Phonology
All dialects of Ojibwe generally have an inventory of seventeen consonants. Most dialects have the segment glottal stop /ʔ/ in their inventory of consonant phonemes; Severn Ojibwe and the Algonquin dialect have /h/ in its place. Some dialects have both segments phonetically, but only one is present in phonological representations. The Ottawa and Southwestern Ojibwe (Chippewa) have /h/ in a small number of affective vocabulary items in addition to regular /ʔ/. Some dialects may have otherwise non-occurring sounds such as /f, l, r/ in loanwords.
Obstruent consonants are divided into lenis and fortis sets, with these features having varying phonological analyses and phonetic realizations cross-dialectally. In some dialects, such as Severn Ojibwe, members of the fortis set are realized as a sequence of /h/ followed by a single segment drawn from the set of lenis consonants: /p t k tʃ s ʃ/. Algonquin Ojibwe is reported as distinguishing fortis and lenis consonants on the basis of voicing, with fortis being voiceless and lenis being voiced. In other dialects fortis consonants are realized as having greater duration than the corresponding lenis consonant, invariably voiceless, ‘vigorously articulated,’ and aspirated in certain environments. In some practical orthographies such as the widely used Double Vowel system, fortis consonants are written with voiceless symbols: p, t, k, ch, s, sh.
Lenis consonants have normal duration; are typically voiced intervocalically, although they may be devoiced at the end or beginning of a word; are less vigorously articulated than fortis consonants; and are invariably unaspirated. In the Double Vowel practical orthography, lenis consonants are written with voiced symbols: b, d, g, j, z, zh.
All dialects of Ojibwe have two nasal consonants /m/ and /n/; one labialized velar approximant /w/; one palatal approximant /j/; and one of glottal stop /ʔ/ or /h/.
All dialects of Ojibwe have seven oral vowels. Vowel length is phonologically contrastive, hence phonemic. Although the long and short vowels are phonetically distinguished by vowel quality, recognition of vowel length in phonological representations is required, as the distinction between long and short vowels is essential for the operation of the metrical rule of vowel syncope that characterizes the Ottawa and Eastern Ojibwe dialects, as well as for the rules that determine word stress. There are three short vowels, /i a o/; and three corresponding long vowels, /iː aː oː/, in addition to a fourth long vowel /eː/, which lacks a corresponding short vowel. The short vowel /i/ typically has phonetic values centring on ; /a/ typically has values centring on ~; and /o/ typically has values centring on ~. Long /oː/ is pronounced for many speakers, and /eː/ is for many .
Ojibwe has nasal vowels; some arise predictably by rule in all analyses, and other long nasal vowels are of uncertain phonological status. The latter have been analysed both as underlying phonemes, and also as predictable, that is derived by the operation of phonological rules from sequences of a long vowel followed by /n/ and another segment, typically /j/.
Placement of word stress is determined by metrical rules that define a characteristic iambic metrical Foot, in which a Weak syllable is followed by a Strong syllable. A Foot consists of a minimum of one syllable, and a maximum of two syllables, with each Foot containing a maximum of one Strong syllable. The structure of the metrical Foot defines the domain for relative prominence, in which a Strong syllable is assigned stress because it is more prominent than the weak member of the Foot. Typically, the Strong syllable in the antepenultimate Foot is assigned the primary stress. Strong syllables that do not receive main stress are assigned at least secondary stress. In some dialects, metrically Weak (unstressed) vowels at the beginning of a word are frequently lost; in the Ottawa and Eastern Ojibwe dialects all metrically Weak vowels are deleted.
Read more about this topic: Ojibwe Language