Chapter 2 Phonology
This chapter presents the basic sound system of Madurese. Section 1 outlines
the segmental inventory and the phonetic realization of consonants and vowels.
Section 2 describes some of the regular sound correspondences that are found
between Madurese and its two closest relatives, Indonesian and Javanese. Sec-
tion 3 describes some phonotactic constraints on syllable structure. Section 4
again takes up the vowel inventory, specifically providing evidence for the pho-
nemic inventory, describing the distribution of vowels and the conditioning en-
vironment for the system of alternating vowels. Section 5 presents the major
phonological processes and section 6 the morpho-phonological processes. Sec-
tion 7 includes a brief note on stress. Section 8 discusses orthography and
presents the spelling system that will be used in the chapters that follow.
1. Basic inventory and description of sounds
1.1 Consonants
The basic inventory of Madurese consonants is given in the chart on the fol-
lowing page.
Notable in the consonantal inventory is the set of stops in Madurese.
Leaving aside the glottal stop, there are five places of articulation for oral stops.
Of the languages most closely related to Madurese, this is true only of Javanese,
which has stops at the same places of articulation. It is not true of Indonesian,
Balinese, or Sundanese. Additionally, there is a three-way contrast in phonation
at each of the five places of articulation. The most-closely related languages,
including Javanese, have only a two-way contrast in the series of stops, either
voiceless unaspirated and voiced or voiceless unaspirated and breathy, a type
not present in Madurese.