NUBA MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE STUDIES - SIL International...Nuba Mountain Language Studies edited by Thilo C. Schadeberg and Roger M. Blench RÜDIGER KÖPPE VERLAG · KÖLN

NUBA MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE STUDIES

KAY WILLIAMSON EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION

AFRICAN LANGUAGES MONOGRAPHS

Edited by

Roger M. Blench

Volume 6

Nuba Mountain Language Studies

edited by

Thilo C. Schadeberg and Roger M. Blench

RÜDIGER KÖPPE VERLAG · KÖLN

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche National-bibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. ISBN 978-3-89645-427-0 © 2013 The Editors RÜDIGER KÖPPE VERLAG P.O. Box 45 06 43 50881 Cologne Germany www.koeppe.de All rights reserved. Cover: Houses on terraced hill side (Photograph by Sarah Gould) Production: Druckerei Hubert & Co, Göttingen / Germany â This book meets the requirements of ISO 9706: 1994, Information and documen-

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The Acheron vowel system: a participatory approach

Russell Norton

1. Introduction

Acheron is one of the Talodi group of languages spoken in the south-eastern Nuba Mountains. There is a community of about 9,800 active speakers there, with diaspora speakers in towns of Sudan and elsewhere. The name “Acheron” comes from an Arabic term aɟɟur-uun ‘innocent people’. This was indigenised as acʊrʊn (Stevenson 1956: 102) and subsequently reduced to aʃərɔn.1 The language itself uses the autoethnonym wɑ-rəmɛ for the Acheron people, and refers to the language as ɡə-rəmɛ. Acheron is one of a cluster of Talodi varieties in the Saraf Aj-Jaamous district, north of the road from Kadugli to Talodi, collectively referred to in Schadeberg (1989: 70) as “Tocho”. However, the Acheron community has distinct lands and tribal identity from Tocho, which is a smaller group currently estimated at 3,800. The vowel inventory presented in this paper for Acheron is also found in Tocho (Alaki & Norton, this volume), but brief inspection shows differences between Acheron and Tocho in consonant inventory, lexicon, noun classes, and syllable structure. There is partial mutual intelligibility between the two languages. The phonology of Acheron was described in Norton (1995). In that work, an attempt was made to fit the vowels of Acheron into a 10-vowel system with five [–ATR] vowels /ɪɛaɔʊ/ and five [+ATR] vowels /ieɜou/. The present paper proposes a revision to an 8-vowel system with six [–ATR] vowels /ɪɛəɑɔʊ/ and two [+ATR] vowels /iu/.

1 The first consonant in the language name is now variably pronounced in the community [c~ɕ~ʃ]. This reflects the softening of the palatal plosive during the 20th century (Norton 1995: 48-53). The same softening is observed in the name of the computer game Asheron’s Call, which derives from “Acheron” of Greek mythology.

Russell Norton 196

The approach taken for this re-analysis demanded more evidence for contrasts and greater mother-tongue speaker participation in establishing such contrasts. In a traditional phonemic approach (Pike 1947), a linguist may elicit from mother-tongue resource persons before producing a structural analysis of the phonology from which a practical alphabet can be proposed. In a participatory approach (Kutsch Lojenga 1996; 2010), the linguist and the mother-tongue speakers are participants together, and the mother-tongue speakers are actively involved in the analysis by making collective judgements of emic distinctions. The emic distinctions are expressed immediately in agreed orthographic representations of a corpus of words. In the present case, this participatory method facilitated a better analysis of Acheron vowels.2

2. Overview of the problem

The 10-vowel system originally claimed in Norton (1995) reflected an attempt to transcribe the language allowing for ATR distinctions in up to five vowel positions, corresponding to known vowel systems on the African continent (Casali 2008). As shown in (1), this was reflected in a 1992 trial orthography in which the language could be written using the vowel letters {aeiou} with and without umlaut. Perhaps an initial sign that a 10-vowel analysis was suspect comes from inconsistency in the use of umlaut. In the front and back vowels, the umlaut represented [–ATR] as this seemed to be the more marked value, often accompanied by creaky voice. But in central vowels, the situation was reversed with the umlaut attributed to [+ATR]. Another suspicious element was the lack of ATR harmony in the original data, that may have been due to transcription errors. (1) Vowel letters 1992 vs 2008

