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However, contrasts are readily attested, as shown below. In addition, it occurs in
the major grammatical categories.
The phonemic status of is questionable for two reasons. First, it is rare both in
discourse and the lexicon. It is attested in only five lexical items in my corpus:
(5) C==( C==( C==( C==( ‘branch’
C>=(=( C>=(=( C>=(=( C>=(=( ‘echo’
=( =( =( =( ‘cat’ (loan word from Lingala, Van Everbroeck n.d.: 231)
= = = = ‘have patience’
E E E E ~ E E E E ‘rain’
Second, in at least one case, it can be replaced by an alveolar nasal, e.g. E E E E ~ E E E E
‘rain’. In addition, can alternatively be analyzed as a sequence of plus the secondary
articulation , which is discussed in Chapter 4. On the other hand, it is attested in both
word-initial and word-medial positions. I consider it to be a marginal phoneme.
The data in (6) show sample contrasts between the palatal consonants in Mono.
(6) a. Palatal consonants before E in word-initial position:
J5 J5E J5E
‘shine’
@ @E @E @E @E
‘sense’
@ @E @E @E @E
‘be straight’
5 5E 5E
‘plant’
E E E E
‘belch’
E E E E ~ E E E E
‘rain’
E E E E
‘enter’
b. Palatal consonants before E in word-medial position:
J5 J5 J5 J5 J5 ‘song’
@ = @ @ @ @ ‘bead’
@ C>=(@ C>=(@ C>=(@ C>=(@ ‘rust’
5 CK(5 CK(5 CK(5 CK(5 ‘saliva’
‘tooth, tusk’
( ( ( ( ~ ( ( ( ( ‘to rain’
= = = = ‘mother’
2.1.4 Velar and glottal consonants
Three velar and two glottal consonants are attested in Mono: , C, C C, C C , and D.
The prenasalized stop C C C C is pronounced [C]. The phoneme D is pronounced with more
friction than the D in English.
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