Moré language (Bolivia)

Moré
Moré
Itene
Native to	Bolivia
Region	Beni Department
Native speakers	45 (2012–2020)
Language family	Chapacuran Moré languages Moré; ;
Dialects	Cojubím;
Official status
Official language in	Bolivia
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ite
Glottolog	iten1243
ELP	Itene
	Moré is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.

Moré (or Itene) is a Chapacuran language of Bolivia. Kuyubí is an extinct dialect of Moré. Itoreauhip has been classified variously as a dialect or an independent language.

Phonology

The language's phonology was described by Geralda Angenot de Lima in her 2002 doctoral thesis and in her 1997 masters dissertation (reproduced as a journal article in 2013) where she presented a reconstruction of Proto-Chapacura with analyses of all languages in the family; however, her analysis differs significantly across the two texts. The following information derives from her 2002 thesis.

Consonants

		Labial		Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
		plain	lab.	plain	pal.	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	voiced	m	mʷ	n			ɲ
	preglottal	ˀ͡ᵐ̥m	ˀ͡ᵐ̥ʷ̥mʷ	ˀ͡ⁿ̥n			ˀ͡ᶮ̥ɲ
	glottalized	mˀ͡ᵐ̥		nˀ͡ⁿ̥			ɲˀ͡ᶮ̥
Plosive	voiceless	p	pʷ̥	t	tʲ̥	t̠̻	(c)	k	ʔ
	preglottal	ˀ͡ᵖp	ˀ͡ᵖʷ̥pʷ̥	ˀ͡ᵗt	ˀ͡ᵗʲtʲ̥			ˀ͡ᵏk
	post-trilled			t𐞄̥
Fricative		β		s		ʒ̟			h
Approximant	plain	w					j		h
	preglottal	ˀ͡ʷ̥w					ˀ͡ʲ̥j
	glottalized	wˀ͡ʷ̥					jˀ͡ʲ̥

All plosives are realized as unreleased [C̚] word-finally.
/p/ is heard as [ɸ] in initial position before /u/.
/t/ can be heard as a tap [ɾ] between vowels.
/k/ is palatalized to [c] when following /i/, and as [cᶜ̧] when preceding /i/ in initial position.
/k/ and /ˀ͡ᵏk/ are heard as [kˣ] and [ˀ͡ᵏkˣ] when in initial position in free variation.
/tʲ̥/ and /ˀ͡ᵗʲtʲ̥/ are heard as post-fricativized [t̠ᶴ] and [ˀ͡ᵗt̠ᶴ] when in initial positions.
/ʒ̟/ is heard as a lateral [ɮ] in word-final position.
/w/ is heard as [β] when after /ɛ/.
/t/ and /s/ lose their phonemic contrast in the coda position, being neutralized to [t̚].

Vowels

	Front	Back
High	i	u
Mid	ɛ	ɔ
Low	a


Phoneme/Phone	Allophones	Rules
/i/ [i]	[ɪ̆]	/__$ˈ
	[ʉ̞̆]	_Cʷ_
	[ʉ]	ˈ_Cʷ_
	[iː]	/ˈC__$
	[i]	elsewhere
/ɛ/ [ɛ]	[ə̆]	/__$ˈ
	[ə]	/__C$
	[əː]	/ˈC__$
	[ɵ]	_Cʷ_
	[ɛ̆]	/__$ˈC
	[ɛː]	/ˈʔ__$
	[ɛ]	elsewhere
/a/ [a]	[ɐ̆]	/__$ˈ
	[aː]	/ˈC__$
	[a]	elsewhere
/ɔ/ [ɔ]	[ɔ̆]	/__$ˈ
	[ɔː]	/ˈC__$
	[ɔ]	elsewhere
/u/ [u]	[ʊ̆]	/__$ˈ
	[uː]	/ˈC__$
	[u]	elsewhere