274 2.14.2. Notes
Vowels Front
Central Back
unrd unrd
rd
Close h X
t
Near-close [
H] [
T]
Close-mid n
Mid [
=]
Open-mid D
B
Near-open Open
`, `:
Tones Category
1 2 3 4 5 6 7, 9 8 10
Pitch value 24 31 33 41 35 343 35 31 343
2.14.2. Notes
•
[ts] does not occur as often as [ sb], but these two sounds distinct phonemically. They occur
before a wide variety of vowels. See minimal pairs
. [
sbg] only occurs once and there is no other aspiration in this word list, so it is regarded as phonetic only.
•
[v] occurs a number of times and can only be regarded as phonemic.
•
[ S] and [p] occur numerous times and [s] occurs twice.
[ b] occurs on four lexical items occurring only before [i] and oddly, only on items toward the
end of the list. [
y[] occurs once and [Y] occurs three times: twice before [u] + V. [s] and [
y[] are phonetic variations of [S] and [p], respectively, and are not regarded as phonemic.
[ p] occurs a few times before [u] + V. The point of articulation is rather far apart between [p]
and [ Y], and [Y] does occur once before [] in 11 ‘mist, fog’ [Yl3 ltn4]. Although [b] only
occurs a few times toward the end of the list, it is quite distinct from [ S]. The phonemic status
of these sounds is no doubt in flux, but they are considered phonemic for this analysis.
•
[x] only occurs once, in a loan word. [
F] occurs a number of times and is clearly phonemic.
•
[ ¯] mainly occurs before high front vowels, though it does occur before [X] and [].
[n] also occurs a few times before high front vowels and [ ¯] is considered phonemic. See
minimal pairs .
•
[w] occurs several times, though not as much as [v]. The two sounds are distinct and there was not much blending of the two phones. Both sounds are regarded as phonemic. See
minimal pairs
.
2. Phonology of data points 275
•
[ G] only occurred on eight items and seems to be in low frequency free variation with [F]. The
phones transcribed as [ F] and [G] act as the same phoneme, with varying degrees of
fricativeness. Notice 408 ‘white’ [ F`:t0] and 51 ‘paddy rice’ [G`:t3 G`:t0] [G`:t0] here
mean ‘white’.
•
[pj] occurs on six lexical items and [pi] + V occurs a number of times as well. All the occurrences of [pj] were on items with proto-initial phlpl, except for number 117 ‘forehead’.
Three of the [pi] + V occurrences were on items with this proto-initial. It is difficult to determine whether palatalization is phonemic here or not, since it is sometimes in variation
with [pi]. For this analysis, it is taken to be phonemic.
•
[kj] is phonemic here, even though it is in complete complementary distribution with [ki]. ki
→ [kj]__V → [ki]elsewhere
However, [kj] occurs a number of times, and on many items that in other lects have a [ sb]
initial. It seems to be palatalized in a tightly bound way. For these reasons, [kj] should be considered phonemic for this lect.
•
[kw] occurs on 11 items, in complementary distribution with [ku]. ku
→ [kw]__= → [ku]elsewhere
However, the labialization is quite distinct on these sounds, and [kw] seems to form an initial unit. For this reason it will be considered phonemic.
•
[ pv] occurs on four items and [pt] + V occurs on four items. The labialization is not strong,
and it is considered to be a variation of [ pt].
•
There is only one occurrence of [ Mv] and one occurrence of [Mt] + V. The labialized phone
occurs on 15 ‘day’, which has the proto-form Mv=m1, the only occurrence of this proto-initial
in the list. For this analysis, [ Mv] is included as phonemic.
•
[ fi] occurs on eight lexical items and [fh] + V occurs two times. Though [fi] could be
considered to be a variation of [ fh], the palatalized occurrences are rather distinct. For this
reason, [ fi] is considered phonemic.
•
[a:], [a], and [ ] are all contrastive. See
minimal pair sets.
•
[ H] is a phonetic variation of [i], that occurs in the environment __=C, while [i] also
occurs in this environment several times.
•
[ T] is a phonetic variation of [u], occurring in the environment __C, and [u] also occurs in this
environment.
•
[ B] occurs on six lexical items, all in the environment __C.
[o] occurs numerous times and also in this environment. However, the vowel quality of [ B] is
quite distinct from [ n], being a good bit more open. Therefore, it is considered phonemic along
with [o].
•
[ X] occurs a number of times, all in the environments __, or __=C.
[ =] only occurs in the first environment on classifiers occurring before their head nouns. On
276 2.14.3. Minimal pairs
