410 2.21.2. Notes
Vowels Front
Central Back
unrd unrd
unrd rd
Close h
[ X]
[ L] 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 8
Pitch value 44 31 42 34 24 45 24
2.21.2. Notes
•
What was transcribed as [ fc] and [fa] is sometimes actually [d] and [b]. The sounds were
suspect and put on Cecil. Some of the words had no glottalization and some had infrequent or variable glottalization.
•
[ph] occurs on six items: four items with tone values of 41 or 42, sharp falling tone. There is a minimal pair for [p] and [ph].
[th] occurs on 10 items: seven with tone values of 41 or 42. [t] also occurs on four items with a 42 tone. See
minimal pair for [t] and [th].
[tsh] occurs on two items. See minimal pair
between [ts] and [tsh]. [kh] only occurs on items with 41 and 42 tones and there are no items with initial [k] that have
this tone. Therefore, [kh] is in complimentary distribution with [k]. However, since aspiration is definitely phonemic on each of the other voiceless stops, we include [kh] as a phoneme.
More data is needed to validate this analysis.
•
[ sb] occurs a number of times—all before high vowels, with one exception: 42 ‘board’
[ v`:h31 sb`j24].
[ts] occurs numerous times: only once before a high vowel, [u]. This indicates that [ sb] is an
allophone of [ts]. See rule
. Also see minimal pair
between [t] and [ts].
•
[f] and [v] act phonemically distinct. Though these two phones are in near complementary distribution tonally, each is still considered phonemic. See
minimal pair .
•
[v] and [w] act as allophones, though they do not occur in complementary distribution. Rather, the speaker most often uttered a sound somewhere in between [v] and [w]; sometimes sounding
more like [v] and sometimes sounding more like [w]. As seen in 171 ‘CLASSIFIER knife’ [
u`24 or v`24], these two sounds have no phonemic distinction. Therefore, we view [w] as an allophone of [v].
•
[ Y] and [z] are allophones, as [Y] occurs before rounded vowels, with only two exceptions. The
phone uttered by the speaker sometimes fell somewhere in between the two sounds, but the tendency is reflected in the
allophonic rule given below.
2. Phonology of data points 411
•
[ b] always occurs before [i] and [s] occurs before [i] only once. This indicates [b] is an
allophone of [s]. See rule
below. [
K] is also phonemic. See minimal pair
between [s] and [ K] below.
•
[ F] occurs only twice and [G] occurs on 11 items. These two sounds are allophonic
variations—the amount of fricativeness varying. [h] only occurs twice and [x] occurs a number of times. These two phones are in a similar
situation. The phonemes are taken to be G and x.
•
[l] and [ K] are both phonemic. See
minimal pair .
•
[ ¯] only occurs five times: four times before [i]. There is a minimal pair with [n] and [¯] occurs
on items with a ¯ initial proto-form. Therefore, [¯] is treated as phonemic.
•
[pj] only occurs once and [p] occurs before [i] five times. Although some [pi_] words have pj__ proto-forms, it seems that palatalization is being lost in this lect. For the words
transcribed as [pi_], the [i] sound is more vowel-like than palatalized. [pj] is not considered phonemic for this lect.
[
fi] occurs on seven morphemes and [fh] also occurs a number of times. [
fi] is phonemic, even though [pj] is not. See minimal pair
.
•
[w] and [v] are most often pronounced in a similar manner—sometimes as [wv]. The degree of fricativeness varies for lexical items beginning with this phone.
[w] is considered an allophonic variation of v.
•
The status of [ Mv] is unclear. It occurs only once, on the classifier for 76 ‘horn’ [Mv`m24
j`:t33], and [Mt_] only occurs once. It is not treated as a separate phoneme here. [kw] occurs on nine morphemes and [ku] only occurs as an open syllable.
[kw] is in complementary distribution with [k], but the labialization is quite strong. For this reason, [kw] is treated as a separate phoneme.
•
[a], [a:], and [ ] are contrastive. See
minimal pairs .
[ ?] is also contrastive with [a] and []. See
minimal pairs .
•
[e] and [ D] are allophonic variations of one phoneme.
[ D] occurs many more times than [e]. This sound occurs anywhere in the vowel space between
[e] and [ D] and it is often difficult to distinguish. In the following two items, both sounds can
occur on the same morpheme: 294 ‘to open door’ [ wD22], 295 ‘to open mouth’ [wd22].
[e] is treated as a variation of [ D].
•
[ H] occurs on five morphemes always before a final stop and [i] occurs before a final stop
five times. See rule
below.
•
[ B] occurs only once and is considered a variation of [o].
•
[u] and [ T] are not contrastive, though minimal pairs can be found.
[ T] occurs on seven items, but the degree of dissimilarity between it and [u] is very slight.
•
[ =:], [X], and [L] only occur on one morpheme each. All these sounds are considered variations
of [ =].
412 2.21.3. Minimal pairs
