Semelai language

Semelai has 32 consonants and 20 vowels.^[3]

• Stops /p t c k/ are heard as [p̚ t̚ c̚ k̚] word-final position.
• Palatal sounds /c ɟ/ are slightly affricated as [cᶝ ɟᶽ] when in word-initial position.
• /s/ may occur as [s] or [ɕ] within free variation.
• Nasals /m n ɲ ŋ/ can occur as prestopped [ᵇm ᵈn ᶡɲ ᶢŋ] when in word-final position.
• /r/ can be heard as [ɾ] when in word-final position. When preceded by a nasal /n/ it is heard as [ᵈr].
• /w, j/ are heard as off-glides [ʷ, ʲ] when in word-final position. After nasal vowels, they are then heard as nasalized [ʷ̃, ʲ̃].

Vowels are also distinguished with nasal counterparts:

• /ɒ/ is phonetically noted as [ɒ̙].
• /i/ can be heard as [ɪ] in closed syllables
• /ə/ can be heard as [ʌ] in stressed word-final syllables

Semelai has many inchoative verbs such as rmɔl "to be male", hitam "be black", which at the first glance may hint a flexible language like nearby Austronesian languages. However, the vast majority of Semelai lemmas can be identified unproblematically to a particular word category. Verbs and nouns must undergo derivation via infixation or prefixation in order to function as other lexical categories, eg. rlmɔl "male" → rmɔl "to be male", yɔk "take" → nk-yɔk "taking INF". Loan words from Malay and Austronesian are mostly precategorial, eg. tuŋkɒt "a stick, to prop up".^[4] The language recognizes several distinct parts of speech that are morphologically and syntactically distinguished: the superclass nominal (which includes nouns as an open word class); verb; expressive; preposition; adverb; auxiliary; existential and ascriptive predicators; negator; connective; interjection.^[5]