1992 Front Central Back Front Central Back 2008 High +ATR i u i ü High +ATR High –ATR ï ü ï u High –ATR Mid +ATR e o e ä o Mid Mid –ATR ë ö Low +ATR ä a Low Low –ATR a

2 Special thanks to Walid Arnu and his team for their participation in this analysis of Acheron vowels.

The Acheron vowel system 197

By 2007, conditions were ripe for a re-analysis. Leaders of recently-revived Acheron literacy classes in Khartoum were reporting a struggle to teach the ten vowel letters — a struggle that would be explicable if the ten letters did not in fact all correspond to phonemic categories. Misgivings about the linguistic analysis had also been heightened by a re-analysis of neighbouring Talodi language Lumun using the participatory method which found no [±ATR] contrasts in mid vowels, and expressed caution about [±ATR] contrast in central vowels (Kutsch Lojenga 2004). There was now a common interest in re-examining Acheron vowels on the part of the linguist and on the part of the literacy programme leaders. So, in November 2007 and February 2008 the linguist led two participatory workshops on the vowels with literacy programme representatives, and these were followed by a third workshop conducted without the linguist in August 2008. These workshops led to the revised understanding represented in the 2008 table in (1). The 2008 table has a smaller set of confirmed vowels, and the umlaut diacritic is employed in different ways, not as originally envisaged in 1992, but serving for distinctions identified by the workshop participants.

3. Objectives

The workshops had two objectives: 1. Train mother-tongue participants to distinguish all emic vowel categories

by consistently representing them with different letters. 2. Re-examine the inventory of emic vowels of Norton (1995). These twin objectives were designed to flow together and be mutually beneficial. On the one hand, doing more phonemic analysis could serve to make a more workable alphabet available to mother-tongue writers (2→1). On the other hand, the verification of emic vowel categories by mother-tongue participants would generate the documentation justifying the emerging re-analysis (1→2).

4. Method

Words used for the study were monosyllabic or disyllabic, primarily but not exclusively nouns. They were either taken by the linguist from an existing 500-word dictionary database (whose spelling quality was itself in question), or quoted by the mother-tongue participants.

Russell Norton 198

The words were written in a provisional spelling on slips of paper. These slips were put into piles for each vowel or vowel melody. Each pile of words was read as a list by a mother-tongue participant while the remaining mother-tongue and linguist participants listened to make same/different judgements on the vowels. If it was agreed that a word didn’t fit with the rest of the list, it was edited and moved to a different pile. This was done first for monosyllabic words, then for disyllabic words in which the two vowels are identical. These word sets serve to establish a vowel inventory. Finally, piles were created for disyllabic words with melodies of two different vowels. These word sets serve to document the possible vowel combinations and distributions.3 Since the emic reality of each [±ATR] distinction was under particular scrutiny in this language, umlauted letters were used conservatively. By default, words were spelled using the five basic vowel letters {ieaou}. Any further vowel letter — and the contrast it represented — would need to be justified afresh in the workshop. So, if the mother-tongue and linguist participants agreed that a further distinct vowel was present in some words, an umlauted letter would be brought into use and the words in which it was used would be put in a separate pile.

5. Selected results

5.1 Monosyllabic words

Word piles for monosyllabic words are shown in (2) in the orthographic representations agreed by the participants. In addition to the five basic vowels {aeiou}, one further distinction was needed in high front vowels by employing the letter {ï}. The logically possible monosyllables are limited in this language because the only stops admitted word-finally are velar k and ng, and also because the initial consonant in nouns is a class prefix. So there are many minimal pairs.

3 For Bantu languages, Kutsch Lojenga (2010) proposes documenting the stem vowel melodies. In Acheron however, word vowel melodies were documented. This was because in Acheron the majority pattern in noun class prefixation is single consonants, in which case all vowels in the word are stem vowels. There is a minority pattern of singular/plural alternation in the first vowel as well as the consonant, both in Acheron (Norton 2000) and other Talodi languages (Schadeberg 1981).


