Consonants

This chapter presents a detailed examination of TSM consonants, highlighting several key points. TSM’s consonant system displays partial asymmetry in voicing characteristics, and unlike in English, aspiration is a critical phonemic distinction. Consonantal phonological features are systematically organized into distinct classificatory categories determined by their specification of natural segment classes. The hierarchical feature taxonomy encompasses four principal domains: major class features, which delineate fundamental segment types; laryngeal features, which characterize glottal states and phonation types; place features, which specify articulatory configurations and locations; and manner features, which define the type and degree of constriction in the vocal tract. The alveolar lateral [l] in TSM serves a dual function: it integrates the alveolar /d/ within its articulation and exhibits free variation with [z]. Nasal stop onsets and oral voiced stop onsets occur in mutually exclusive environments, indicating complementary distribution. The glottal stop [ʔ] differs from the word-final codas [p, t, k] in that it is omitted when followed by another syllable and does not undergo gemination at the onset of a vowel-initial suffix, unlike [p, t, k]. Furthermore, [p, t, k] codas are underlyingly voiced, distinguishing them from nasal stop codas. This dichotomy between onset and coda stop consonants constitutes a salient feature of TSM’s phonological system.