Editing Tigrinya language (section)

=== Allophones ===
The [[velar consonant|velar]] consonants {{IPA|/k/}} and {{IPA|/kʼ/}} are pronounced differently when they appear immediately after a vowel and are not [[gemination|geminated]]. In these circumstances, {{IPA|/k/}} is pronounced as a velar [[fricative consonant|fricative]]. {{IPA|/kʼ/}} is pronounced as a fricative, or sometimes as an [[affricate consonant|affricate]]. This fricative or affricate is more often pronounced further back, in the [[uvular consonant|uvular]] place of articulation (although it is represented in this article as {{IPA|[xʼ]}}). All of these possible realizations – [[velar ejective fricative]], [[uvular ejective fricative]], [[velar ejective affricate]] and [[uvular ejective affricate]] – are cross-linguistically very rare sounds.

Since these two sounds are completely conditioned by their environments, they can be considered [[allophone]]s of {{IPA|/k/}} and {{IPA|/kʼ/}}. This is especially clear from verb roots in which one consonant is realized as one or the other allophone depending on what precedes it. For example, for the verb meaning {{gloss|cry}}, which has the triconsonantal root √b-k-y, there are forms such as {{lang|ti|ምብካይ}} {{IPA|/məbkaj/}} ({{gloss|to cry}}) and {{lang|ti|በኸየ}} {{IPA|/bɐxɐjɐ/}} ({{gloss|he cried}}), and for the verb meaning {{gloss|steal}}, which has the triconsonantal root √s-r-kʼ, there are forms such as {{lang|ti|ይሰርቁ}} {{IPA|/jəsɐrkʼu/}} ({{gloss|they steal}}) and {{lang|ti|ይሰርቕ}} {{IPA|/jəsɐrrəxʼ/}} ({{gloss|he steals}}).

What is especially interesting about these pairs of phones is that they are distinguished in Tigrinya orthography. Because allophones are completely predictable, it is quite unusual for them to be represented with distinct symbols in the written form of a language.