Minimal pairs Ziyun Huohua 1. Phone and phoneme inventory

432 2.22.3. Minimal pairs • [ srv] occurs only once, on a Chinese loan, and is not considered phonemic. [ Mv] occurs twice: one time on 1 ‘sunshine’ [s`M13 Mv`m20 YnM12]. In this item, Mv`m20 is the morpheme for ‘day’. However, as can be seen from 15 ‘day’ [ u`m20], the initial in isolation is [v]. The [ M] on the morpheme ‘day’ in 1 ‘sunshine’ is assimilation from the [M] of the first morpheme. The other occurrence of [ M] is on 178 ‘awl’ [u`13 Mvh31]. The labialization on 178 is very clear, so though [ Mv] only occurs clearly on one morpheme, we still consider it phonemic. [kw] is phonemic. Some of the items have reflexes of the form kw__. • [ _] only occurs once and is considered as []. [a:], [a], and [ ] are all phonemes in this lect. • [ H] is a variation of [i]. It occurs only four times: before syllable-final stops and a nasal. [i] also occurs a number of times in these positions. [i:] only occurs once: on 103 ‘earthworm’ [ fch:m22]. The reflex for this item is fckrLdm0. We will not consider [i:] phonemic in this lect, though further investigation is needed. • [e] and [ D] are variants of a single phoneme. These sounds occur anywhere along the vowel space between [e] and [ D]. Note that 346 ‘he 3 ps.’ [sDh22] and 350 ‘they 3 p. pl.’ [gn24 sdh22] are examples of variation of this phoneme within a single morpheme. The phoneme is taken to be D, since that sound occurs with the highest frequency. • [ B] only occurs once: on 228 ‘nod one’s head’ [MBj13]. It is considered as a variant pronunciation of o. • [ T] is a variant pronunciation of [u]. It occurs eight times, while [u] occurs numerous times. One example of the variant pronunciation on the same morpheme: 289 ‘to sing’ [ jT13 uTdm22] and 291 ‘to work’ [jt13 v`:M22]. [ jtT13] means ‘to do’. The phoneme is written as u. [u:] occurs only once, 70 ‘sheep’ [ Yt:M20], and the length is not considered phonemic. • There is little distinction between the high central and back vowels [ X] and [L] and the mid- central [ =]. Pronunciation of [X] and [L] ranges anywhere in the vowel space between them. These sounds occur on open single vowel syllables CV, with two exceptions: 208 ‘dream’ [ u`M31 MX=m20] and 302 ‘to buy’ [bXLf31]. [ =] also occurs on some open single vowel syllables. An example of variant pronunciation of [ =X] on the same morpheme is seen in items 471 which has [jX13], whereas items 472 and 475 have [ j=13]. This lect seems to be losing the [XL] vowel quality and replacing it with [ =]. A tentative analysis is to posit only one phoneme = with allophones [=], [X], and [L].

2.22.3. Minimal pairs

[ b] and [s] 198 ‘paper’ [ r`0], 211 ‘error’ [b`0] [n] and [ ¯] 261 ‘to steam’ [ m`M4], 417 ‘dirty’ [¯`M4] [n] and [ M] 104 ‘louse’ [ m`m1], 5 ‘star’ [M`m1] [ M] and [¯] 89 ‘owl’ [ MDM4], 97 ‘mosquitofly’ [¯DM1] 2. Phonology of data points 433 [h] and [ F] 449 ‘smelly’ [ g`t0 m`:t2], 408 ‘white’ [F`:t0] [a], [ ], and [a:] 76 ‘horn’ [ j`t0, 344 ‘I 1 ps.’ [jt0], 100 ‘spider’ [j`:t0]

2.22.4. Allophonic rule