112 analysis to further support my claims concerning particular alternations, but even then the
question remains concerning whether or not what I call [e o] could really be [ ]. §3.5.4 above addresses additional phonetic evidence which informs this issue, particularly the
potential correlation between bandwidth measurements and [ATR] values. There is, however, another type of phonetic evidence which is helpful, and that is the
impressionistic auditory perception of these vowels by both linguists and Ikoma speakers. The following subsections address these issues and provide further support that
Ikoma’s height 2 vowels are [e o], not [ ]. In §3.6.1 I discuss my own impressions concerning the phonetic realization of Ikoma vowels, including the difficulty which I
have experienced in hearing the mid vowel contrast. In §3.6.2 I then discuss observations about the intuitions of a group of Ikoma speakers who were involved in experimental
participatory research to discover the phonemes of their language. I also compare the intuitions of Ikoma speakers concerning their vowels with the intuition of speakers of
other Mara Region languages which have different vowel systems.
3.6.1 Impressions on the perception of vowel contrasts
In this section, I comment on my own perception of Ikoma vowels and also on the level of difficulty I and others have found in distinguishing the vowel contrasts. Casali
2003:342-343 comments on the issue of perceptual difficulty A number of 4HtH languages have also been described as having perceptually
difficult contrasts between [I], [U] and [i], [u]; […] On the other hand, I am aware of very few 4HtM languages for which serious auditory confusion between any
of the adjacent vowel heights has been reported, despite the fact that such vowel systems are extremely common and widespread.
When evaluating these comments in light of the Mara languages, they hold true at least for Zanaki, which has the 7VH inventory see §3.6.2 and §7.3.1 below. Initially
113 distinguishing the phonemes i, and u, was not at all easy for Zanaki, since the high
[-ATR] vowels are quite difficult to distinguish from the high [+ATR] vowels Michelle Sandeen and Oliver Stegen, personal communication.
My own experience with Ikoma, as well as my experience working alongside many different Ikoma speakers, is that the mid vowel contrast can also be quite difficult
to hear, which Casali notes is less common for this type of system. Even after working with this language over the course of four years, there are still times when I am unsure
about certain mid-vowel qualities. The same is true for Ikoma speakers who have been involved in research and translation in the language over that same period of time. We are
all more capable of distinguishing the mid vowels when they are compared side by side with contrasting vowels, but without comparisons it can be particularly difficult. For
example, the root vowel in the verb [ e a] ‘cry’, when heard in isolation, sounds like it could very well be [ ]. However, when heard side-by-side with [
a] ‘bring up a child’, the contrast is more apparent. The closeness of these phonemes, at least in the speech of
some, can be seen in the overlapping formant measurements in §3.5.2 and §3.5.3 above, especially in the plots showing individual tokens for Speakers A, B and D.
The level of difficulty also depends on a vowel’s position in the word. Word-final mid vowels are especially hard to distinguish, which adds great difficulty to the
seemingly simple task of determining co-occurrence restrictions in stems and harmony patterns in word-final verbal suffixes. The existence of these perceptual difficulties is
once again corroborated by the overlapping formant measurements of vowels in word- final position.
114 Finally, there is a loose correlation in Ikoma between voice quality and tongue
root advancement. Many previous studies of African vowel systems e.g. Stewart 1967; Fulop et al. 1998; Kingston et al. 1997; Casali 2002b have noted a difference in voice
quality between [+ATR] and [-ATR] vowels. [+ATR] vowels are often described as breathy, deep or hollow, whereas [-ATR] vowels are creaky or choked. This difference is
sometimes evident in Ikoma, but perhaps not as clearly as in some other languages with a more typical cross-height harmony system.
The [-ATR] vowels [ ] do often have a creakier quality, whereas [e o] are often more clear or breathy, but the difference is subtle and can differ from word to word and
speaker to speaker. Though the height 2 vowels e o often do have a clearer quality, in some words they sound to me more like [ ], with a creakier quality. My conclusion on
this point is that e o have a broad phonetic range.
40
The height three vowels tend to sound consistently creakier, but again, there are exceptions.
Though there is not always a clear correlation between tongue root and voice quality in Ikoma vowels, the impressions described above do serve as additional clues to
the nature of the vowel inventory. The degree 2 and 3 vowels are the pairs which are difficult to distinguish, which suggests that these vowels are at the same height.
Furthermore, that the degree 1 and 2 vowels are never confused is suggestive that they are at different heights. This issue is discussed further in the following section.
3.6.2 Ikoma speakers’ perceptions of vowel quality
