Andegerebenha vowel phonology.

Phonetica 34: 371-391 (1977)

Andegerebenha Vowel Phonology J.

G. B r e e n

Monash University, Clayton, Vic.

Abstract. The most common vowel system in Australian languages and the system ancestral to other Australian vowel systems is the triangular system /i-u-a/, with or without phonemic length. This paper shows that this is not appropriate for Andegerebenha. con siders the suitability of a two-vowel system / a-a/, and rejects this in favour of one vowel plus length /a-a-/. The short vowel is greatly influenced in quality by the adjacent consonants; the longer one much less so. The consonant inventory is augmented by the addition of a number of labialised consonants, which embody the rounding of earlier *u. Conversely, the phoneme/y/, a velar glide, was introduced when an earlier *w acquired the feature [-round ) of adjacent vowels.

Introduction

1 The spelling is broad phonetic with e representing [a]; the final vowel may be [e] or [a] or may be absent. Stress may be on either the first or the second syllable; the pronunciation with the first syllable stressed does not conform to the normal stress rules of the language but is common. The name may also be spelt with voiceless stop symbols.

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Andegerebenha1 is the easternmost of the Arandic group of lan guages and dialects of Central Australia, and was spoken in an area of perhaps 15,000 sq.m, straddling the Queensland-Northern Territory border and the Tropic of Capricorn, but mainly west of the former and north of the latter. The country is mainly semi-desert or desert. Unlike most other Arandic dialects, Andegerebenha is almost extinct, having

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B kekn

now only a handful of old and (in a Western context) unsophisticated speakers, whose everyday language is now English.

Arandic Phonology

2 Mostly necessitated by technical problems in the printing of certain symbols. The symbolisation used for the pre-stopped nasals is basically the appropriate nasal symbol preceded by a raised symbol for the homorganic stop, but simplified by omission of diacritical marks from the raised letter. 3 See D ixon [1970] for a brief review of the phonological systems of Australian languages.


The first attempt at an inventory of the phonemes of an Arandic language, namely Aranda, was made by S ommerfelt [1938]; this was, however, hopelessly wrong. S trehlovv’s comprehensive study of Aranda phonetics does not include any attempt to phonemicise the language. O ’G rady et al. published a table of Aranda phonemes, as determined by H ale [ 1962]; this is shown (with some modification of the symbols2 and arrangement) in table I. Table I shows a typical Australian phoneme inventory, unusual only in the presence of a prestopped nasal scries and an unrounded velar glide3. However, H ale [unpublished, but to be found, for example in the preface to his Kaititj field-notes; also private commun.] later suggested a two-vowel system: a low vowel /a/ and a non-low vowel /a/. According to this analysis, the consonant inventory (as listed in table I) is augmented by the combinability of the features of prepalatalisation and rounding with the consonants; /w/ is the rounded counterpart of /y/. It is not clear how complete the inventory of pre palatalised consonants and rounded consonants is. [i:] is interpreted as the non-low vowel with prcpalatalisation of the following conso nant. Long back rounded vowels are thought in most cases to be /awa/. Y allop [1970] analysed another Arandic language, Alyawara, as having the consonant system of table I, but as lacking phonemic length in the low vowel and as having two phonemic diphthongs which he writes /ay/ and /aw/ (he writes the long high vowels /iy/ and /uw/). In most of the following discussion of Andegerebenha phonology, the consonant phoneme inventory of table I will be accepted. Ex-

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373

Table I. Aranda phonemes Peripheral

Apical

Laminal

bilabial velar

alveolar retrofiex

inter- alveodental palatal

Consonants Stop Nasal Pre-stopped nasal Labial Flap Glide

k

P m »m

k0

w

t n tn 1 r

t n tn 1 r

Y

t n % 1

tv nr tny lv y

Vowels i

i:

u

u:

amples not marked as being in phonetic notation are in the phonemic notation as accepted at that stage of the paper. For examples in phonetic notation the IPA system is used (hence /y/ but [j]); the lamino-alveo-palatal consonants are represented by the symbols for palatal consonants and interdental consonants are marked by under lining.

The Arandic languages are numbered among those which are described as ‘initial dropping’, i.e. initial consonants or initial syllables (CV) which were present in a proto-language have disappeared. Sound changes which have affected Andegerebenha have not been studied in detail, but the most important seem to be deletion of the initial consonant, reduction of the vowel of the first syllable to [a], re duction of all final vowels to [a] ~ [a], deletion of the vowel of the first syllable and prestopping of an intervocalic nasal which followed the first vowel of the proto-form. The examples listed in table II illustrate these changes. No attempt is made here to justify the recon structions but most of them exist unchanged or only slightly changed in


The Word in Andegerebenha

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B r ee n

Proto-form

Andegerebenha

English

qali qanu nyumpula nyura pula tyana mulya tyalany qanytyara kutu kuna kumpu yini wama nyina kima tyana gama

alyaanwampulaaraalaaylnaala alinya anytyira utaa‘na mpwa ilna aPmwa ana iPma *na ma-

we (dual) we (plural) you (dual) you (plural) they (dual) they (plural) nose tongue tongue heart faeces urine name snake to sit to let go to stand mother

neighbouring languages at the present time. Note that word stress in Andegerebenha is normally on the first vowel following a consonant. As a result of these changes, about half of the Andegerebenha vocabulary consists of words with initial /a/. About one quarter have initial /i/ or /u/ (the homorganic glides, [j] before /i / and [w] before /u/, are not phonemically distinct from zero in initial position). The remainder have initial consonants. This quarter is fairly evenly divided between words beginning with a consonant cluster or other compound unit (i.e. a prenasalised stop) and words beginning with other (simple) consonant phonemes. About half of this final category seems to consist of more or less recent not completely assimilated borrowings. Thus about one fifteenth of the native lexicon comprises words beginning with a single simple consonant; this contrasts strikingly with the si tuation in a great number of more ‘normal’, i.e. phonologically more


