Abstract

The phonology of Bario Kelabit and most dialects of Lun Dayeh is more complex than that of many languages in island Asia. Among noteworthy features are a typologically rare series of true voiced aspirates /bh/, /dh/, /gh/, consonant gemination that is stress-dependent, two processes that delete underlying vowels, a system of partial verbal ablaut targeting bases with penultimate schwa, and synchronic processes that reduce underlying voiced aspirates to their plain voiced counterparts under certain conditions, and create surface voiced aspirates from underlying plain voiced stops under others. This paper aims at a general overview of the phonology of both languages, although a disproportionate amount of attention is given to the voiced aspirates because of their uniqueness or near-uniqueness in global perspective, and their revealing interactions with such processes as stress, gemination, and vowel laxing/lowering.

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