(2) Monosyllabic words

i ï e zik eye mik likewise wik many4 gik eyes bik mosquitos zing thigh ming thighs

zïk period mïk periods wïk forest hen gïk forest hens dïk gun rïk guns zïng egg mïng eggs ngïr water

zek colleague mek colleagues zeng coconut meng coconuts

u o a bur person wur persons nguk saliva

gok locusts ngok also yok well nok wells dong mouth rong mouths

zak colleague mak colleagues ngak oil, fat yak how? bang sibling dang in house rang in houses mang house

The minimal pairs for [±ATR] in high front vowels are listed in (3). {i} represents a [+ATR] vowel and {ï} represents a [–ATR] vowel, which is more retracted with creaky voice quality [i ]. (3) Minimal pairs for /i:ɪ/

zik [zik] eye zïk [zɪk] period5 gik [ɡik] eyes gïk [ɡɪk] forest hens zing [ziŋ] thigh zïng [zɪŋ] egg ming [miŋ] thighs mïng [mɪŋ] eggs mik [mik] likewise mïk [mɪk] periods wik [wik] many wïk [wɪk] forest hen

One candidate monosyllabic word äng ‘with’ suggested a possible further central vowel schwa to be written {ä} distinct from {a}. However, the

4 This is a contraction of wüyik, acceptable to eastern-dialect participants. 5 Or ðik and ðɪk in the western dialect. z is pronounced [ð] word-initially and intervocalically in the western dialect, and to reflect this the community now write a modified letter z.

Russell Norton 200

interpretation of this instrumental morpheme is ambivalent between a preposition word and a nominal prefix. Since all the monosyllabic words in (2) are CVC, there are no univalent examples of VC words. Therefore, this VC morpheme is interpreted as a prefix rather than a word. Hence, the class of monosyllabic words does not attest a schwa phoneme. The class of monosyllabic words attests just six vowel phonemes.

5.2 Disyllabic words with two identical vowels

Next we move to the class of words with two identical vowels. Word piles are shown in (4). These words are like monosyllabic words in that they attest a single vowel quality. Nevertheless, in this word class the number of emic vowels expands to eight. There are now abundant word piles distinguishing three umlauted vowels {ïüä} from unumlauted counterparts. (4) Disyllabic words with two identical vowels

i-i ï-ï e-e ippi this dri+ri colonisation zibing evening mibing evenings biying k.o. tree giddik body part widdik body parts bibing our bidding cold

ïrï tell ï+rï speak bïzïk k.o. tree pïyïk green wïyïk greens gïddïk white ant wïddïk white ants bïbïng my ïrrïng well

zege fat meat berek another dereng stick

u-u ü-ü o-o yuzu k.o. grass ngucu baby zuccu bead zuddu Arab duyuduyu rainbow guduk lip gu+ruk cumin buyuk tree sp bulluk one burung k.o. tree buyung k.o. tree du+rung lizard gurrung ten

büzü hot dünü black snake münü bottoms bürük ostrich würük ostriches güzük smoke bü+rük trap büdüng k.o. cat püppük housefly güttü dung

borok stool zodok star ongok he/she bodong lizard bolong tortoise dojong chin zorong wing zo+rong mountain onong you (pl) occong we (incl)


a-a ä-ä dada daddy gaza body wanna mummy gappa hole gadda leaf papak light gamal old man dalang water pot bambang drum dawwang in house

gädäk door zägäk leg wäddäk three nyälläk groundnut brew zäntäk neck gäbäk meat (pl) gäräk stomachs gäzäng feather gämäng biceps nägäng hair

Both the high vowel positions now divide into different piles for [±ATR]. The {i}/{ï} distinction is confirmed with more minimal pairs as extracted below in (5). There is also one minimal pair for {u}/{ü} extracted in (6). For mid vowels, on the other hand, the word piles for {e} and {o} are sufficient and do not subdivide into piles for [±ATR]. A further contrast was perceived between two central vowels {ä}/{a}, but no minimal pairs were attested in this class of words, and we will leave further discussion of this vowel to section 5.4. (5) Minimal pairs for /i:ɪ/ bibing [bibiŋ] our bïbïng [bɪbɪŋ] my giddik [ɡittik] body part gïddïk [ɡɪttɪk] white flying ant widdik [wittik] body parts wïddïk [wɪttɪk] white flying ants (6) Minimal pair and other contrastive pairs for /u:ʊ/ yuzu [jʊzʊ] k.o. grass yüzü [juzu] hot (y- concord) gu+ruk [ɡʊɽʊk] cumin bü+rük [buɽuk] trap burung [bʊrʊŋ] k.o. tree bürük [buruk] ostrich