Table II. Examples of sound changes

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conservative, Australian languages in which every word must begin in that way. Another distinguishing feature of Andegerebenlia, although less prominent, is the presence of monosyllabic stems; these are non-exis tent, or virtually so, in most Australian languages. Since Andegerebenha (and Arandic in general) final vowels are predictable (and, especially by some speakers, often omitted) they can be regarded as not phonemic and omitted in spelling4. I prefer to write the final vowel when it is the stressed vowel of a word, not only because it goes against the grain for me to omit the stressed (and in some cases only) vowel of the word, but also because: (1) it means that those consonant combinations with w as the final member which can begin a word can also occur word-finally; those which cannot begin a word can also not end one5 (but can occur immediately before a stressed final vowel), and (2) the form of some noun suffixes depends on whether the final vowel of the stem is stressed or not. Thus the accu sative case form of [a’jarjga] ‘dog’ is [a’-iaggane] and of [’kaaa] ‘meat’, ‘animal’ is [’kaaana], but the accusative of [’gga] ‘message’ is [’rjgejna] and of [ar’wa] ‘wallaby’ is [ar’wejno]. Accepting this convention, the rules for placement of primary word stress are, for the purposes of this paper: (1) primary stress is on the only vowel of a word, or (2) primary stress is on the first vowel follow ing a consonant. The latter rule applies to the vast majority of words and deviations from it are in many cases optional. The primary stress in words not conforming to either rule will be marked (in phonemic notation) with an acute accent; this applies to words whose stress can be described by rules specific to certain bound morphemes or to


4 Arandic final vowels have most commonly been written a, by S t r e h l o w and Y allop [1970] among others. H ale has at various times written i (for [a]), V (representing a morphophoneme whose phonemic value is determined by the environment) and nothing. 5 There are two counter-examples in the corpus, each heard from only one informant: /ilwuhlw/ ‘crooked’ and ¡Wa :rw/ ‘sp. of parrot’ (also heard as /tra:r/). H a le ’s Arandic word-lists - about 300 words in each of eight Arandic communalects, not including Andegerebenha contain only one word that does not conform to this generalisation: /akalwalw/ ‘ankle’ in Northern Alyawara.

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B r een

certain forms of reduplication, as well as to individual items not amenable to any generalisation. Stress is realised chiefly as loudness; also to some extent as length in the vowel. Andegerebenha is spoken rapidly and word-final vowels are elided when not utterance-final, unless the following word begins with a consonant. The location and degree of stress on a word in a sentence is often different from when it is spoken in isolation - the corpus does not include a great deal of fluent speech and the details are not yet clear. The result is that a clause or sentence spoken at normal speed, espe cially if it is long, gives the impression of a single complex word, comprising a torrent of syllables. This impression is reinforced by the preponderance of centralised vocoids.

Andegerebenha Vowels

6 In fact, in the dialect Strehlow described, it is tuma.


On a first inspection, Andegerebenha appears to have the ‘normal’ Australian triangular three-vowel system, although it is not imme diately obvious how the numerous schwa vowels are to be treated. However, some features of the phonology with respect to the high back vocoids cast doubt on the three-vowel solution. Thus, the stem of the verb ‘to hit, to kill’ would, after a preliminary analysis, be written atu with inflected forms including present tense atum [atuma in Strehlow ’s6 or Y allop’s, 1970, spelling], past tense forms atuk and atun, and so on. However, the imperative form, which in Andegere benha carries zero inflection, is not *atu but, predictably from what has been said above, atwa and the purposive form is atwitîk. Similarly, the operative case form of atwa ‘person’ is atul, the causal of arwa ‘wallaby’ arukit* and the accusative [ar’wi:n] or [ar’wejn], the po tential form derived from alkwa ‘eat!’ is [al’kukor] and the optative alkwiy. More extensive listening would show that the high back vocoids in many environments alternate with [wu] and/or [wo] e.g. [a’twum] [a’twon] (as alternants of [a’tum], [a’tun], respectively). The question arises therefore, whether these vocoids could always be written as /wi, wa/ or /wo/, thus eliminating /u/ as a vowel phoneme. On phonetic grounds, wo seems to be most appropriate; the raising of the vocoid to the vicinity of [i] or [u] can then be attributed to the

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377

7 In Andegerebenha at least, but I believe the situation is similar for other Arandic dialects. Note that S trehlow , who does not use a phonemic notation, sometimes writes a where Y allop [1970] and H ale would use /i/ (but H ale ’s /i/ represents a basically central vowel).


