presence of the vowels /a/ or /o/.
• /q/ is generally accompanied by heavy frication, usually preceding the closure [χq], but sometimes following [qχ]. This is not true of the backed allophone of /k/.
• The voiceless (non-implosive) stops are pronounced as alternately aspirated, unaspirated, or lightly ejective. The conditioning environments for this allophony are not yet completely clear.
• Initially (and of course medially), the voiced stops are fully voiced, with voicing and closure being essentially simultaneous.
• Voiced stops (implosive, modal, and prenasalized) undergo some degree of word- or phrase-final devoicing in quick speech. Tentatively, this does not seem to cause complete devoicing, avoiding neutralization with the voiceless stops.

• We do not yet have a perfect minimal pair with the prenasalized uvular and velar stops (I don't think), but when a uvular /q/ or /x/ alternates with a prenasalized stop, it is always phonetically uvular.
• Is there a uvular voiced stop or nasal? Don't think we've encountered one yet, but it's possible that they exist and we've heard them as velars.

Vowel Inventory

A tentative vowel inventory of Serer:

			Front	Central	Back
High			i ~ ɪ		u ~ ʊ
Mid			e ~ ɛ		ɔ ~ o
Low				a~ə

Serer vowels can be followed by approximants /j w/ in the syllable coda, giving off the initial impression that the language has diphthongs. This may or may not prove to be the case, but there is only one word in the lexicon (which may be exceptional or misinterpreted by me) transcribed with both a glide and another segment in the coda, mbaiɟ "blanket", which suggests that glides are in the coda given the CVC syllable we see everywhere else. Faytak 23:19, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Vowel length is contrastive.

Vowels after implosive consonants are sometimes creaky; this does not seem to be contrastive.

Suprasegmentals

Serer makes use of stress. (?) It is unclear at this point whether it is automatically/metrically assigned to words or if it is lexically specified and unpredictable. Faytak 22:19, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Plural marker χa- (supposing that it is a separate morpheme) seems to attract stress in some instances (e.g. aˈlas "tail", ˈχalas "tails"). Faytak 01:40, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Loanword Phonology

Borrowed words show phonemes that are not normally present in Serer, like /y/ in [myyr] 'wall' (Fr. mur), or /ʃ/ in [maʃin] 'machine, device' (Fr. machine). These phonemes are irregularly adapted to Sereer phonology, as has happened on occasion to "wall," which can be pronounced as [miir].

Minimal Pairs

This list includes both near pairs and true minimal pairs.

word		gloss
ˈtadikʰ	-	three
ⁿdiitˈ	-	bird

word		gloss
χooχ	-	to cultivate
χoχ	-	head

word		gloss
ŋɡol	-	finger
oŋɡool	-	moon

word		gloss
famb	-	drum
faaɓ	-	frog

word		gloss
fidɛl	-	fire
ˈʔambɛ:l	-	lake

word		gloss
ƥa̰:k	-	baobab tree
ɓa:k	-	baobab fruit

word		gloss
oˈɟɛm	-	salt
ˈɟimb	-	transplant

word		gloss
ˈɟimb	-	transplant
ˈcimb	-	seedling
aˈkim	-	song

word		gloss
oˈqol	-	field
oˈkol	-	glue (Fr.)

word		gloss
aˈnaaq	-	branch
aˈnaaχaha	-	senile, negligent

word		gloss
mbɪnd	-	house (sg)
pɪnd	-	house (pl)

word		gloss
suk	-	boat
sug	-	pound millet

word		gloss
suk	-	boat
ɗuk	-	tackle

word		gloss
okor	-	man
okol	-	glue (Fr.)

word		gloss
fiɗel	-	fire (sg)
piɗel	-	fire (pl)

word		gloss
ndaχar	-	tree
taχar	-	tree (pl)

word		gloss
mbaal	-	sheep (sg)
paal	-	sheep (pl)

word		gloss
mbof	-	tied bundle (pl)
pof	-	tied bundle (pl)

word		gloss
ndeen	-	stove (sg)
teen	-	stove (pl)

word		gloss
ndiig	-	rainy season (sg)
tiig	-	rainy season (pl)

word		gloss
nɟɔŋg	-	bed (sg)
cɔŋg	-	bed (pl)

word		gloss
nduus	-	knife (sg)
ruus	-	knife (pl)

word		gloss
gin	-	egg
giɲ	-	(be) full

word		gloss
lug	-	gangrene (?)
luɗ	-	borrow

word		gloss
atɛƥ	-	rain
atɛɓ	-	small (class x)

word		gloss
atɛɓ	-	small (class x)
adɛɓ	-	small (class y)

word		gloss
χal	-	make a mistake, misspeak
kal	-	a mistake

word		gloss
(mɛhɛ) χɔ:χa	-	'I'm cultivating'
(inwɛ) ɴɢɔ:χa	-	'We're cultivating'

word		gloss
fa:ɲik	-	elephant (sg)
pa:ɲik	-	elephant (pl)

word		gloss
ʄu:d	-	thunder
ɗu:d	-	swallow

word		gloss
ɗat	-	pick fruit
ƭat	-	(be) right

word		gloss
ɗat	-	pick fruit
ɗap	-	wash laundry

word		gloss
dam	-	hold sth. for
daɓ	-	bellybutton

word		gloss
poj	-	tomb
paj	-	sarong

word		gloss
ɗaj	-	happiness
ɓaj	-	blow

word		gloss
gar	-	come
gaʔ	-	see

word		gloss
naf	-	hit
nag	-	pick up

word		gloss
rɛf	-	be
gɛf	-	crack, break

word		gloss
tok	-	on, on top of
ɓok	-	(be) pigeon-toed

word		gloss
aʄɛwa	-	He gets water from a well
aƈɛwa	-	They get water from a well

word		gloss
afo:la	-	He jumps
ambo:la	-	They jump

word		gloss
abuga	-	He loves
ambuga	-	They love

word		gloss
awa:ɗa	-	He looks for
amba:ɗa	-	They look for

word		gloss
ɟik	-	buy
ɗik	-	two

word		gloss
aɟika	-	He buys
aɲɟika	-	They buy

word		gloss
ɓood	-	to crawl
ƥood	-	snake (lit. 'crawler')

word		gloss
qɔχ	-	bulls
ɴɢɔχ	-	a bull

word		gloss
laac	-	to ask for
laƈ	-	a limp
laʄ	-	to limp