Lele language (Chad)

Lele has five underlying vowels. The mid vowels are lower mid rather than higher mid. All vowels may have long variants.[2]

IPA Chart for Vowels of Lele

	Front	Central	Back
High	[i]		[u]
Mid	[e]		[o]
Low		[a]

There are some asymmetries in Lele's consonant inventory.

Lele consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labio-velar	Glottal
Nasal		[m]	[n]	[ɲ]	[ŋ]
Plosive	voiceless	[p]	[t]		[k]	[kp]
	voiced	[b]	[d]		[ɡ]	[ɡb]
	implosive	[ɓ]	[ɗ]
	prenasalized	[mb]	[nd]			[ŋb]
Fricative			[s]				[h]
Trill			[r]
Approximant	central	[w]		[j]
	lateral		[l]

Nouns are grammatically masculine or feminine, but there are no morphological markings of gender on the nouns.[2]^: 55 This distinction is only seen in the agreement system (covert gender). Only a subset of nouns are marked for plural: large animals, kinship terms and a few inanimate objects. Plurals nouns are marked in a variety of ways including a suffix /-e/ or /-we/ and an infix /-a-/.[2]^: 56 There are three nouns that have irregular plural forms: "woman", "hen" and "person".[2]^: 58

There is a grammatical distinction between alienable and inalienable possession in the noun phrase. In inalienable possession, a singular possessor is marked by a suffix on the noun indexing the possessor (possessor agreement suffix). In plural inalienable possession and all alienable, the possessor is indexed by a pronominal word following the noun.[2]^: 61

The tense-aspect-mood system includes four verbal forms labeled "past", "future", "nominal" and "imperative". The "past" form normally has a stem-final vowel /i/. The "future" and "nominal" forms both have a stem-final vowel /e/. They are distinguished from each other by a high tone on the first syllable of the "future" form. The imperative form normally has a stem-final vowel /a/ or /u/.[2]^: 44

Some verbs also have a plural form indicated by a suffix /-wi/ or a devoiced initial consonant. The plural form of the verb can indicate the plurality of an action, a plural intransitive subject, or a plural object.[2]^: 124 Verbs can also be modified by adverbs, including a class of ideophones,[2]^: 164 by a "ventive" marker (derived from the verb "come") following the verb, or an "inceptive" marker (derived from the verb "leave") preceding the verb.

The reference system makes a 10-way distinction. Gender is distinguished in second and third person singular pronouns. The first person non-singular pronouns include a dual inclusive form, a plural inclusive form, and a plural exclusive form. The plural inclusive form is a bimorphemic pronoun which combines the first person dual inclusive form with the second person plural form.[2]^: 100

In a pragmatically neutral sentence, nominal arguments occur in a SVO word order. However, third person subject pronouns usually follow the verb.