THEORY: free variation [was: Re: [OT] Re: Conlangea Dreaming]

On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:

> <bewildered look>  What's free variation?
Relevant example from Shoshoni: in Shoshoni, the occurrence of the
vowel [e] is marked by a couple of kinds of variation. First, there
are words which may be pronounced with [e] only. Such words include:

[ke] 'no'
[exo] 'pine cone hook'
[kweSi] 'tail'

Then there are words which are pronounced only with [ai]:

[haintSY] 'friend' ([Y] is a voiceless high central unrounded vowel)
[taindy] 'hole'
[taiBo] 'white man'.

There is a third (large) group of words in which the vowel varies in
pronunciation between [e] and [ai]:

[maiSo ~ meSo] 'cricket'
[paiDy ~ peDy] 'daughter'
[tyaippy ~ [tyeppy] 'baby'

For this last group, [e] and [ai] are said to be in free variation.

For words which are always pronounced with [e], this vowel can range
from [e] through [E] to [&].

[ke]
[kE] 'no'
[k&]

Again, the variation is completely free.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga
dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu