/ɖɦoːkɐː/ ḍhōkā 'danger', and /ʂoːku/ ṣōku 'fashionable appearance'. The approximant /j/ occurs in word-initial position only in borrowed words, such as. /jɐnɡu/ yangu, from English 'young', /jɐʃɐsːu/ yaśassu from Sanskrit yaśas /jɑʃɑs/ 'fame'. Vowels Vowels in Telugu contrast in length; there are short and long versions of all vowels except for /æ/, which only occurs as long. Long vowels can occur in any position within the word, but native Telugu words do not end in a long vowel. Short vowels occur in all positions of a word, with the exception of /o/, which does not occur word-finally. The vowels of Telugu are illustrated below, along with the Telugu script and romanization. Allophones In most dialects, the vowel only occurs in loan words. In the Guntur dialect, is a frequent allophone of in certain verbs in the past tense. Telugu has two diphthongs: ఐ ai and ఔ au. Roots alter according to whether the first vowel is tense or lax. Also, if the second vowel is open (i.e., or ), then the first vowel is more open and centralized (e.g., 'goat', as opposed to 'nail'). Telugu words also have vowels in inflectional suffixes that are harmonized with the vowels of the preceding syllable. Grammar The traditional study of Telugu Grammar is known as vyākaraṇam (వ్యాకరణం). The first treatise on Telugu grammar, the Āndhra Śabda Cinṭāmaṇi, was written in Sanskrit by Nannayya, considered the first Telugu poet and translator, in the 12th century CE. This grammar followed patterns described in grammatical treatises such as Aṣṭādhyāyī and Vālmīkivyākaranam, but unlike Pāṇini, Nannayya divided his work into five chapters, covering samjnā, sandhi, ajanta, halanta and kriya. Every Telugu grammatical rule is derived from Pāṇinian concepts. In the 19th century, Chinnaya Suri wrote a condensed work on Telugu grammar called Bāla Vyākaraṇam, borrowing concepts and ideas from Nannayya's grammar. Morphosyntax Relations between participants in an event are coded in Telugu words through suffixation; there are no prefixes or infixes in the language. There are six word classes in Telugu: nominals (proper nouns, pronouns), verbs (actions or events), modifiers (adjectives, quantifiers, numerals), adverbs (modify the way in which actions or events unfold), and clitics. Telugu nouns are inflected for number (singular, plural), noun class (three classes traditionally termed masculine, feminine, and neuter) and case (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, vocative, instrumental, and locative). Word order The basic word order in Telugu is subject-object-verb (SOV). The example above