Obstruents are devoiced word-finally. However, when the next word starts with a vowel and is pronounced without a pause, both voiced and voiceless word-final obstruents are realized as voiced.
is either alveolar or, more commonly, uvular - see below.
Word-initial is often realized as a plosive.
Realization of
According to, is realized as a voiced trill, either alveolar or uvular. Between vowels, it is sometimes realized with one contact , whereas word-finally, it can be devoiced to. According to, about two thirds of speakers have a uvular, whereas about one third has a categorical alveolar. There are also a few speakers who mix uvular and alveolar articulations. Among uvular articulations, he lists uvular trill, uvular fricative trill, uvular fricative and uvular approximant, which are used more or less equally often in all contexts. Almost all speakers with a uvular use all four of these realizations. Among alveolar articulations, he lists alveolar tap, voiced alveolar fricative, alveolar approximant, partially devoiced alveolar trill, voiceless alveolar trill, alveolar tapped or trilled fricative, voiceless alveolar tap and voiceless alveolar fricative. Among these, the tap is most common, whereas the taped/trilled fricative is the second most common realization. The partially devoiced alveolar trill occurred only once.
Vowels
There are also the nasal vowels, which occur only in French loanwords.
is near-front.
All of the back vowels are almost fully back. Among these, are rounded, whereas are unrounded.
* is a marginal vowel. Its occurrence is restricted to loanwords from standard Dutch and English.
have somewhat retracted first elements. In the case of, its first element is also somewhat raised. Because of that, it is best described as near-open advanced central.
* and occurs only in loanwords from French and interjections.
and have somewhat advanced first elements.
Before alveolar consonants, are realized as centering diphthongs. In the case of, this happens only before the sonorants, i.e. and the alveolar allophones of, with the triphthong being an alternative pronunciation. In the case of, the centering diphthong is used before all alveolar consonants, not just the sonorants. No triphthongal variants of have been reported.
occur only word-finally.
have somewhat lowered second elements.
There are also the sequences, which are better analyzed as sequences of and the approximant, rather than diphthongs. The sequences occur only word-finally.
