Lillooet phonology

Consonants
St'at'imcets has 44 consonants:


 * Obstruents consist of the stops, affricates, and fricatives. There are 22 obstruents.
 * Sonorants consist of the nasals and approximants. There are 22 sonorants.
 * Glottalized stops are pronounced as ejective consonants. Glottalized sonorants are pronounced with creaky voice: =.
 * The glottalized consonants of St'at'imcets contrast not only with plain consonants, but also with sequences of plain consonant + glottal stop, or glottalized consonant + glottal stop, in either order. This holds for both the obstruents and the sonorants: ≠  ≠  ≠  ≠  ≠  and  ≠  ≠  ≠  ≠  ≠.
 * The dental approximants are pronounced alternatively as interdental fricatives  or as dental fricatives, depending on the dialect of St'at'imcets.
 * There are four pairs of retracted and nonretracted consonants (which alternate morphophonemically). Retraction on consonants is essentially velarization, although additionally, nonretracted is phonetically laminal  whereas retracted  is apical . (Note also that St'at'imcets has retracted-nonretracted vowel pairs.)
 * Among the post-velar consonants, the obstruents are all uvular whereas the approximants  are all pharyngeal.
 * Among the post-velar consonants, the obstruents are all uvular whereas the approximants  are all pharyngeal.
 * Among the post-velar consonants, the obstruents are all uvular whereas the approximants  are all pharyngeal.
 * Among the post-velar consonants, the obstruents are all uvular whereas the approximants  are all pharyngeal.
 * Among the post-velar consonants, the obstruents are all uvular whereas the approximants  are all pharyngeal.

Vowels
St'at'imcets has 8 vowels:


 * The phonetic realization of the phonemes are indicated in brackets to the right.
 * All retracted vowels are indicated by a line under the vowel. These retracted vowels alternate morphophonemically. (Note that St'at'imcets also has retracted consonants.)
 * The non-retracted vowel /a/ ranges from . Because retracted and non-retracted  can both pronounced, there is often phonetic overlap.

Phonological processes

 * epenthetic.

Post-velar Harmony (retraction):


 * Within roots, there is a restriction that all consonant and vowel retracted-nonretracted pairs must be of the same type. That is, a root may not contain both a retracted and a nonretracted vowel or consonant.  This is a type of Retraced Tongue Root harmony (also called pharyngeal harmony) involving both vowels and consonants that is an areal feature of this region of North America, shared by other Interior Salishan and non-Salishan languages (for example see Chilcotin vowel flattening).


 * In addition to the root harmony restriction, some suffixes harmonize with the root to which they are attached. For instance, the inchoative suffix -wil’c:


 * {| class="IPA wikitable"


 * ama "good"
 * /ʔáma/
 * + /-wélʼx/
 *  "to get better"
 *  "bad"
 *  "to get spoiled"
 * }
 *  "bad"
 *  "to get spoiled"
 * }
 *  "to get spoiled"
 * }
 *  "to get spoiled"
 * }
 * }