A Reference Grammar of Kotiria (Wanano)

2. Phonology

2 Phonology This chapter presents an overview of Kotiria phonology, including its phonemic inventory and allophonic variants (§§2.1–2.3), features of the syllable—basic shapes, restrictions, and derivations—the role of moras in prosodic structure (§2.4), and some commonly occurring phonological processes (§2.9). The complexity of the phonological system of the language resides in the interaction of the (relatively simple) segmental and (quite rich) suprasegmental levels; in the latter, features of nasalization, tone, and glottalization freely combine and, in the cases of nasalization and tone, engender spreading that creates diverse variation at the surface level (§§2.5–2.8). 2.1 Phonemic inventory Kotiria has the largest phonemic inventory among the Eastern Tukanoan languages, with six vowels and fourteen consonants. Phonemes are shown in tables 2.1 and 2.2; segments are characterized by features following Clements and Hume (1996). All vowels, voiced obstruents, and approximants have nasal allophones (see §2.5.1). TABLE 2.1. KOTIRIA CONSONANT PHONEMES LABIAL CORONAL VELAR LARYNGEAL [+ant] [íant] [ícontinuant] [+voice] b d g [ívoice] p t k [ívoice] [spread glottis] p‫ހ‬ t‫ހ‬ k‫ހ‬ [+continuant] s [ícontinuant] [+continuant] ‫ݹ‬ [+approximant] w j [spread glottis] h Phonology 23 TABLE 2.2. KOTIRIA VOWEL PHONEMES i e ‫ݛ‬ u o a [open 1] í í í í í + [open 2] í + í í + + [labial] + + [coronal] + + [dorsal] + + + + 2.2 Consonants All consonants can occur as syllable onsets. The aspirated voiceless obstruents /ph th kh / occur only word-initially and are fully contrastive with /b d p t k s ‫ݹ‬ w j h/ in this position (1).1 (1) ba [báa] ‘be rotten’ da [dáá] ‘be small’ pa [pá] ‘another’ (particle root) ta [táa] ‘come’ ka [káa] ‘monkey’ pha [p‫ހ‬áá] ‘stomach’ tha [t‫ހ‬áá] ‘grass’ kha [k‫ހ‬áá] ‘hawk’ ~sa [sãғãғ] ‘be inside’ cha [‫ݹ‬áá] ‘cooked food; feast’ wa [wáá] ‘give’ ya [jáa] ‘bury’ The voiced obstruent /d/ has allophones [d] and [r] (strictly speaking, the latter is always realized as a flap, but I use the more convenient symbol [r]), in complementary distribution: [d] occurs word-initially and [r] occurs word-internally.2 The voiced obstruent /g/ also occurs 1 CV roots, except for particle roots such as pa ‘another’, are realized phonetically as [CVV], given that the minimal prosodic structure of roots is bimoraic; see also§2.4.2. High tone (H) in phonetic transcriptions is indicated by the acute accent marker, while low tone (L) is unmarked; for discussion of tone, see §2.6. Nasalization in Kotiria is morphemic and is indicated by ~ preceding the morpheme (see §2.5). 2 In fact [d] also occurs word-internally at the beginning of nonsuffixal elements such as classifiers and serialized verbs (see §2.2.2 and §7.5). Hence I distinguish d from r in all examples and representations. 24 Chapter 2 primarily in word-internal, morpheme-initial position, and contrasts with [r] and other suffix-initial segments such as /h/ (2).3 (2) a. +ra [ra] ~ [rѺã] evidential suffix (VIS.IMPERF.2/3) b. +ga [ܳa] ~ [ƾã] imperative c. -ha [ha] evidential suffix (VIS.IMPERF.1) 2.2.1 Plosives: voiced, voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated The voiced and voiceless unaspirated plosives in Kotiria require few remarks other than the limited distribution of /g/, which rarely occurs word-initially, and the tendency for coronals /d t/ to be realized interdentally. What is unique to Kotiria is that it alone among Eastern Tukanoan languages has developed a three-way series of contrastive plosives. While all Eastern Tukanoan languages, including Kotiria, have contrastive voiced and voiceless series at three points of articulation ,4 Kotiria has also developed a contrastive voiceless aspirated series, as is seen in (1) above and in the minimal pairs in (3). (3) p — ph piri [pírí] ‘three-sided basket’ phi-ri [p‫ހ‬írí] ‘big one; being’ t — th tua [túá] ‘be strong’ thua [t‫ހ‬úa] ‘be near’ k — kh koa [kóá] ‘perceive; taste’ kho’a [k‫ހ‬o‫ݦ‬á] ‘return’ There are actually two kinds of aspiration associated with voiceless segments in Eastern Tukanoan languages: preaspiration, which is allophonic (see also §2.7.4), and postaspiration, which in Kotiria is phonemic . Postaspiration occurs coarticulated with word-initial voiceless plosives, as in (3) above. Preaspiration occurs morpheme-internally before voiceless consonants, as in the words in (4). (4) dapu [da‫ހ‬pú] ‘head’ dita [di‫ހ‬tá] ‘be alone’ dҁka [d‫ހݛ‬ká] ‘begin’ 3 See (20) below for a rare example of /g/ in word-initial position. Suffixes set off by + rather...