influence of the following consonant. Thus a bilabial conditions [u] as in [al’kumo] ‘eats’ or [,alku’pa-lkum] ’is eating’ while a palatal con ditions [i] as in [al’kwicika] (~ [al’kwaciko]) ‘will eat’ or [al’kwi:] ‘let (him) eat’. An obvious difficulty is that we are simply eliminating one vowel phoneme, /u/, only to introduce another, /a/. Gains on the morphophonemic level are countered by the greater complexity of the phonology, with numerous Cw and CCw consonant clusters being introduced and no reduction in the number of vowels. This consider ation favours wi or wa. However, a study of the phonetics of Andegerebenha shows that centralised vowels approximating to [a] are extremely common, not only in stressed but also in unstressed syllables, and that a high front vocoid usually appears only word-initially or in an environment that favours it, such as adjacent to a palatal consonant. Y allop [1970] regarded these centralised vocoids (in Alyawara) as allophones of /i/, although they do in fact alternate with low vocoids in some environ ments, e.g. [a’jogga] ~ [a’jaqgo] ‘dog’, [’mbonomo] ~ [’mbanomo] ‘cooks’7. It does not seem inappropriate to eliminate /i/ as a phoneme and assign its members to the phoneme /»/. The wide range of allophonic variation of this phoneme then seems more natural. An objection to the replacement of the high back vowel by a consonant-vowel sequence might be that it introduces a large number of new Cw and CCw sequences. The answer to this objection is that many such sequences already exist and, in fact, what is achieved is an increase in phonemotactic symmetry in that such sequences can now occur before any vowel in any environment (except that a restriction is imposed by the lack of word-final vowel oppositions). Thus, as well as mpwar ‘to weave’ we now have mpworat ‘lizard sp.’, as well as kwat ‘egg’ we have kwot ‘smoke’; as well as atwakay ‘wild orange’ we have atwokar ‘a boil’; as well as an>'tywat ‘male’ we have anyt>’w3pan>tyw3m ‘is drinking’. The word-initial high front and high back vocoids can be written

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8 An amendment to the stress rules is required since initial /ya/ and /wa/ function, with respect to stress, as vowels. 9 When a consonant-initial suffix is added to a consonant-final stem /a/ is usually inserted; the details of exceptions will not be dis cussed here. 10 The stress mark need not be written if the vowel of a suffix such as this occurs in a position where it would be stressed anyway, e.g. in alâk ‘we two, agnate, different AGL, nominative’. 11 This system was first described by H ale [1966]. Y allop [1976] suggests a slightly different interpretation.


/ya/ and /wa/, respectively8. The long high vocoids can be written /ay/ and /aw/ without ambiguity. However, since —unlike Y allop’s /iy/ and /uw/ - these are not regarded as digraphs but as phoneme se quences, this introduces consonant clusters of the form yC, yCC, wC, wCC which are not necessarily heard as consonant sequences. A rule that lyl or /w/ in a cluster may be realised as height and, respectively, advancement or retraction in the immediately adjacent vowel covers these cases as well as Cw, CCw clusters. An alternative interpretation of long high vowels, which will be considered further at a later stage, is /aya/ and /awa/. The appropriateness of this vowel system to the language is illus trated by the examination of a difficulty in the morphology of the pronouns. Non-singular pronouns can be segmented into up to five morphemes; the first specifies the person and number, as air- ‘we two’ (first person dual), or ar- ‘you mob’ (second plural). The second partly or completely specifies the case, as in alrak- ‘for us two’, arak- ‘for you mob’. The third refers to the relationship between the people concern ed; it is zero for dual pronouns and -yrjk-9 for plural pronouns if the persons are agnate and of the same ‘alternate generation level’ (AGL), i.e. the same generation or an even number of generations apart, -ak-10 if they are agnate and of different AGLs, e.g. one or three generations apart, and -dnt- if they are non-agnate11. Thus abakak ‘for us two, father and son (say)’, arakant- ‘for you mob, (say) a man and his brothers-in-law’. The fourth, -r, is obligatory for and confined to the plural pronouns and seems to add nothing to the meaning; thus the full form of the last example is arakdntar. The fifth completes the specification of certain case forms, e.g. alrakakat>’ ‘because of us two, father and son (say)’, arakantaran ‘belonging to you mob (as above)’.


379

However, the first-person plural forms conform to this system only if [u] is written wV. Thus, the nominative non-agnate pronoun has two forms, one of which is anwantor13; in Yallop’s spelling anwandira. The dative non-agnate form is formed by adding the dative suffix -k to the root anwo-, and then adding the kin and plural morphemes, thus anwakantor. In Y allop’s spelling the dative suffix is -iga and the complete form is anugandira; thus a rule converting /wi/ to /u/ must come into play. Admittedly, this is a minor point, and the rule involved just replaces a phonological rule that must be used with a two-vowel system; nevertheless, the three-vowel system does introduce an ir regularity into what is clearly a completely regular system. The Origin of /y/ Further evidence in favour of the two-vowel system is the existence of the unrounded velar glide phoneme /y/. The feature of rounding associated with the high vowels in a three-vowel /i-u-a/ system (/i/ un rounded, /u/ rounded) is not relevant in the two-vowel system. Instead, the rounding of a former *u is transferred to an adjacent con sonant; hence the frequency of labialised consonants. In the same way, it could be expected that the feature [-round] associated with the earlier unrounded vowels would also be transferred to an adjacent consonant. The only consonant that would be affected by this, i.e. the only consonant with the feature [-f round] is the labio-velar glide /w/. *w adjacent to a rounded vowel remained rounded, giving modern /w/, as in wa- ‘to hit with a missile’ from *luwa-~ luwi-. But when *w was flanked by unrounded vowels, the feature [-round] was transferredfrom the vowels to the consonant, making it unrounded, i.e. modern /y/. Thus ayar ‘kangaroo’ from *wawiri or possibly from *pawara. The Nature of the Vowel Opposition

13 The other is anwanantar. Alyawara has the same two forms, but uses this one (anunandira in Y allop’s spelling) as an exclusive first person form and the other as an inclusive first person form.


Accepting that a two-vowel system is appropriate for Andegere benha (detailed phonetic data will be given below), we must consider what form the opposition between the two vowel phonemes does take.