5.3 High vowels

[ATR] contrasts in high front and high back vowels continue to be confirmed on disyllabic words with two-vowel melodies, as exemplified by further minimal pairs in (7) and (8): (7) Minimal pairs for /i:ɪ/ from other word piles ginyo [ɡiɲo] scorpion gïnyo [ɡɪɲɔ] burn (noun) izak [izɜk] sleep ïzak [ɪzɑk] (place name) zire [zire] add too much salt zïre [zɪrɛ] girl

Russell Norton 202

(8) Minimal pairs for /u:ʊ/ from other word piles

gäbu [ɡəbʊ] hole gäbü [ɡɘbu] bamboo däbuk [d əbʊk] year däbük [d ɘbuk] colleague buräk [bʊrək] person büräk [burɘk] rotting (b- concord) wuräk [wʊrək] people würäk [wurɘk]6 rotting (w- concord)

What is curious about the high vowels when represented orthographically in the participatory method is that the umlaut is used with opposite functions front and back. In the high front position umlaut is used for [–ATR], and in the high back position it is used for [+ATR]. This is set out in the table in (9). This indicates which vowel of each pair is perceived as more marked by the mother-tongue participants.

(9) Opposite functions of umlaut

Front Central Back High +ATR i ü High –ATR ï u

Arguably, the particular vowels perceived as marked by mother-tongue participants are also more marked phonetically. The {ï} letter represents a phonetically marked [–ATR] vowel /ɪ/ with creaky voice and retraction of the tongue, whereas there is less creakiness or retraction in the correspond-ing back vowel /ʊ/. The {ü} letter represents a phonetically marked [+ATR] vowel /u/ with a more advanced and also more close quality compared to /ʊ/. The corresponding [+ATR] front vowel /i/ is not more close than /ɪ/, the two high front vowels sound the same in height.

Despite the particular phonetics of each of these contrasts, both contrasts are attributable to the feature [ATR]. This can be seen in the distribution of high vowels shown by the word piles in (10). When we look for attested combinations of high vowels, we find that the umlauted letters {ï} and {ü} do not occur together, and neither do the unumlauted letters {i} and {u} occur together.7 This letter distribution follows from ATR harmony, so that [–ATR] stems exhibit {ï}, and [+ATR] stems exhibit {ü}.

6 The mirror-e symbol [ɘ] represents the [+ATR] variant of [ə] appearing in words with the [+ATR] vowel [u]. See also (14), (19), (22). 7 The word piles also illustrate that high front vowels are rarer in first vowel position than high back vowels, independent of [ATR].


(10) Words with two high vowels u-ï ï-u

–ATR stems

dudï spread of food dumï bamboo gungï faeces gurï relative guyï sound dukkï keeping seeds duppï on line

wumïk goat burïk young duyïk shed

bïbung their

ü-i i-ü +ATR stems

düdi, düzi thorn ngüzi milk gümi dead person nümi dead persons

güdik tail büyik big

yiddrük pig

(11) Minimal contrasts for ATR in words with two high vowels dudï [d ʊd ɪ] spread of food düdi [d ud i] thorn (west. dialect)

duyïk [d ʊjɪk] shed düyik [d ujik] big (d- concord)

5.4 Central vowels

Two central vowels were distinguished by the letters {a} and {ä}. Although good contrastive pairs of words for these two vowels were not forthcoming among words with two identical vowels, other contrastive pairs can be found. We shall argue moreover that these two vowels contrast in height, not in [ATR]. In (12), piles are given for words with two central vowels. The two central vowels may co-occur in words, in either order. (12) Words with two central vowels

a-a ä-a gamal old man

papak light nyäbak wine zägar sesame seed

V# dada daddy gaza body gappa hole gadda leaf wanna mummy

däma gum Arabic zäla grain of salt bälla cat gälla innocence ngäma gum Arabic

Vng# dalang water pot dawwang in house bambang drum

gällang old woman gärrang summer

Russell Norton 204

ä-ä a-ä gäbäk meat (pl)

gäräk stomachs gädäk door zägäk leg wäddäk three nyälläk groundnut zäntäk neck

wabäk meat zaräk stomach gaddär road

V# ——— ——— Vng# gämäng biceps

gäzäng feather nägäng hairs, hair

garäng stable ba+räng innocent nakkäng rubbish

Separating out the words with word-final vowels shows that {ä} does not occur word-finally, shown by the empty area on the table. Also, several participants pronounced {ä} like a low vowel {a} before a word-final nasal, in the last three rows of the table.8 Despite these neutralisations of contrast, the word piles in (12) also yield some word pairs showing contrast in analogous environments, shown in (13). Word piles for other vowel melodies yield two minimal pairs, as in (14). (13) Contrastive word pairs for /ɑːə/ in words with two central vowels9 dada [d ɑd ɑ] daddy däma [d əmɑ] gum Arabic

