Phoneme Question

   (I keep having these sorts of questions...)

   Here we'll talk about a language that has 32 possible syllables,
phonetically.  There are basically 16 phonetic realizations of
consonants, and 8 phonetic vowels.

   I could analyze this as a language with only 2 vowels that have
allophones based on the preceding consonant, in which case there are 8
consonants, or I could describe this as a language with 8 vowels and
only 4 consonants, which have allophones based on the following vowel.
Which is it?  How can I tell?

   The syllables are as follows, orthographical first, then XSAMPA:

     "pa fa ma va - te se ne re - či ši ñi li - qu xu �?u wo"
     "pâ fâ mâ vâ - tê sê nê rê - tî šî nî rî - kû hû �?û wû"

     [pa fa ma Ba - te se ne 4e - cCi Si Ji Li - qu xu Nu wo]
     [p6 f6 m6 B6 - t@ s@ n@ 4@ - tI SI nI 4I - kU hU NU wU]

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