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B reen

13 Such systems, of three vowels, have been reported from some Caucasian languages, but doubt is cast on this by K uipers [1960] who argues that, for one of these languages, Kabardian, (a) the opposition between the two lower vowels is more correctly described as one of duration (as it was earlier described by the pioneer of linguistic studies in this area, Y akovlev) ; (b) the long vowel can be regarded as a sequence ha word-initially and ah elsewhere (a being the short low vowel); (c) the high vowel can be eliminated, given that stress is marked more often than it otherwise need be, and certain types of juncture arc marked, and (d) that the one remaining vowel a is better described as a ‘feature of openness’ and that the opposition vowelconsonant is not relevant for Kabardian. The arguments for (d) have been criticised by H alle [1970] and P ittman [1963] and do not seem adequate. H alle also criticised the argument for (c) but less deci sively. It may well be that Kabardian is a one-vowel language; if it has two vowels, the opposition is one of height. It seems that (a) and (b) must be accepted. It appears that Marshallese also has a vertical vowel system [Bender, 1968], with three underlying vowels differen tiated by tongue height.


The only linear vowel systems so far reported have been vertical13, with the opposition based on tongue height, and this has been more or less implicit in the discussion above. However, some features of Andegerebenha vowel phonology suggest that this is not so. Firstly, it is noted that the vowel hitherto written /a/ is noticeably long in many environments, especially in a short word. Thus [’kwa-ja] ~ [’kwa :ja] ‘water’, [a’twa-gija] ~ [a’twagijo] ‘wild orange’. The fact that it is not always long is not necessarily significant, since we will require a rule shortening long vowels in certain environ ments anyway. Secondly, as noted above (p. 377), the vowel so far written a may be low in some environments; i.e. when it is stressed and there is little or no tendency for it to be raised by the surrounding consonants: no /y/, /w/ or palatal before or after, and no retroflex consonant following. Other examples include [’kaga] ~ [’kaga] ‘bit’, [’pana] ‘ablative suffix’ pronounced in isolation (normally it is unstressed, and [bona] ~ [ban]). The tendency for the vowel to be low seems to be stronger after a word-initial consonant, and variant pronunciations such as [’ggapa] qkanv ‘sun’ and [‘ggaja,qaw] kqat>’aq ‘don’t take (it)’ have been heard.

Andcgerebcnha Vowel Phonology

381

Evidence for the irrelevance of vowel quality in Andegerebenha is the tendency for vowels to be replaced by syllabic consonants; this may happen word-initially as in [rnba’kiAo] for ampakalv ‘small child’ or medially as in ntaralaranak ‘finally ran away’ which has been heard with the sequence /ara/ replaced by an alveolar trill, or [’mbabmbm] for mpapampam ‘is burning’. The best indication of the ‘underlying pronunciation’ of a vowel (given the impossibility of its being pronounced in isolation, as is the case in Andegerebenha which has only a handful of old and un sophisticated speakers) is its pronunciation in circumstances in which it has the least chance of being influenced by its environment; in this case, when it is utterance-final (and, of course, stressed, as we recognise vowels as phonemic in this position only when they are stressed). In such a situation, the Andegerebenha vowel is almost always low, or at least, as in imperative verbs where it may be distorted into a diphthong such as [aw], it begins as a low vowel. Thus [a’twa] - [a’twn] ‘person’ [a’ka] ‘head’, [an’na] ‘sit down’, [al’paw] ‘go away!’. The behaviour of this vowel when it is not utterance-final shows that it belongs to the phoneme so far written /a/, e.g. [a’yarata’ndanijiga], ayar ta ntanatyak, ‘I’m going to spear a kangaroo’. It may, then, be most correct to regard the Andegerebenha vowel phoneme inventory as comprising (1) a basically long low vowel, not greatly affected by its environment; this can be raised and fronted as far as [e], e.g. [’ysra] ~ [’yaera] ‘ant’; it is shortened but remains low utterance-initially and in other unstressed situations and in utterances of more than a few syllables (unless strongly stressed), and (2) a short vowel, basically low but greatly influenced by its environment. These vowels can be written /a -/ and /a/, respectively. The long high vowels can now be written /ay/ and /aw/. Word-initial short high vowels can be written /ya/ and /wa/. The diphthong [aj] - [ej] can be written /a-y/. The diphthong [aw] occurs only as a distortion of a final vowel, as in an imperative verb, and this is regarded as subphonemic.

Further study of the distribution of word-initial vocoids leads to some modification of the above system. There appears to be no contrast in this position between [u] and [u :] ; in fact, the latter is


Prepalatalisation

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B r ee n

14 H ale’s Arandic word-lists provide substantial additional evidence of this type, with the alternations occurring between dialects.