gaddär [ɡɑttər] road gäddäk [ɡəttək] three (g- concord) zaräk [zɑrək] stomach zägäk [zəɡək] leg zägar [zəɡɑr] sesame seed zägäk [zəɡək] leg nyäbak [ɲəbɑk] wine gäbäk [ɡəbək] meat (pl)

(14) Minimal pairs for /ɑːə/ from other piles duyak [d ʊjɑk] almost to the end duyäk [d ʊjək] cowshed

gürak [ɡurɜk] skin güräk [ɡurɘk] rot Two more phonological characteristics of the vowel /ə/ set it apart from the low vowel /ɑ/. First, when /ə/ occurs in the first syllable of a noun it variably undergoes complete assimilation to the following vowel:

8 The written representations with {ä} before a word-final nasal follow the pronunciation of participants with more recent roots in the Acheron rural home area. 9 The IPA makes symbols available for low front [a] and low back [ɑ]. Since the Acheron low central vowel is towards the back in its articulation, we employ [ɑ] or /ɑ/ in transcriptions.


(15) Complete vowel assimilation (free variation)

däbuk [d əbʊk ~ d ʊbʊk] year gäbu [ɡəbʊ ~ ɡʊbʊ] hole zängki [zəŋki ~ ziŋki] day

Second, /ə/ characteristically takes high tone. Tone has a low lexical load in Acheron: no tonal contrasts were reported in Norton (1995), and of 336 monosyllabic and disyllabic words whose vowels were re-examined during the workshops, we identified just one word pair where contrast was due to tone: dʊrɛ ‘cattle herding’, dʊrɛ ‘maize’. Nevertheless, high tone associates productively with /ə/, as shown in the tone frame in (16). In the various clause-internal object noun phrases, it is precisely the schwa /ə/ that has high tone while /ɑ/ and other vowels take low tone.

(16) Tone frame

Oïngbeng ba+rme _______ ïgarrang I see ___ in the compound ɔɪŋbɛŋ bɑɽmɛ ɪɡɑrrɑŋ

a. wabäk [wɑbək] a piece of meat b. gäbäk [ɡəbək] pieces of meat c. nyäbak [ɲəbɑk]10 wine d. gamal [ɡɑmɑl] an old man e. buräk büräk [bʊrək bùrɘk] a rotting person f. gürak güräk [ɡùrɑk ɡùrɘk] rotting skin

Having demonstrated the contrast between the two central vowels, we turn to the question of the feature that distinguishes them. Note that the association of high tone with /ə/ is not a characteristic of [+ATR], since both /ʊ/ and /u/ take low tone in (16ef). If /ə/ was [+ATR], then given that we already find ATR harmony in the distribution of [±ATR] high vowels in (10), we would not expect /ə/ to co-occur with /ɑ/ as they do in (12, 13, 16). And if /ə/ was [+ATR], then we would expect the central vowels /əɑ/ to occur only with the high vowels of the corresponding [ATR] values, as happens in the Heiban language Laru (Abdalla Kuku 2012), but this is not the case: as shown by the word piles in (17) and (18), each central vowel freely co-occurs with [–ATR] and [+ATR] high vowels alike.

10 Or [ɲɪbɑk]. Participants perceive and write the first vowel as {ä}, but it variably assimilates to the preceding palatal nasal.

Russell Norton 206

(17) The low central vowel with high vowels a-ï ï-a

gabï pot zacï gourd bayï wife ballï creeping plant baccïk snake

bïja tree zïnga type of fruit ïzak placename bïzak slave bïbang your (sg) bïnyang wet bïnna know mïllang pillar mïkkang holy place

a-i i-a maccing yesterday

dina toothless rina toothless izak sleep intak dry breast griccang knife dillang wizard disease

a-u u-a dawuk dog dawuk went zacul one-eyed man gappu hole zappu earth gadduk spear gammur sand bawung rat zawung time

ngurak k.o. monkey guwak forest duwak root duyak almost to the end dungkak sheep bu+rang thief zumak k.o. tree

a-ü ü-a ya+rü lion düra yoghurt

güma rough güra crake gü+ra ground field dümba plateau püwa lash gükka head support gürak skin gübang cress bürang sperm, power zü+rang stick güngkang grass skirt


(18) The mid central vowel with high vowels ä-ï ï-ä

ngänï what? rämï bamboos bänïr snake zäbïk side Gänzï God zämmï chest gättïng very

bïzäng see dï+räng still ngïräk water ïttäk farm

ä-i i-ä bädi butter zägik heart zängki day zänzik breast zänyik tooth rädik tails

bimäng heavy giräng fish sp.

