This article deals with current phonology and phonetics and with historical developments of the phonology of the Tagalog language, including variants.
Tagalog has allophones, so it is important here to distinguish phonemes (written in slashes / /) and corresponding allophones (written in brackets [ ]).
Stress and glottalization
Stress, coupled with glottalization, is a distinctive feature in Tagalog. Primary stress or the default position occurs on either the final or the penultimate syllable of a word. Vowel lengthening accompanies primary or secondary stress except when stress occurs at the end of a word.
Tagalog homonyms are often distinguished in meaning from one another by the position of the stress and presence of the glottal stop. In general, there are four types of phonetic emphases, which in formal or academic settings are indicated with a diacritic (tuldÃk) placed above the vowel. The penultimate primary stress position (malumay) is the assumed, default stress type and is therefore left unwritten except in dictionaries. Note that the name of each stress type has its corresponding diacritic in the final vowel.