Its place of articulation before glottal consonants, vowels or pause is unclear, if it occurs in these environments at all.
Highland Chontal has an inventory of five vowels, an arrangement similar to Spanish and many other world languages: The distinction between /e/ and /a/ is neutralized before /j/.
[4] The structure for highland Chontal is formatted but, not limited to: Verb-Subject-Object or VSO, another order is SVO.
The order for certain words like adjectives and nouns can change, the examples below can be used for reference:[5] la-pin-jla1S.OBJ-give-NM.IMPijleDEMl-ipaLIM-floweralfujka,whiteiya1Ska-pina-m-u1S.NPAST-give-FUT-2S.OBJlumshaliredk-ipaLIM-flowerla-pin-jla ijle l-ipa alfujka, iya ka-pina-m-u lumshali k-ipa1S.OBJ-give-NM.IMP DEM LIM-flower white 1S 1S.NPAST-give-FUT-2S.OBJ red LIM-flower‘Give me the white flower and I will give you the red flower.’[5] Identifying a singular person object in a sentence is marked by a suffix, plural objects in sentences are always suffixes.
[6] The table shows the changes in the paradigm of /inu/ (run) when appended to the particle /l/ (when).with yes/no are used by rising the pitch of speech in speaking.
[clarification needed] Examples:[5] inuhotgal-tejua?LIM-foodinu gal-tejua?hot LIM-food‘Is the food hot?’o-tsewoh-ma2S-go-IMPFal-plaza?LIM-plazao-tsewoh-ma al-plaza?2S-go-IMPF LIM-plaza‘Did you go to the plaza?’o-shim-pa2S-see-PASTjiwaaheadjl-unga?LIM-fireo-shim-pa jiwa jl-unga?2S-see-PAST ahead LIM-fire‘Did you see the fire up ahead?’[5] Highland Chontal contains three main interrogative particles for inquiring more information, the particles are: be- ‘where’, nai- ‘who’, and te ‘what’[5] nai-li-shim-p-owho-3P.PAST-see-PAST-2S.OBJnai-li-shim-p-owho-3P.PAST-see-PAST-2S.OBJ‘Who saw you?’nai-ko-shim-pa?who-2S.PAST-see-PASTnai-ko-shim-pa?who-2S.PAST-see-PAST‘Who did you see?’te-ko-na-juohmawhat-2S.PAST-buy-RCT.PASTte-ko-na-juohmawhat-2S.PAST-buy-RCT.PAST‘What did you buy?’be-go-pahawhere-2S.PAST-bebe-go-pahawhere-2S.PAST-be‘Where are you?’[5] LIM:limiter RCT:recent IMPF:imperfective