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the reason why the final voiced stops of English are potentially troublesome for an Indonesian learning English phonology.
Baradja’s assertion that the position of a phoneme in a word makes a difference is certainly very relevant to the present study of English and Nataia
phonology. As Oko Utu text emphatically reveals, Nataia is a specific vocalic language in which every one of its syllables always ends in a vowel phoneme.
Theoretically, therefore, Nataia speakers learning English phonology may find it difficult to pronounce English consonant sounds which occupy the final position
of a word. It is to be noted that there are contributions from two other linguists, P.
Moore 1980 and S. Djawanai 1983, that should also be highly appreciated. Moore wrote Ngadh’a Phonology, a paper that he submitted to the Second
Eastern Conference on Austronesian Languages. Djawanai wrote A Ngadha Text Tradition: The Collective Mind of the Ngadha People, Flores in which Ngadha
phonology receives ample discussion. The descriptions by the two language scholars, especially by Djawanai who is a native speaker of Ngadha,
have certainly shed illuminating light on the present study. The reason is that Nataia is a member of the Ngadha-Lio language grouping. Thus, a
good phonetic and phonological description on one select sample of the group such as Ngadha practically amounts to a revelation of the whole group. This
statement is in no way an exaggeration. The present writer has to openly admit that the findings of this work are in many wa ys similar to those of
Djawanai’s. Perhaps, the main difference lies only in the number of consonant phonemes of Ngadha and that of Nataia. To the list of phonemes
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of Ngadha provided by Djawanai, the present writer adds two unique consonant phonemes of Nataia, namely t h e alveolar fricative ř and t h e v elar
implosive ğ. Additionally, unlike Djawanai who writes Ngadha phonology as an end in itself, the present writer provides Nataia phonology in contrast
with that of English in an effort to help Nataia speakers improve their English pronunciations.
2.3 Theoretical Framework
In an effort to answer the first research question i.e., “What are the vowel and consonant phonemes found in Nataia?”, firstly the writer went to the
theory of phonetics. Phonetics is concerned with describing speech sounds that occur in the languages of the world, naturally including Nataia. According to
Jean Aitchinson, a noted phonetician 2003: 46, one way to identify the phonemes of a language is to look for minimal pairs and minimal sets. A pair of
words of Nataia such as weta wət
h
a ‘sister’ and beta bət
h
a ‘buy’ which differs by only one phoneme is a minimal pair. A set of words of Nataia such as weta
wət
h
ɑ ‘sister’, beta bət
h
ɑ ‘buy’ and keta k
h
ət
h
ɑ ‘cold’ is a minimal set. In this way, the writer can identify the phonemes w, b, and k of Nataia.
In order to obtain a complete list of the phonemes of Nataia, the p r e s e n t writer looked for minimal pairs and minimal sets for each vowel and
consonant phoneme both from Oko Utu text as the primary source of data and from his own lexicon as a native speaker of the language. Then, the writer studied
how the vowels and consonants of Nataia are organized into syllables and words. The writer found out that the first problem for a Nataia speaker in learning English
phonology may arise from the vocalic nature of the language itself. A PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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vocalic language does not allow any consonant phoneme to occupy the final position of its words. In Nataia, even a syllable is not allowed to have a
consonant phoneme in the final position. Theoretically, therefore, a Nataia speaker will find it difficult to study English, a language which allows a huge
number of its syllables and words to have consonants in the final position. The second problem may appear from the fact that the syllable structures of Nataia
have only CV and V types. Thus, Nataia speakers will find it difficult to learn English, a language which has richer combinations of vowels and consonants such
as CC and CCC in the initial and final positions of its words. In an attempt to answer the second research question i.e., “What
segmental phonemes of English may cause difficulties for Nataia speakers in learning English phonology?”, the writer went to the theory of CA on language
interference. According to Kersten 2002:3, there are at least two possible sets of L2 target language phonemes. The sets include sounds identical to those of L1
first language and sounds unknown to L1. When both L1 and L2 have the same phonemes, they are said to be identical. This type of sounds do not cause problems
or errors in pronunciation. Unknown sounds, Flege 1987: 48 explains, are “L2 phones which have no counterparts in the L1”. The English consonant sounds
that are unknown to Nataia speakers include ʃ, θ, Ʒ, ð, dƷ, and tʃ. Since the Nataia system does not have these characteristic English phonemes, a
Nataia speaker tends to look for their substitutes from the inventory of the local language, resulting in phonological errors.
Finally, in order to answer the third research question i.e., “What suprasegmental phonemes of English may cause difficulties
for Nataia
