Editing Crow language (section)

==Phonology==

===Vowels===
There are five distinct vowels in Crow, which occur either long or short with the exception of the mid vowels.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
! rowspan=2 |
! colspan=2 | [[Vowel length|Short]]
! colspan=2 | [[Vowel length|Long]]
|-
! [[Front vowel|<small>Front</small>]]
! [[Back vowel|<small>Back</small>]]
! <small>Front</small>
! <small>Back</small>
|-
! [[High vowel|High]]
| {{IPA|i}}
| {{IPA|u}}
| {{IPA|iː}}
| {{IPA|uː}}
|-
! [[Mid vowel|Mid]]
|
|
| {{IPA|eː}}
| {{IPA|oː}}
|-
! [[Low vowel|Low]]
| colspan=2| {{IPA|a}}
| colspan=2| {{IPA|aː}}
|-
! [[Diphthong]]
|
|
| {{IPA|ia}}
| {{IPA|ua}}
|}

There is also a marginal diphthong ''ea'' {{IPA|[ea]}} that only occurs in two native Crow stems: ''déaxa'' 'clear' and ''béaxa'' 'intermittent'.

===Consonants===
Crow has a very sparse consonant inventory, much like many other languages of the [[Great Plains]].

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
!
! [[Labial consonant|Labial]]
! [[Alveolar consonant|Alveolar]]
! [[Palatal consonant|Palatal]]
! [[Velar consonant|Velar]]
! [[Glottal consonant|Glottal]]
|-
! [[Plosive]]
| {{IPA link|p}}
| {{IPA link|t}}
| {{IPA link|tʃ}} {{grapheme|ch}}
| {{IPA link|k}}
| ({{IPA link|ʔ}})
|-
! [[Fricative]]
|
| {{IPA link|s}}
| {{IPA link|ʃ}} {{grapheme|sh}}
| {{IPA link|x}}
| {{IPA link|h}}
|-
! [[Sonorant]]
| {{IPA link|m}}~{{IPA link|b}}~{{IPA link|w}}
| {{IPA link|n}}~{{IPA link|d}}~{{IPA link|ɾ}}
|
|
|
|}

[[Plosive|Stops]] are aspirated word-initially, word-finally, when geminated (e.g. [ppʰ]) and when following another stop (e.g. [ptʰ]). Stops in a consonant cluster with ''h'' as the initial radical (''hp'', ''ht'', ''hk'') are unaspirated and lax. Gemination in stops only occurs intervocalically. Intervocalic single, nongeminate stops are lax, unaspirated, and generally voiced. The difference between voiced stops ''b'' and ''d'' (allophones of ''m'' and ''n'') and voiceless stops is hardly discernible when following a fricative, since both are unaspirated and lax. The phoneme ''k'' has a palatalized allophone [kʲ] that occurs after ''i'', ''e'', ''ch'' and ''sh'', often word-finally.

[[Fricative]]s are tense; they are only lax when intervocalic. Palatal ''sh'' is often voiced intervocalically; ''s'' is sometimes voiced intervocalically; ''x'' is never voiced. The alveolar fricative /s/ has an optional allophone /h/ in phrase-initial position:
*''sáapa'' "what" > [háapa]
*''sapée'' "who"  > [hapée]

[[Sonorant]]s voiced /m/ and /n/ have three allophones: ''w'' and ''l'' intervocalically, ''b'' and ''d'' word initially and following an obstruent, and ''m'' and ''n'' in all other conditions. In conservative speech, ''l'' is realized as a tapped ''r'', however in general cases it is realized as ''l'', perhaps due in part to the influence of English. Word initially, ''b'' is optional for /m/, though ''b'' is more commonly realized. The glottal sonorant /h/ assimilates to the nasality of the following segment, but retains its voicelessness. When following ''i'' or ''e'' or preceding ''ch'', /h/ may be realized as an alveopalatal fricative.

===Structure===
Vowel sequences across [[morpheme]] boundaries can be quite varied, but short vowels cannot appear alone in the morpheme: V:V (long+short), V:V: (long+long) and diphthong+V (short). Word finally, only ''a'' (in a diphthong), ''o'', and ''u'' (allomorphs of the plural suffix) can occur after a long vowel.

A wide variety of [[consonant cluster]]s can occur in Crow. All consonants except for /h/ can be [[gemination|geminated]]. Voiced labials and dentals (phonemic ''m'' and ''n'', allophones ''b'', ''m'', ''w'' and ''d'', ''n'', ''l'') are resistant to clustering. Because they only occur intervocalically, ''l'' and ''w'' do not occur in clusters. The plosive [[allophone]]s ''b'' and ''d'' only occur in clusters as the second consonant and only at morpheme boundaries. The nasal allophones ''m'' and ''n'' can only occur with each other with the exception of ''nm'', or occur with ''h'' at a morpheme boundary. Clusters in general occur at morphemic boundaries.

