Re: Vowel Harmony Q

On Thursday, January 22, 2004, at 07:59  AM, Andreas Johansson wrote:

> Quoting rob_nierse <rnierse@...>:
>
>> David Peterson wrote:
>>> There are not a small number of vowel systems that have just four >
>>> vowels,where the four vowels are /a/, /e/, /i/ and /o/.
>>
>> My conlang Tlapóa has the same vowels and has some affixes that work
>> with vowelharmony.
>
> Does the notation /o/ suggested that there simply is no high back
> vowel? I'd
> expect the vowels of a four-vowel system to gravitate towards [i E A
> u] or so,
> to maximize distinctiveness.
This is an interesting problem. Both Navajo and Nahuatl have this same
basic four-vowel inventory, and in both languages there is variation in
the pronunciation of the round vowel from high to open mid.

Shoshoni and it's relatives also shows some variability in the
pronunciation of the high back rounded vowel which makes it sound at
times like [o]. The /o/ of Shoshoni varies from [o] to [O] or even [Q].
There is a small mountain range which forms the western edge of the
Salt Lake Valley; it's English name is Oquirrh ['owkr=]. It's from
Goshute Shoshoni /hu:kkat1n/ which is pronunced variously as
['u:kka41_0] ~ [U:kka41_0] ~ ['o:kka41_0]. Goshutes seems to agree that
the initial /h/ is not pronounced (though it is in other dialects), and
that the final vowel is voiceless, but the initial vowel varies quite a
bit. Obviously, the English version comes from an [o] pronunciation.

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga
Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so
simple we couldn't.
- Lyall Watson

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