rarely heard. Thus we could just as well write /aw/ as /wa/ for initial [u] ; the shortening of this sequence to give initial [u] is paralleled by the shortening of /a •/ in initial position. There are, however, contrasts between [i] and [i :] and between [a] and [ej] in initial position (although [i :] and [ej] alternate in some words). However, while initial [i :] and [ej] are quite common before /t/, /n/, I1n/ and /l/, they are non-existent or virtually non-existent before any other consonant (there is a small handful of doubtful exceptions). Furthermore, there are some examples of alternations (between idiolects) such as [irl’pa] ~ [iA’pa] ‘ear’ and [ei’la-nto] ~ [a’Aa-nto] ‘we, dual, non-agnate’14. This evidence strongly supports H ale ’s [private commun.] belief that ‘the palatalized on-glides are clearly features of the consonants’ and can be symbolised with raised y preced ing, i.e. /n , vn, vtn, vl/. Such a symbolisation removes any barrier to interpreting initial [i] as /ay/ and this results in an appreciable simplification of the descrip tion. The complication to the stress rule mentioned above (footnote 8) is no longer necessary, the rule shortening /a- / in initial position can be extended to apply also to the initial vocalic sequences /ay/ and /aw/, and a morphophonemic rule converting initial /ya/ and /wa/ to /ay/ and /aw/, respectively, when the morpheme concerned functions as a non-initial form in a compound or reduplicated form or as a deriva tional suffix is no longer required. Assuming that prepalatalised consonants have a stronger raising, fronting and lengthening effect on the preceding vowel than do /y/ and the other alveo-palatal laminais, we can interpret initial [i:] or [ij] as /a/ plus prepalatalisation in the following consonant (thus /aH/, /a^n/, /a^n/, /avl/) and initial [ej] as /a- / plus prepalatalisation. The alternative is to write /ay^t/, /a-y^t/ and so on; thus a prepalatalised consonant would occur only after /y/. The former interpretation is adopted. In non-initial position /y/ rarely occurs before a consonant except after a morpheme boundary as in compound forms such as a-kaqayl ‘to spoil’ and reduplicated forms such as aywapaywam ‘throws’. It does however seem to occur in the stressed syllable of a few other words such as a-raypar ‘mulga snake’, a-nnyaypar ‘bat’ and a-hiayk ‘heel’.

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383

In other cases where [i:] or [ej] before a consonant cannot be inter preted in terms of prepalatalisation, alternative realisations, such as [ip] and [eji] seem to justify the spellings /aya/ and /a-ya/. The choice between these spellings is determined by the environment as well as the nature of the vocoid itself; thus [ej] is /aya/ in an immediate environment dominated by peripheral consonants, as in /nawayak"'/ ‘spouse’, but is /a^ya/ in environments lacking such consonants, e.g. /kara -yan/ ‘child, plural, accusative’. In the latter type of environ ment /aya/ would be [i:] or [ija]. By analogy and with similar supporting data most long high back vowels in non-initial, non-final position can be interpreted as /awa/ (equivalent to H ale’s /awa/).

Andegerebenha Consonants

15 The half dozen exceptions include three place names which may in fact not be Andegerebenha and one clearly unassimilated borrow ing, and only one word which has been heard from more than one informant. None of the exceptions involves a phonetic Cw sequence; in all cases the initial consonant is followed by [u].


At this stage it is clear that the consonant inventory used so far (table I) is inadequate and amendments to it will now be briefly con sidered; however, no detailed attempt to justify any consonant inventory is made in this paper. The argument of the preceding section seems to justify the addition of a series of prepalatalised alveolar consonants to the inventory. There seems to be no necessity to regard other yC sequences, none of which are common, as unit phonemes. The sequences of the form Cw are obvious candidates for consider ation as unit phonemes and it seems clear that in those cases where C is a peripheral consonant (other than /y/ and, of course, /w/ itself) this is justified. These sequences are very common and occur frequently word-initially, word-finally and in clusters paralleling those in which the appropriate C occurs. Other Cw sequences do not occur word initially15 or word-finally (for the exceptions see footnote 5) and occur rarely in clusters (there are a few more or less well established ex amples; two of /ntw/ and one each of /ntw/, /ltw/, /jtw/ and /^ntw/).

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B r ee n

Table III. Andegerebenha consonant phonemes Peripheral Stops P Nasals m Prestopped nasals Pm pw Labialised stops m w Labialised nasals Pmw Labialised prestopped nasals Prepalatalised stop Prepalatalised nasal Prcpalatalised prestopped nasal Laterals Prepalatalised lateral Flap Glides w

k D k0 kw

Apical

Laminai

t n ln

t n tn

tv ny tny

1

ly

t n ln

qw k0 w

vt rn y‘n 1 1 vl r r

Y

y

Table IV. Andegerebenha consonant phonemes: alternative arrangement

Stops Nasals Prestopped nasal Laterals Flap Glides

p m Pm

k q kq

y

pw

kw

m w

Uw

I'm”

kg*

w

Apical

Prepalatalised apical

Laminai

t n ln

t n *n

n vn y*n

t n ln

ty ny hi y

1 r

1

y\

i

ly

r

y

The peripheral + /w / sequences are therefore interpreted as labialised (or rounded) peripherals and will be listed as unit phonemes. They will be symbolised with raised w following: /p w, kw, mw, qw, Pmw, kqw/. (/w/ could be regarded as /yw/.) Other sequences whose status has been considered are the hornorganic nasal-stop sequences. These occur frequently word-initially


Unround- Rounded ed periperipheral pheral

Andcgerebenha Vowel Phonology

385

and word-finally; however, other clusters also occur often in word-final position although not word-initially (there are four known exceptions, one with /nk/, one /It/, one /lk/, one /lq/). Homorganic nasal-stop sequences do not parallel the comparable members of the inventory so far accepted in forming clusters with other consonants (there is only one unconfirmed example, /lqk/ in yamádqk ‘to burp’). They will not be regarded as monophonemic16. The consonant phoneme inventory now proposed is shown in table III. Table IV shows an alternative arrangement of it. Phonetic Data17

18 H ale’s Arandic word lists show that other Arandic communalects are essentially similar to Andegerebenha as regards the features discussed in this section, except that some make somewhat more use of sequences of non-peripheral consonant + w in word-initial position. 17 Numbers inserted into the text below refer to the groups of ex amples following.


