348 2.18.2. Notes
Vowels Front
Central Back
unrd unrd unrd rd
Close h
[ X], [O]
[ L] t
Near-close [
H] [
T]
Close-mid n, [n:]
Mid
=, =:
Open-mid D, [D:]
[ B]
Near-open
[ ?], [?:]
Open `, `:
Tones Category
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Pitch value 33 52 25 35 24 41 24 44 23
or 22
31
2.18.2. Notes
•
[ sb] and [t] are phonemically distinct. See
minimal pairs .
•
[v] and [f] are considered phonemically distinct, even though [f] only occurs with even tones in phrase final position.
[v] mostly occurs with odd tones and does occur on tones 2 and 6 in word phrase final position. The [f] and [v] phones do not occur on a voicing continuum, but are pronounced distinctly. No
perfect minimal pairs could be found, but near minimal pairs are given below.
•
[z] and [ y[] can be considered to be the same phone—the degree of dentalness varying over a
continuum. [
yy[] and [Y] are allophones and [Y] occurs before rounded vowels with three exceptions. [
yy[] occur before nonrounded vowels with one exception. See rule
below. The phoneme is seen as z.
•
[s], [ b], and [y] are separate phonemes. See
minimal pairs .
•
[x] occurs only once, while [h] occurs a large number of times. [x] is not considered phonemic, but a variation of [h].
•
[ F] occurs on only two items and [G] occurs on only three items. They are considered one
phoneme G, with a phonetic difference in the degree of fricativeness. Though they together
only occur a total of five times, they are still considered phonemic. See minimal pairs
with [h].
•
[ ¯] generally occurs before the vowels [i] and [D], although it also occurs before [a] once.
[ M] only occurs on seven items. These two phones are phonemic and separate from [n]. See
minimal pairs .
•
[w] only occurs on five items and [hw] occurs on one item: 319 ‘person’ [ gvTm1]. However,
‘person’ was pronounced without aspiration on another lexical item 207 ‘shadow’ [ M`t1
v=m1], although here the phone in question is in the environment V__V. The phone [hw]
2. Phonology of data points 349
will be considered as a random variant of [w], although it could arguably be considered phonemic, in view of the fact that [kw], [
Mv], and [fv] are phonemic. [w] and [v] are contrastive. See
minimal pair .
•
[pj] occurs on nine lexical items and is contrastive with [p]. See minimal pairs
.
•
[kw] occurs on only seven items, but is phonemic. See minimal pairs
.
•
[ Mv] only occurs on two items, and there are no good minimal or near minimal pairs between it
and [ M]. However, [Mv] should still be considered as phonemic. The distinction between [Mv]
and [ Mt] is quite clear—the degree of labialization is quite strong on the two items with [Mv].
For example, in 203 ‘hook’ [ Mvn0 Mts0], the [Mv] sound is distinct from the [Mt] sound.
•
There is only one occurrence of [ fv] and [ft] + V occurs on four lexical items. Here, the
distinction between [ fv] and [ft] is not clear. For this reason, [fv] is not considered
phonemic, although further investigation is needed to make a definite analysis.
•
Both [ ?:] and [?] only occur on one item each, and are nonphonemic variants of [a:] and [a],
respectively. [a:], [
], and [a] are each phonemic. See minimal pair
sets.
•
[ H] occurs on seven lexical items, all in the environment __C and is an allophone of [i]. See
rule below.
[i] also occurs in that environment several times, so there is no consistent change between [i] and [
H] in that environment.
•
[ D:] occurs on four items and [D] occurs numerous times. There is no occurrence of [e]. The
length on [ D:] is not distinct enough to be phonemic.
•
[o:] occurs on five items, but the length is not distinct enough to be phonemic.
•
The situation between [u] and [ T] is almost exactly the same as between [i] and [H].
[ T] occurs on five items four in the environment __C and one in the environment w__V
and is an allophone of [u]. See rule
. [u] also occurs in the first environment several times, although it never occurs in the second
environment.
•
[ =:] occurs on five items. In the other lects, four of these five items usually have diphthongs, so
the length here on [ =:] is seen as significant. However, there is another item in this lect that has
a short [ =] 4 ‘moon’ [fc=m0], though this nucleus is generally comprised of diphthongs in
other lects. This makes the situation between [ =:] and [=] somewhat unclear. Since there are
close minimal pairs, and [ =:] generally occurs in items where the nucleus is long due to
diphthongs, we view [ =:] and [=] as separate phonemes.
•
[ X] occurs on a number of lexical items, all in the environments C__ or C__VC. There are
exceptions in the environment C__. That is, when it is followed by another syllable, it is often realized as C
= +
σ
. [
=] only occurs in the environment C__C, with the exception of 78 ‘bear’ [l=h0]. So [X] and [
=] are in complementary distribution, with the exception of 78 ‘bear’. [
X] is considered an allophone of [=], though further investigation may give a clearer picture. See
rule below.
350 2.18.3. Minimal pairs