Some morphemic constraints:
*A word begins either with a V (long or short) or a single C; no word-initial consonant clusters
*Consonant clusters only occur word-internally; exception: ''sht'' as a single morpheme is an emphatic sentence-final declarative marker.
*A word can end in any C except for ''p'' and ''x''; ''ch'' only occurs in one word (''iach'') as a plural demonstrative
*All lexical nouns and verb stems end in a vowel
*Generally, nonderived noun and verb stems consist of between 1-4 syllables.
*Only V: or diphthongs occur in one-syllable word

===Stress===
[[stress (linguistics)|Stress]] in Crow is phonemic. The position of the stress in the stem is determined lexically. Virtually all noun and verb stems have an inherent stress. In word initial syllables, accented short vowels in a word initial syllable are generally followed by a consonant cluster, while accented long vowels are generally followed by a single consonant. Stress can fall on short vowels as well as long vowels and may fall on either [[mora (linguistics)|mora]] of a long vowel. With diphthongs, either the long vowel or the offglide may bear the stress.

Stress helps predict the tones of all the vowels in a word: stressed vowels are high in pitch; all vowels following the stressed vowel are low in pitch; all short vowels preceding the stressed vowel are low in pitch; all long vowels preceding the stressed vowel are high in pitch; short vowels occurring between a long vowel and the accented vowel assimilate to a high pitch.

In words composed of more than one morpheme, there are several rules (with a few exceptions) to determine the placement of the stress:
*If the first stressed morpheme is stressed anywhere except for the final mora of a stem-final vowel, the subsequent morpheme is unstressed.
*If the first stressed morpheme has its accent of the stem-final vowel mora, that morpheme loses its stress.
*If the morpheme following the first stress lacks lexical stress, the stress remains on the first morpheme.
*If a stress stem-final vowel is deleted when the following morpheme lacks lexical stress, the stress is transferred to the preceding vowel mora of the deleted vowel.

Exceptions:
*A few stems with final falling accent have long high stress for the purposes of word formation.
*The punctual aspectual marker ''áhi'' overrides the regular word accent - it is always accented
*The exclamative sentence-final marker ''wík'' is stressed in addition to the stress of the stem to which it is combined. Vowel morae that occur between the first stress and the exclamative suffix are low in pitch.

===Phonological processes===
Phonological processes in Crow include:
*short vowel deletion: stem-final short vowels are deleted at a morpheme boundary unless a three-consonant cluster or a nasal plus voiceless obstruent would occur. Stem-final vowels do not delete before ''dak'', the coordinate noun-phrase conjunction. Sentence-final evidential suffixes also do not cause the final short vowel to be deleted.
*nasal assimilation: ''n'' assimilates to ''m'' in a cluster; ''nm'' clusters do not occur.
*sibilant assimilation: alveolar ''s'' and ''ss'' are realized as /sh/ at morpheme boundaries before all consonants except ''x'' and ''s''.
*vowel neutralization: word-finally, stem-final short vowels ''i'', ''a'' and ''u'' are neutralized to their corresponding mid nonround or round vowel: ''i'', ''a'' become ''e''; ''u'' becomes ''o''.
*identical vowel reduction: with suffixes beginning with ''a'', sequences of 3-4 identical vowel morae are reduced to two (''aa-a'' and ''aa-aa'' are reduced to ''aa''); exceptions are compounds and prefixes.
*long vowel reduction before ''h'': long vowels shorten before ''h'' in a syllable coda.
*final schwa deletion: the final schwa of a diphthong is deleted before suffixes beginning with ''a'' and before the plural; before other vowels, it is otherwise retained.
*palatal-dental alternation: stem-final ''ch'' and ''t'' are complementary; ''t'' occurs before ''a''-initial suffixes and plural ''u'', and ''ch'' everywhere else. This relations holds parallel for ''š'' - ''s''; and geminates ''čč'' and ''šš''. The ''č'' and ''š'' alternates occur before nonlow vowels, whereas ''t'' and ''s'' occur before low vowels. There are, however, a few exceptions to this complementary relationship, therefore these phonemes cannot be considered as allophones.
*palatal-velar alternation: there is a lexically conditioned ''č'' to ''k'' alternation; ''k'' occurs before the plural and before suffixes beginning with ''a'', not producing ''t''.
*stem ablaut: lexically conditioned alternation affecting stem-final long vowels triggered by the plural morphemes, the imperative, and ''a''-initial suffixes.  (''ii'' to ''aa'' ablaut; ''ee'' to ''ii'' ablaut; ''ee'' to ''aa'' ablaut.