The strongest environmental factors influencing the pronunciation of the short vowel /a/ are a following prepalatalised consonant (1) and a following /y/ (2) which raise it to a high to mid-high front unrounded vocoid. In the former case, this vocoid may combine with the following palatal on-glide to form a long high front vocoid; such a vocoid may also occur as a realisation of the sequence /aya/ (3) or of stressed /ay/. A preceding word-initial /a -y / sequence (4) and an adjacent laminoalveo-palatal consonant (5) have the same type of effect as a following Iy I, but less strongly. Word-initially, /ay/ is occasionally preceded by a more or less weak glide [j] (6). A strong influence is exerted also by a following /w/, which raises /a/ to a high to mid-high back rounded vocoid (7); this, however, does not always apply when /aw/ occurs utterance-finally without stress (8). If the /a/ is stressed and another vowel follows the /w/, the vocoid may be long (9). Initial /aw/ is frequently pronounced with an initial [w] glide (10). Intervocalic /w/ has a strong influence on a following stressed /a/ (similar to that of a following /w/) (11) unless /y/ follows (12). (There are no clear examples in the corpus of a prepalatalised consonant following such a sequence.) The sequence /wa/ is realised as [wo] , [wu] or [u] postconsonantally (13) except when it is utterance-

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final (14) or followed by palatalisation (15). Similarly, the labialisation of a labialised consonant may be transferred more or less completely to a following /a/, causing it to be raised, rounded and retracted (16) (again, except before silence or palatalisation). Unrounded peripheral consonants (i.e. labial and velar) in the immediate environment tend to favour a low realisation of stressed /a/ (17). /a/ also shows more tendency to lowness if it is the first vowel of an utterance (18) than otherwise (as long as it is not preceded by /y/ or /w/). Utterance-final /a/ is low (19). Retroflex consonants tend to raise a following vowel (20) and retro flex a preceding one (21). In other environments (i.e. involving only alveolar or dental consonants) /a/ tends to be centralised (22). Stressed /a/ shows some tendency to assimilate to the quality of high vocoids in adjacent syllables (23); however, the corpus includes only a few relevant examples and the details are not clear. The following examples illustrate these notes. Variant pronun ciations of phonemes other than those relevant to each example are not given. Where voiced stop symbols are written, the stop is most commonly voiceless lenis thus, for example, [d] is usually [d]. 1. (a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

a^lpa ‘ear’ [i:l’pa] [ijl’pa] arlpankwany ‘little finger’ [id ’bongupa] a ^ n a m ‘digs’ [i.’dnama] [I’jdnama] a -lta n a -t ‘all day’ [al’di:dad] aywa^lp ‘to leave (trans)’ [t’wi:jlba] [I’wejlba] [ya’wiclba]

2. (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f)

a - kq a y ‘my father’ [a’kqija] [a’kqeja] a •twa •kay ‘wild orange’ [at’wa •gija] a-nnâypar‘bat’ [aJ’pji.baaa] ayraywa-t ‘little baby’ [Tri,wa-da] a -kalrtyaylapaylam ‘is teaching’ [a’kaAcibbibm] aywalam ‘lies’ [I’wabm a] [r’w ubm a]

3. (a) aykwa y a n ‘his’ [i’kwi:ip] [I’kwejna] [i’kwejIna] (b) a - kq ay a k a n ‘my father’s’ [a’kqejagan] (c) a-rtayaqkw ‘your younger sibling’ [ej’tijiqgwa] [cj’tijaqgwa] [ej’ti :qgwa]


4. (a) a-yapwa y ‘can hunt away’ [a’jabwija] (b) a-yan ‘me’ [e’jina] (c) a-yaq ‘I (norm)’ [e’jiqa] [a’jaqa]

Andegcrcbenha Vowel Phonology

5. (a) (b) (c) (d)

387

a-n ya n t‘one’ [a’jienda] [a’jiinda] a'tw atyak ‘will hit’ [a’twyiga] a -tyatyak ‘red’ [a’cijiga] nkwa-taty ‘stone knife’ [n’gwa-dip]

6 . (a) ayna-p ‘porcupine (echidna)’ [h’narba] [je’na:ba] [ji’na : ba] (b) ayraty ‘eaglehawk’ [i’rija] [j e’r sea] [J e’r eca] 7. (a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

awltaw ‘plain turkey’ [ol’dowa] [wol’dowa] [wul’duwa] tawa-n ‘where to’ [’tuwana] [’towana] nawayak* ‘spouse’ [nu’wejgwa] a-rawa-raw ‘quarrion (sp. of parrot)’ [a’juwa,juwa] awylPma ‘language’ [ujl’pma] [wOl’pma] [yjl’pma]

8 . (a) aynaynaw ‘sp. of owl’ [i’ni • nawa]

(b) a-wayaw ‘dead person’ [a’wijawa] 9. (a) nyawnyawntapawntam‘is swimming’ [’pu.ponobondam] (b) ntawly ‘shadow, reflection’ [’ndüÀa] [’ndo.Aa] 10. (a) awra ~ awr ‘fire’ [u’j.a] [’woaa] [’woaa]

(b) awltam ‘is heavy’ [wol’tama] (c) awly~aw lya ‘shade’ [’wiXo] [’woXa] [o ’Ao] 11. (a) a-w arn‘hears’ [a’woma] (b) a-wana-ty ‘father’s sister’ [a’wunæja] (c) a-walya-waly ‘lightning’ [a’wuAa-’wuAa] 12. (a) a-way ‘boy’ [a’wija]

See also 8 b. 13. (a) a -lywalkala-n ‘is shining’ [a’Aulkalan]

(b) a-nwanp ‘gum’ [a’nnnba] (c) aytwatâytwat ‘whistler duck’ [idwa’didwoda] (d) aywam ‘throws’ [i’wuma] 14. (a) a-twa ‘man’ [a’twa] [a’twn] 15. (a) a-lwayla la -n ‘is heaping up’ [al’wajbjan] [al’wijblan]

16. (a) pwanty ‘corroborée’ [punja] [’pwonja] (b) a-kwark ‘young (animal), baby’ [a’kwarka] [a’kurka] [a’kworka]


See also le , 5b.

