Zuni Phonology - Vowels

Vowels

Front back
High i u
Mid e o
Low a
  • High /i, u/ are typically, but lowered variants may be heard in unstressed syllables.
  • Mid /e, o/ are typically, but in unstressed syllables raised variants occur before glides with matching backness: before /j/, before /w/.
  • Low central /a/, unlike the other vowels, is not reported to have allophonic variation by Newman. However, Walker (1972) reports its realization as fronted when it follows /k/ (phonetically: ).
  • All vowels occur with contrastive duration: short or long. In Newman's analysis, the phonetically long vowels are analyzed as distinct phonemes. Walker (1972) analyzes length /ː/ as a separate phoneme.
  • Long /eː, oː/ are typically, but close variants can occur in fast speech.
  • The other long vowels do not have variants with differing vowel quality.
  • Short vowels are optionally voiceless when at the end of an utterance, e.g. the word /ʔaɬka/ in /ʔitʃunan si ʔaɬka/ "after lying down then he slept" may be pronounced either or . Additionally, a short vowel or a sequence of a short vowel and glottal stop that occurs at the end of a word with more than one syllable is deleted when followed by a word that starts with /h, ʔ/ (see also the devoicing of sonorant consonants above), e.g. /ʔaːtʃi hinina/ "they two are the same" as (cf. /ʔaːtʃi jeːlahka/ "the two of them ran" where the final /i/ of /ʔaːtʃi/ is not deleted), and /ʔasselaʔ ʔelaje/ "they two are the same" as (cf. /ʔasselaʔ powaje/ "the two of them ran" where the final /aʔ/ of /ʔasselaʔ/ is not deleted).

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Famous quotes containing the word vowels:

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    —Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

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    “As no one can tell what was the Roman pronunciation, each nation makes the Latin conform, for the most part, to the rules of its own language; so that with us of the vowels only A has a peculiar sound.”
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