Cacua is spoken along tributaries of the Vaupes
and Papuri rivers in the Vaupes region, Colombia. The
language is tonal with two levels. Cathcart (1979)
suggests that tonal distribution is better analyzed over a
"foot"; four patterns contrast, HL, HHL, LH, L. A foot is
usually one syllable, but may be up to 3 syllables. The
segments analyzed as nasals here appear as nasals before
or after a nasalized vowel, otherwise as prenasalized
stops in word-initial position and medially after a
nasalized vowel and /h, ?/, as prestopped nasals in final
position, and as voiced plosives in other medial
positions. Cathcart analyzes these segments as voiced
stops, but the nasality in marginal positions is better
accounted for if these are nasals which denasalize
adjacent to an oral vowel (or consonant in medial
environments).

Anderton, A. 1989. The Sounds of Cacua, based on data
collected by the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Ms.,
UCLA.

Cathcart, M. 1979. Fonologia del Cacua. Sistemos
Fonologicos de Idiomas Colombianos. Summer Institute of
Linguistics: Loma Linda, Colombia.