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(c) gkwan ‘bone’ [’ggwana] [’ggwano] [’gguna] 18 (d) a •lkwata-lk"'at‘collarbone’ [,algu’dalguda] 17. (a) gkam ‘speaks’ [’ggama] (b) kgak ‘took’ [’grpgo] [’grjaga] (c) a • tâmany ‘grandfather and grandson’ [a’comljio] [a’com: op] See also 3, 4 a. 18. (a) Rat ‘now, soon’ [’Aaeda] [’Aech] [’aocIo] (b) ‘natâk‘will stand’ [’tnejiga] 19. (a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

a-Ra ‘we (dual, agnate, same AGL)’ [a’Aa] a ■Pmwa ‘snake’ [a’pmwa] [a’pmwa] a-ra ‘look’ [a’aa] gka ‘speech, message’ [’gga] aywa ‘throw (it)’ [1’wa]

20. (a) awral ‘in the fire’ [wo’axl] (b) a-tatâ-t ‘was erecting, was covering’ [a’pjad] (c) a-ranatya-ya-pk ‘policeman’ [a’.iim, jejaeqgo] 21. (a) mpanam ‘cooks’ [’mbanoma] [’mbainom] (b) a-gar ‘you (sing.)’ plus suffix -r, meaning not clear [a’ga-ia] [a’goaa] 22. (a) a-tar ‘two’ [a’toro] [a’tara] [a’tiro] (b) nan ‘this’ [’nono] [’nino] [’nano] (c) ntaram ‘runs’ [’nderoma] [’ndoroma] [’ndarom]

18 There is an interesting and relevant story concerning this word. When Barry Blake had his first recording session with the Andegerebenha informant T iger G eorge, who also spoke Wangkamanha, a non-Arandic language, as a second language, he used word lists collected by R oth [1897] about the turn of the century as an aid to his eliciting. R otii misheard the word for ‘bone’ and spelt it ‘gwun-na’ ([’gwana]) and when T iger gave a quite different word Barry asked about [’gwana], T iger ‘recognised’ it, without hesitation, as the Wangkamanha word for ‘faeces’, which is [’guna] ~ [’kuna]; the se quence [gwa] is impossible in Wangkamanha.


23. (a) ayrant ‘cold’ [iVinda] (b) tatay ‘where from’ [’totijo] [’titijo]


389

(c) ntatvak ‘will give’ [’ndejiga], contrast ntatâ -q ‘don’t give’ [’ndajaq] (d) a-rkqayway ‘shut (it)’ [ar’kqi: wijo] The long vowel /a •/ is much less strongly influenced in quality by its environment than is the short vowel. Its pronunciation in a neutral environment is as a low vocoid but higher than the low cardinal vocoids, neither front nor back, and half long; perhaps closer to [e-] than [a-] but transcribed here as [a-] (24). It becomes short in long utterances, even long words spoken in isolation (25) and when un stressed (26) and especially when word-initial (27). Before a prepalatalised consonant /a •/ is raised and fronted to [s] or, especially word-initially, even higher (28). Before /y/ initial /a-/ is frequently raised to [e] (4) but non-initial /a-/ often remains low (29). Before other lamino-alveo-palatals initial /a-/ is occasionally followed by a slight palatal glide (30) while non-initial unstressed /a-/ is fronted to [ac] - (28b). Following lyl in a word-initial syllable, /a-/ is advanced and raised to [ae] or [e] (31); a following velar seems to inhibit this effect (31 d) and it is also usually inhibited, for no known reason, in one very common word (31 e). Non-initial, unstressed /a-/ after /y/ is also raised and fronted (20 c). Before /r/ initial /a-/ is often raised and advanced and may even have a palatal off-glide (32). Note that although a following /w/ is one of the strongest environ mental factors affecting /a/, it has no appreciable effect on /a-/ (33). 24. (a) kwa - t y ‘water’ [’kwa-ja] See also 2 b, d, 5d, 6 a. 25. (a) a y q k a -lta l ‘n ail, claw ’ [I’qgaltola] See also 16d, 20 c. 26. See Id, 7b, d, 13a, 15a, 20b.

28. (a) (b) (c) (d)

a-ynaqkw ‘your father’ [e’jnaqgwa] [i-’naqgwa] a-ytaya-t>' ‘my younger sibling’ [s’jtijas-ja] [i’tijaeja] a-yhiakar‘might fall’ [i-’dnagara] [e’jdnagoro] a-vlpam ‘enters’ [irl’bam] [ejl’bam] [sjl’bama]


27. See, for example, 2a-c, e, 3 b, 5b.

390

29. (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f)

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a-ra-yn ‘north’ [a’rajna] a-wa-ya-t^ ‘my elder brother’ [a’wajaeja] awla-ylp ‘devil’ [wu’lajlba] lv'ara-y ‘children’ [’Xereja] kwanpa-y ‘cloud’ [’gunbajo] pa-ypa-y ‘yes’ [’pajpaj] [’pejpej] See also 20 c.

