2. Phonology of data points 389
2.20. Zhenning Banle 2.20.1. Phone and phoneme inventory
Initial consonants BiLab
LaDe InDe
Alv PoAl
AlPal Pal
Vel Glo
Plos
vl o, [og],
oi s
j, jv f, fi
PreGlo fa fc
Aff vl
sb
Fric vl
e [
S] r b, [bv]
[ w]
vd u
p y, [y[] [Y]
F [G]
Nas vd
l m ¯
M, Mv
Lat vd
k
App vd
i
Final consonants
o, s, j, f, l, m, M
Vowels Front
Central Back
unrd unrd
unrd rd
Close h
[ X]
[ L] t
Near-close [
H] [
T]
Close-mid
[ d]
n, [n:]
Mid
=
Open-mid D
Near-open Open
`, `:
Tones Category
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Pitch value 33 31 55 42 35 24 35 24
2.20.2. Notes
•
[ph] only occurs once, and aspiration occurs nowhere else. Therefore, this instance of aspiration is not viewed as phonemic.
•
[ sb] occurs before many different vowels, not just high vowels. It is clearly phonemically
contrastive with [t]. See minimal pair
.
•
[f] and [v] are contrastive. See minimal pair
.
390 2.20.2. Notes
•
[s] and [ b] are contrastive. See
minimal pair .
•
[z] and [ Y] act as allophones.
[ Y] only occurs before [o] and [u] with two exceptions, whereas [z] never occurs before these
vowels. See rule
below.
•
One item was transcribed with a [ bv] initial. However, there is no other item with this initial,
nor is [ sbv] found. Therefore, the UR of this initial is taken as [bt_] instead.
•
[ p] and [z] are also contrastive. An exact minimal pair is not found in the word list, but two
close pairs were found. See minimal pairs
. [
p] occurs before [i] except for two items.
•
[ S] only occurs once and [r[] also occurs once. These are not regarded as phonemic, but as
variations of [s].
•
[x] only occurs two times and [h] does not occur. There seems to be a “hole” in the phonology. No voiceless back fricative occurs enough times to be viewed as phonemic, and there is no
phonetically similar phone that it could be an allophone of. [x] is treated as nonphonemic. The proto-forms with initial x and h have all gone to one of
the following: [
G], [F], [i], [j], or [f]. This indicates that these two phones, [x] and [h], are being lost in this lect, merging with a variety of other initials.
•
[ G] and [F] both occur numerous times, with [G] occurring more often than [F]. These sounds
occur with varying degrees of fricativeness. Though they are transcribed as either [ G] or [F],
they are more likely a sound which is between velar and glottal. The phoneme will be taken to be [
F].
•
[ ¯] occurs five times: four times before [i] or [H].
[n] only occurs before [i] on one morpheme. [
¯] could be treated as an allophone of [n], but on three occurrences, the proto-form also is ¯. Also, there is one minimal pair for [
¯] and [n]. Therefore, [¯] is taken to be phonemic.
•
Both [ oi] and [fi] occur a number of times, mostly on items with a pj and fi initial proto-
form, respectively. [piV] occurs twice and [
fhV] does not occur. [pj] and [
fi] are both considered phonemic.
•
[kw] occurs on eight lexical items: some having proto-initial kw. [kuV] occurs once. This indicates that [kw] is probably phonemic.
[ M] occurs 10 times and [Mv] occurs once: 178 ‘awl’ [e`13 Mv`h31]. Since the labialization
is distinct, we consider it phonemic. [
ftV] occurs a few times, but each instance has more of a vowel-like quality than a labialized initial quality.
•
[a] and [a:] are contrastive. See minimal pair
. [a] and [
] are also contrastive. See minimal pair
.
•
[e] only occurs six times, while [ D] occurs numerous times. The sounds of these phones
actually vary in the vowel space, generally occurring closer to [ D]. These two sounds are
considered one phoneme [ D].
2. Phonology of data points 391
•
[ H] occurs eight times, always in the environment C__C, and is considered a variation of [i].
See rule
. [i] also occurs a few times in this environment.
•
[ B] occurs twice and is considered a variation of [o].
•
[ T] occurs once and is considered a variation of [u].
•
Except for a number of classifiers occurring before other syllables, [ =] always occurs in closed
syllables with one exception: 155 ‘hungry’ [ stM31 fi=24].
[ X] occurs only twice in the environment C__C[+stop]—other times occurring on an open
syllable. These phones are considered in complementary distribution, with the three exceptions mentioned above. The phoneme taken to be
=.
2.20.3. Minimal pairs
