Kabye phonology

Long vowels
The long back unrounded vowels only occur at morpheme boundaries.

Tones
Kabiye is a tonal language, meaning that pitch differences are used to distinguish one word from another. These contrasts may be lexical (e.g. ɖálʋ́ elder brother ~ ɖálʋ̀ intestinal worm) or grammatical (e.g. ɛɛkɔŋ́ he isn't coming ~ ɛɛ́kɔŋ (when) he comes ~ ɛ́ɛkɔ́ŋ if he doesn't come).

There are two tones, High (H) and Low (L). Six tone melodies are possible on mono- and disyllabic nouns /H, L, HL, LH, HLH, LHL/ and three on the imperative form of the verb /H, L, HL/.

Kabiye also has automatic downstep, where a H following a L is always pronounced on a lower pitch than the preceding H within the same phonological phrase. Numerous tonal processes occur once words are placed in context.

The melody /HLH/ always surfaces as [H↓HH] ~ [HH↓H] (depending on the CV structure that it associates to). This is a postlexical process that occurs where ever the context permits, within words and across word boundaries.

There is lexical L tone spreading in the verb phrase and the associative noun phrase.

Vowel harmony
Kabiye has vowel harmony, meaning that the quality of the vowel in an affix is determined by that of the root vowel. There are two kinds:

1. ATR vowel harmony, in which words contain either the -ATR vowels /ɩ, ɛ, ʋ, ɔ, a/ (e.g. ɛ-ñɩmɩ́-yɛ his key) or the +ATR vowels /i, e, u, o, a/ (e-kalími-yé his chicken).

2. Lip rounding vowel harmony, in which some affixes contains either unrounded vowels /i, ɩ, e, ɛ/ or rounded vowels /u, ʋ, o, ɔ, a/. This process is much more limited, occurring in some TAM suffixes (e.g. è-kpéz-íɣ́ he coughs / è-ɖóz-ùù he dreams) and some adjectival prefixes (e.g. kɩ́-kpɛ̀d-ʋ̀ʋ́ black kʋ́-hʋ̀lʋ̀m-ʋ́ʋ̀ white).

A limited number of prefixes undergo both vowel harmony processes (e.g. the first person plural subject pronoun: pà-kàǹdà-á they prohibited, pà-kpàzá-à they coughed, pɛ̀-wɛ̀ɛ́tà-à they whispered, pà-ɖàzà-á they dreamt, pɔ̀-cɔ́nà-à they looked).