Urhobo is a Southwestern Edoid languageElugbe, B. O. 1989. Edoid: Phonology and Lexicon. Port Harcourt: University of Port Harcourt Press. spoken by the Urhobo people of southern Nigeria. It is spoken in Delta and Bayelsa States.
Phonology Urhobo has a rather reduced system of sound inventory compared to proto-Edoid. The inventory of Urhobo consists of seven vowels; which form two harmonic sets, and .Archangeli & Pulleyblank, 1994. Grounded phonology, p 181ff
It has a conservative consonant inventory for an Edoid language. It maintains three nasals, and only five oral consonants, , have nasal allophones before nasal vowels.
LabialLabiodentalAlveolarPost-alveolarPalatalVelarLabio-velarNasal () Plosive Fricative ( ) Trill Flap ( ɾ) Lateral ~ Approximant ( ) ( )
is interchangeable with only before nasal vowels. can be heard as before non-front vowels. Nasal consonants can have allophones of nasalized approximants as , , , . Approximants are heard as nasalized approximants before and after nasal vowels. Velar fricatives can vary from being heard as to lowered fricatives and approximants . can also be heard as a palatal fricative before . Rhotics may have different realizations as alveolar or retroflex, and can be articulated as approximants , or taps . A retroflex lateral flap can also be heard in syllable-final position.
According to Anthony Ukere, Urhobo has two tones, a high tone and a low tone. These can also combine to form rising and falling tones.Ukere, Anthony Obakpọnọvwẹ. 1986. Urhobo-English dictionary. Benin City: Ilupeju Press. Rose Aziza is a professor of linguistics who does work on the phonology of Urhobo.
Syntax Urhobo has the subject–verb–object (SVO) constituent word order as illustrated with the example below:
References
General references Frank Kügler, Caroline Féry, Ruben Van De Vijver (2009) Variation and Gradience in Phonetics and Phonology Okrokoto Ebireri. Ukoko re Ephere R'Urhobo