2. Phonology of data points 39
2.2. Anshun Huangla 2.2.1. Phone and phoneme inventory
Initial consonants BiLab
LaDe InDe
Alv AlPal
Pal Vel Glo
Plos
vl o, [oi]
s j, jv f, fi, [fv]
PreGlo fa fc
Aff vl
sr, srg
sb, sbg
Fric vl
S [
b] [
w] vd
u p
[ y]
F [G]
Nas vd
l m ¯
M, Mv
Lat vd
k
App vd
v i
Final consonants
o, s, j, f, l, m, M
Vowels Front
Central Back
unrd unrd
rd
Close h
t
Near-close [
H] [
T]
Close-mid
[ d]
n
Mid
=
Open-mid D
[ B]
Near-open
?, [?:]
Open `, `:
Tones Category
1 2 3 4 5 6 7, 9
8, 10
Pitch value 13 31 44 42 24 33 24 33
2.2.2. Notes
•
[ sb] occurs several times before high vowels, as well as before [a], [D], and [=].
[ sr] occurs six times before [u]. This shows that these two phones are not in complementary
distribution, though [ts] never occurs before [i] and [ sb] occurs before [i] a number of times.
See minimal pair
.
40 2.2.2. Notes
•
[tsh] occurs four times and [ sbg] occurs once. Aspiration is considered phonemic, though its
occurrence is rare.
•
[v] and [w] are both phonemic. See minimal pair
.
•
[ S] and [p] both occur numerous times in varied environments.
•
[z] occurs only twice and is considered an allophonic variation of [ p].
[ b] occurs four times: all before [i]. The closest corresponding voiceless phone with regard to
phonetic features is [ S].
[ S] occurs before [i] twice and there is a minimal pair between [S] and [b]. The phonemic
status of [ b] is ambiguous, so is not listed here among the phonemes.
•
[ F] occurs numerous times.
[ G] only occurs once and is considered an allophonic variation of [F].
•
[x] only occurs on two morphemes. It is considered an allophonic variation of [ F].
•
Palatalization is difficult to assess for this lect. [pj] only occurs once, so is not considered phonemic.
[p] occurs a number of times before [i] and those syllables all have the form [pi_] rather than [pj_].
[
fi] occurs a number of times and [fh_] only occurs once. Even though [pj] is not considered a phoneme, [
fi] is considered phonemic.
•
Labialization is also difficult to assess. [kw] is definitely phonemic, as it occurs numerous times, and [ku_] occurs three times.
[ fv] occurs two times and [ft_] occurs four times.
[ Mv] occurs two times and [Mt-] never occurs. The three occurrences of [ku_] could be
considered variations of [kw]. [
fv] should probably be counted as a variation of [ft_], so is not considered phonemic. The [
Mv] initial, although only occurring two times, cannot be viewed as an allophone of any other phoneme, so should be considered phonemic since the labialization is quite distinct and [
M] as an initial only occurs eight times and never before [u].
•
[ ¯] occurs on eight words: six times before [i] and one time each before [u] and [e].
[n] occurs two times before [i]: both on the morpheme for 471 ‘this’ [ mhDh31]. It never occurs
before other high vowels. On the [ ¯] items, six have ¯-, one has n-, and the proto-form for
one is unknown. This indicates that [ ¯] may be phonemic, even though an allophonic rule can
be written, making [ ¯] an allophone of [n]. We treat [¯] as a separate phoneme, though further
analysis would be needed to confirm this.
2. Phonology of data points 41
•
[a] and [a:] are both phonemic. [a:] occurs numerous times—many more times than a lot of the other analyzed word lists. See
minimal pair .
[ ] occurs a number of times in varying environments and has a vowel quality definitely
different from [a] and [ ?]. See
minimal pair for [a] and [
].
2
[ ?] also seems to be phonemic. The vowel quality again is generally distinct, although it tends
to occur over a fairly wide part of the vowel space in that area, hence the transcription of vowel raising and lowering diacritics on many of the items of this lect in the data. It occurs numerous
times and there are minimal pairs. It is difficult to find a good minimal pair between [ ?] and
[ ], however, they both occur in varied environments and do seem to be contrastive.
[ ?:] occurs twice, but is not considered phonemic. The [?] vowel sound is somewhat long as
compared to [ ] and [a], though in general not quite as long as [a:].
•
[ H] only occurs once: on 29 ‘gold’ [sbH=l12]. It is considered a free allophonic variation of
[i].
•
[ D] occurs a number of times, but [e] only occurs three times.
[e] is considered a variation of [ D]. The quality of this phoneme ranges from [D] to [e],
generally occurring lax and lower in the vowel space.
•
[ B] occurs three times and is considered a free allophonic variation of [o].
•
[ T] occurs on six morphemes and is considered a variation of [u]. It only occurs in the
environment C =C[+stop or +nasal]. However, [u] also occurs a number of times in this
environment, as well as other environments.
•
[ =] occurs numerous times in all environments.
2.2.3. Minimal pairs
