Petrean
Vowels:
French has nasal vowels (e.g., /ɑ̃/, /ɛ̃/, /œ̃/, /ɔ̃/), which are pronounced with air passing through the nose.
French has both oral vowels (like /i/, /a/, /o/) and nasal vowels.
The language has front rounded vowels (like /y/, /ø/) not present in Spanish or Portuguese.
Vowel length is not phonemic (i.e., length does not change meaning), but stress can affect vowel quality.
Consonants:
French features voiceless and voiced plosives (e.g., /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/).
It also has palatalized consonants like /ʃ/ (sh) and /ʒ/ (zh), which are common in words like chiffre and journal.
Liaisons occur, where final consonants are pronounced if followed by a vowel (e.g., vous avez [vu.za.ve]).
Stress and Intonation:
Stress is usually on the final syllable of a word in French.
Intonation tends to be melodic and often rises at the end of yes/no questions.
Consonants:
Stops: Mandarin has voiceless stops /p, t, k/ and voiced stops /b, d, g/. It also includes aspirated stops such as /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/ (aspirated voiceless stops).
Affricates: /ts, tʃ/ (voiceless), and their voiced counterparts /dz, dʒ/.
Fricatives: Mandarin has the voiceless fricatives /f, s, ʃ, x/ (like "sh"), and the voiced fricatives /v, z/ (more common in loanwords).
Nasals: /m, n, ŋ/ (nasals).
Liquids: /l/ (light "l") and /ɻ/ (retroflex "r," pronounced like "r" but with a retroflex articulation).
Glides: /w, j/ (semi-vowels).
Vowels:
Mandarin has a relatively simple vowel system with a distinction between short and long vowels:
Monophthongs: /i, u, y, e, a, o, ɛ, ə/
Diphthongs: /ai, ei, ao, ou, iə, ua/ (common in many Mandarin dialects).
Tone: Mandarin is a tonal language, with four primary tones:
High level (1st tone) [˥]
Rising tone (2nd tone) [˧˥]
Falling tone (3rd tone) [˨˩˦]
Falling-rising tone (4th tone) [˥˩]
Additionally, there is a neutral tone that is short and unstressed, sometimes referred to as the "light" tone.
Phonotactics: Mandarin syllables typically follow a (C)V(C) structure, where C represents consonants and V represents vowels. Mandarin allows relatively simple consonant clusters, primarily at the beginning of the syllable.
Stress: Mandarin has a non-stress-timed rhythm, where tone plays a more crucial role than stress. Stress is generally on the first syllable in compound words or multi-syllable words.
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