30. (a) a-t^wa ‘leg’ [alc’wa] (b) a-nytâypar‘bat’ [ai’jiji .baua] 31. (a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

ya-raman ‘horse’ [’jaeraman] ya-r ‘ant’ [’jera] [’jaera] ya-tala-ram ‘knows’ [’j etI,lajom] [’st^laaam] ya-qk"’ ‘winter’ [’ya-qgwa] ya-n ‘that’ [’jana] [’jaena], most commonly [’ja-na]

32. (a) a-ragk ‘dog’ [a’-iaqga] [ae’aagga] [asJ’aaijga] (b) a-rapa-ram ‘is watching’ [’aJja,baaam] [’aja,baaam] 33. (a) a •l a - w ‘calf (of leg)’ [a’la-wa] See also 8 b, 11, 12 a. Résumé La phonologie des voyelles de l’andegerebenha

Le système vocalique le plus commun dans les langues australiennes, ainsi que le système qui est l’ancêtre des autres systèmes vocaliques australiens, est le système triangulaire /i-u-a/, avec ou sans longueur phonémique. Cette étude montre que ce système n’est pas valable pour l’andegercbenha et envisage un système vocalique binaire /a-a/, mais le rejette en faveur d’un système univocaliquc avec longueur phonémique /a-a-/. La qualité de la voyelle brève est fortement influencée par les consonnes adjacentes; la longue l’est beaucoup moins. L’inventaire consonantique contient un nombre de consonnes labialisées dont la labialisation remonte à l’arrondissement d’un ancien *u. D’autre part, le phonème /y/, une semi-con sonne vélaire, fut introduite quand un ancien *w acquit le trait [-arrondi] des voyelles adja centes.

Zusammenfassung

Das häufigste und ursprüngliche Vokalsystem der australischen Sprachen ist das Drei ecksystem /i-u-a/, mit oder ohne phonematischc Länge. Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt, daß dies nicht für Andegercbenha gilt. Ein Zweivokalsystcm p-a/ wird erwogen, aber zugunsten eines Systems abgelehnt, das aus einem Vokal + Länge /a-a •/ besteht. Der kurze Vokal


Die Phonologie der Vokale in Andegcrebcnha


391

ist in der Qualität von den Nachbarkonsonanten stark beeinflußt, der längere in viel ge ringerem Maße. Das Konsonanteninventar wird durch eine Anzahl von labialisicrtcn Kon sonanten vergrößert, die die Rundung des früheren *u verkörpern. Umgekehrt wurde das Phonem /y/, ein velarer Gleitlaut, eingeführt, als das frühere *w das Merkmal (-gerundet) der Nachbarvokale annahm.

Acknowledgements I am especially grateful to Professor K enneth H ale, who first suggested to me that Andegerebenha might have only two vowels, who read and commented on the first draft of this paper, who gave me his (unsolicited) permission to use his Arandic Word Lists and who is responsible for the section headed ‘The Origin of /y /’. I wish also to thank Dr. Barry Blake for the use of his field tapes and for his comments, Dr. Barry A lpher , Professor G oran H ammarstrom, Dr. R oland Sussex and Dr. Colin Yallop for their comments on the first draft, Dr. J ack Burston for the ‘Resume’ and Professor M ichael C lyne for the ‘Zusammenfassung’. Special thanks are due also to my informants, especially Mr. J ack M arshall, the late Mr. Bill J enkin and the late Mr. T iger G eorge. Full financial support for the project (including salary) was given by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.

References Bender, B. W.: Marshallese phonology. Oceanic Ling. 7: 16-35 (1968). D ixon, R. M. W.t Proto-Australian laminais. Oceanic Ling. 9: 79-103 (1970). H ale , K. L. : Internal relationships in Arandic of central Australia. Appendix to Capell

J . G. Breen, Linguistics Department, Monash University, Clayton, 3168 Vic. (Australia)


Some linguistic types in Australia. Oceania ling. Monogr. No. 7 (University of Sydney, Sydney 1962). H ale , K. L. : Kinship reflections in syntax : some Australian languages. Word 22: 318-324 (1966). H ale, K. L . i Preface to Kaititj field-notes (personal commun.). H ale , K. L. : Arandic word list. Archives of languages of the world, Indiana University, Bloomington (personal commun.). H alle , M. : Is Kabardian a vowelless language? Fdns Lang. 6: 95-103 (1970). K uipers, A. H.: Phoneme and morpheme in Kabardian (Eastern Adyghe). Janua Linguarum, No. 8 (Mouton, The Hague 1960). O ’G rady, G. N.; V oegelin, C. F., and V oecelin, F. M.: Languages of the world: IndoPacific fasc. 6. Anthrop. Ling. 8: 2 (1966). P ittman, R. S. : Review of A. H. Kuipers, Phoneme and morpheme in Kabardian. Lan guage 39: 346-350 (1963). R oth , W. E. : Ethnological studies among the North-West central Queensland aborigines (Government Printer, Brisbane 1897). Sommerfelt, A.: La langue et la société (Aschchoug, Oslo 1938). Strehlow , T. G. H. : Aranda phonology and grammar. Oceania Monogr., No. 7 (University of Sydney, Sydney). Yallop, C. : A description of the Aljawara language; PhD thesis Macquarie (1970). Yallop , C.: Alyawarra kinship terminology. Work. Pap. Speech Lang. Res. Cent., Macquarie University, North Ryde (January 1976).

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