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Mbula language
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===Vowels=== Mbula has five vowel phonemes as shown in the following table. Phonetically front vowels are unrounded and back vowels are rounded. {{IPA|/i/}} and {{IPA|/u/}} can be lax or tense and {{IPA|/e/}} can be half close tense and half open lax. All vowels can be short or long, though this is interpreted in the phonology as a sequence of two vowels rather than as the existence of long vowel phonemes. The two high vowels {{IPA|/i/}} and {{IPA|/u/}} are lowered slightly when followed by {{IPA|/e/}}, {{IPA|/o/}}, or {{IPA|/a/}}. {| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;" |+ Vowel phonemes |- ! ![[Front vowel|Front]] ![[Central vowel|Central]] ![[Back vowel|Back]] |- ! [[Close vowel|Close]] |{{IPA link|i}} || || {{IPA link|u}} |- ![[Mid vowel|Mid]] |{{IPA link|e}} || || {{IPA link|o}} |- ![[Open vowel|Open]] | || {{IPA link|a}} || |} Vowels are subject to two rules: penultimate lengthening, which means that external realisations may be long vowels while the underlying form is a short vowel, and epenthesis, which means the insertion of a vowel where the underlying form of the morpheme does not contain one. [[Epenthesis]] is regressive, which means that epenthetic vowels take on the quality of the first vowel in the rest of the form. Vowel length is contrastive as can be seen in the following examples: {| {{table}} ! short ! long |- | {{IPA|[molo]|lang=mna}} – 'long' | {{IPA|[moːlo]|lang=mna}} – a type of ant |- | {{IPA|[mbili]|lang=mna}} – 'domestic animal' | {{IPA|[mbiːli]|lang=mna}} – 'new shoot of a plant' |- | {{IPA|[ipata]|lang=mna}} – {{gcl|3SG}} 'be heavy' | {{IPA|[ipaːta]|lang=mna}} – {{gcl|3SG}} 'reads' |}
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