89 sort of clusters such as palatalized or labialized consonants, with the exception of the
verb ko- jeka ‘to bury.’ Otherwise, a variety of consonants were used. The infinitive form was used primarily because it is the citation form for verbs. It is also helpful because the
infinitive prefix vowel alternations from o to u provide significant clues for the harmony system and are useful for prefix vowel measurements, which are discussed in
Chapter 5. Also, by consistently limiting the final vowel to a, I avoid any possible influence on the root vowel made by other final vowels.
For nouns, for each of the seven vowels I chose six canonical nouns with bisyllabic CVCV roots. In all of these words, both root vowels are identical, which
should prevent any assimilatory effects from one vowel to another. The primary purpose of this list is to investigate vowels in the initial syllable of the root, but I also had to make
decisions about noun classes and noun class prefixes, since prefix alternations are also a major point of inquiry. Out of necessity, I used nouns from a wide variety of noun
classes. For recording, the list was divided into nouns and verbs and then broken down
into smaller sections of approximately ten to fifteen words each. Each section was then randomized so that, for example, the nouns with CiCi stems were not all together, but
were mixed in with CoCo, CaCa, etc., stems. For nouns, speakers pronounced two repetitions of the singular form followed by two repetitions of the plural form. For verbs,
they pronounced three repetitions of the infinitive.
3.5.2 Vowels in both nouns and verbs Speaker B
Because of time constraints, it was not feasible to make measurements of all recorded nouns and verbs for all four speakers. Therefore, in this section, I present measurements
90 and plots from nouns and verbs from a single speaker Speaker B. In the follow section
§3.5.3, I present a comparison of the vowels of all four speakers in verbs only. The table in 70 below contains average formant values for vowels in the stem-
initial syllable V1 of both nouns and verbs. As mentioned in the previous section, this wordlist consisted of six nouns and five verbs per vowel, and three to four repetitions
were made of each word. The measurements in 70 below are averages of a total of 221 tokens 119 from nouns and 102 from verbs. For nouns, I measured the initial root vowel
of both singular repetitions and the first plural repetition, which totals three tokens per word on the wordlist. For verbs, I measured the root vowel of all three repetitions of each
infinitive, once again totaling three tokens of the vowel per word. Note, however, that occasionally I was not able to measure some tokens for various reasons, so these are
approximate numbers of tokens. 70
Average values of V1 Speaker B 45 year old male
Noun and verb averages Noun averages
Verb averages
approx. 32 tokensvowel approx. 17 tokensvowel
approx. 15 tokensvowel
F1 F2
F1 F2
F1 F2
u 285
759 u
280 732
u 289
785
o 374
891 o
361 887
o 390
897 468
951 473
947 460
958
i 310
2271 i
304 2225
i 317
2323
e 381
2025 e
366 1965
e 396
1964 455
1873 440
1911 470
1834
a 671
1462 a
694 1474
a 640
1446 A number of comments can be made about this table. Looking at the combined averages
in the first column, we see that for the back vowels, there is an approximately 90Hz difference in F1 from one vowel to the next. For the front vowels, on the other hand, the
difference is only appro confined than the back
are fairly similar, and c have the same seven vo
The averages of below. Vowels plots tra
downward, and F2 on t Maddieson 2003 16 e
auditorily based vowel but has the advantage o
when the formant value their place on an IPA v
71 Plot of
proximately 70Hz. We see then that the front vo ck vowel space. When comparing the noun and
d certainly similar enough to support the view t vowel phonemes.
of nouns and verbs together are shown in the v traditionally have F1 on the vertical axis, with
n the horizontal axis with values increasing from explains “This type of display closely paralle
el space based on perceived ‘height’ and ‘back e of being based on verifiable measurement.” A
lues are plotted in this manner, the vowels are s vowel chart.
f V1 average values, with nouns and verbs toge 91
t vowel space is more and verb averages, they
that both categories
e vowel plot in 71 th values increasing
rom right to left. llels the traditional
ckness’ values used … ” As 71 below shows,
e similar in position to
ogether Speaker B
As the plot shows, Spe figures in 70 above, t
vowels, with [ ] having tendency for [u] to be a
shown in the following vowels, with an F1 ave
The plot in 72 individual tokens of V1
72 Plot of
peaker B’s vowel space is quite symmetrical. A , the back vowels are spaced slightly more apar
ing a higher F1 than [ ], and [u] having a lower e acoustically higher than [i] holds for the other
ing section. The low vowel [a] is also quite far a verage of more than 200 Hz higher than the mi
72 below also represents Speaker B’s nouns an V1 are plotted.
f V1 with all points, with nouns and verbs toge 92
As we saw with the part than the front
er F1 than [i]. The her speakers as well, as
r away from the other mid [-ATR] vowels.
and verbs, but here all
gether Speaker B
Note that there is more back vowels. There is a
than front vowels. The plot of aver
for verbs only is in 74 73
Plot of re overlap in the front vowel space, with only s
is also a much greater range of F2 measurement
verage formant values for nouns only is in 73 74 below.
f V1 average values of nouns only Speaker B 93
y slight overlap in the ents for back vowels
3 below, and the plot
B
74 Plot of
These plots show more well-spaced than those
the noun and verb aver measurements from no
all four speakers are in
3.5.3 Cross-spea
