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The Hills Are Alive With The Sounds Of Lojban - The Lojban Reference Grammar
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<h3><a id="s6" name="s6">6. Consonant Clusters</h3>
<p>A consonant sound is a relatively brief speech-sound that
precedes or follows a vowel sound in a syllable; its presence
either preceding or following does not add to the count of
syllables, nor is a consonant required in either position for
any syllable. Lojban has seventeen consonants: for the purposes
of this section, the apostrophe is not counted as a
consonant.</p>
<p>An important distinction dividing Lojban consonants is that
of voicing. The following table shows the unvoiced consonants
and the corresponding voiced ones:</p>
<p></p>
<pre>
UNVOICED VOICED
p b
t d
k g
f v
c j
s z
x -
</pre>
<p>The consonant ``x'' has no voiced counterpart in Lojban. The
remaining consonants, ``l'', ``m'', ``n'', and ``r'', are
typically pronounced with voice, but can be pronounced
unvoiced.</p>
<p>Consonant sounds occur in languages as single consonants, or
as doubled, or as clustered combinations. Single consonant
sounds are isolated by word boundaries or by intervening vowel
sounds from other consonant sounds. Doubled consonant sounds
are either lengthened like <span class="c3">[s]</span> in
English ``hiss'', or repeated like <span class="c3">[k]</span>
in English ``backcourt''. Consonant clusters consist of two or
more single or doubled consonant sounds in a group, each of
which is different from its immediate neighbor. In Lojban,
doubled consonants are excluded altogether, and clusters are
limited to two or three members, except in Lojbanized
names.</p>
<p>Consonants can occur in three positions in words: initial
(at the beginning), medial (in the middle), and final (at the
end). In many languages, the sound of a consonant varies
depending upon its position in the word. In Lojban, as much as
possible, the sound of a consonant is unrelated to its
position. In particular, the common American English trait of
changing a ``t'' between vowels into a ``d'' or even a flap
(IPA <span class="c3">[ɾ]</span>) is unacceptable in
Lojban.</p>
<p>Lojban imposes no restrictions on the appearance of single
consonants in any valid consonant position; however, no
consonant (including syllabic consonants) occurs final in a
word except in Lojbanized names.</p>
<p>Pairs of consonants can also appear freely, with the
following restrictions:</p>
<dl>
<dt>1)</dt>
<dd>It is forbidden for both consonants to be the same, as
this would violate the rule against double consonants.</dd>
</dl>
<dl>
<dt>2)</dt>
<dd>It is forbidden for one consonant to be voiced and the
other unvoiced. The consonants ``l'', ``m'', ``n'', and ``r''
are exempt from this restriction. As a result, ``bf'' is
forbidden, and so is ``sd'', but both ``fl'' and ``vl'', and
both ``ls'' and ``lz'', are permitted.</dd>
<dt>3)</dt>
<dd>It is forbidden for both consonants to be drawn from the
set ``c'', ``j'', ``s'', ``z''.</dd>
<dt>4)</dt>
<dd>The specific pairs ``cx'', ``kx'', ``xc'', ``xk'', and
``mz'' are forbidden.</dd>
</dl>
These rules apply to all kinds of words, even Lojbanized names.
If a name would normally contain a forbidden consonant pair, a
``y'' can be inserted to break up the pair:
<pre>
<a id="e6d1" name="e6d1">6.1)</a> djeimyz.
<span class="c3">[dʒɛj məzʔ]</span>
James
</pre>
<p>The regular English pronunciation of ``James'', which is
<span class="c3">[dʒɛjmz]</span>, would Lojbanize as
``djeimz.'', which contains a forbidden consonant pair.</p>
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The Hills Are Alive With The Sounds Of Lojban
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The Lojban Reference Grammar
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Initial Consonant Pairs
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