Chinantec of Ojitlán

There are only a few monomorphemic words that display contrastive vowel length, so this Chinantecan feature may be being lost from Ojitlán.

/i e o/ are freely realized as [ɪ ɛ ɔ]. /a/ is occasionally [æ].

/ɯ/ and /ɤ/ are difficult to distinguish, but there are a few minimal pairs.

Each vowel can be nasalized:

/ẽ/ and /ũ/ are rare.

/p/ is uncommon.

Some consonants are nearly in complementary distribution:

• /ɡ/ only occurs before /i/, whereas /k/ rarely occurs before /i/. Post-pausa /ɡ/ may be realized as [ŋg] or [ɣ], whereas intervocalic /ɡ/ is nearly always [ɣ].
• /tʃ/ occurs before front vowels and /a/, whereas /ts/ occurs before back vowels and /a/.

/r/ is occasionally a single-contract trill, and post-pausa may be [nr].

/l/ is apical alveolar.

/ŋ/ and /ŋ̊/ are [ɲ, ɲ̊] before /i/.

The voiceless sonorants are analyzed as /hC/ sequences in other Chinantecan languages, and in addition there is a series of /ʔC/ sequences /ʔm, ʔŋ, ʔw, ʔj/ in Ojitlán. The Ojitlán retroflex lateral corresponds to /ʔl/ in other Chinantec, and that is perhaps how it should be analized in Ojitlán as well.

Syllables may be unstressed or have normal stress. Normal stress involves increased length and amplitude of the vowel. What was historically ballistic stress is realized in Ojitlán as extra-high and extra-low tones (from ballistic high and ballistic falling, respectively), and tend to involve aspiration of the consonant, breathiness of the vowel and a sharp falling pitch but not the other correlates of Chinantecan ballistic syllables. There are also a number of phonemic (as opposed to just phonetic) contour tones, though the number had not been established as of Macaulay (1999).