ä-u u-ä gäbu hole däbuk year ngägur young animal zägur child zägung hand zänzuk sugarcane ngäruk dirt bärruk picture

buräk person bu+räk k.o. tree dubäk relative duyäk cowshed gunäk moon gugäng a hair gumäng compound gunzäk worm yunnäk shadow duppäk new field

ä-ü ü-ä gäbü bamboo däbü bamboos däbük colleague gädük grainstore zädük forehead mäzük ash gättüng splashing gäccük intestine

büräk rotting güräk rot güngkäk thatch gü+räng feather

In the same way the mid vowels {eo} co-occur with all high vowels, though we omit the word piles here. Words containing a high vowel and a non-high vowel follow the ATR harmony pattern in (19). The four non-high vowels /ɛɔəɑ/ are analysed as [–ATR] underlyingly, with [+ATR] allophones when

Russell Norton 208

co-occurring with a contrastively [+ATR] high vowel. This ATR harmony is gradient, so the altered vowel qualities are not always fully realised. (19) ATR harmony

ɛ ngelu [ŋɛlʊ] ocean [e] gedü [ɡed u] shield ɔ bonu [bɔnʊ] have [o] boyü [boju] dull ə däbuk [d əbʊk] year [ɘ] däbük [d ɘbuk] colleague

ngänï [ŋənɪ] what? bädi [bɘd i] butter ɑ zacul [zɑsʊl] 1-eyed man [ɜ] ya'rü [jɜɽu] lion

baccïk [bɑssɪk] snake maccing [mɜssiŋ] yesterday

Note that the use of the letters {a} and {ä} by mother-tongue participants shows that they categorise vowels phonemically, not by their [ATR] value. For example, in ya'rü [jɜɽu] ‘lion’, participants wrote the [+ATR] low vowel allophone as {a}, because it is an instance of the low central vowel phoneme /ɑ/. They did not write {ä} to reflect its [+ATR] value, since {ä} represents for them instead the mid central phoneme /ə/, which does not occur in ‘lion’.

5.5 Phoneme summary

We can now render the eight Acheron vowel phonemes in a table in (20). Based on the distributions, contrasts, and allophones of high and non-high vowels, we have established that there are [ATR] contrasts only in high vowels, and that there are two central vowels distinguished by height. (20) Acheron vowel phoneme table (IPA)

Front Central Back High +ATR i u High –ATR ɪ ʊ

Mid ɛ ə ɔ Low a

The phoneme table is given again in the orthography in (21) showing the letters selected by participants to represent the phonemes. Three umlauted letters were adopted in addition to the five basic vowel letters {aeiou}, but the umlaut does not correspond to any one contrastive feature in the table. In {ï} the umlaut distinguishes [–ATR], in {ü} the umlaut distinguishes [+ATR], and in {ä} the umlaut distinguishes mid height.


(21) Acheron vowel phoneme table (orthography) Front Central Back

High +ATR i ü High –ATR ï u

Mid e ä o Low a

In (22) contrastive word pairs are given for phonetically similar phonemes. (22) Contrastive pairs for vowel phonemes

i-ɪ gik [ɡik] eyes gïk [ɡɪk] forest hens widdik [wittik] body parts wïddïk [wɪttɪk] white ants

ɪ-ɛ zïng [zɪŋ] egg zeng [zɛŋ] coconut bïbïng [bɪbɪŋ] my bïbeng [bɪbɛŋ] their

ɛ-ə gerek [ɡɛrɛk] certain gäräk [ɡərək] stomachs gedü [ɡed u] shield gäbü [ɡɘbu] bamboo

ə-ɑ duyak [d ʊjɑk] almost to the

end duyäk [d ʊjək] cowshed

gürak [ɡurɜk] skin güräk [ɡurɘk] rot ɑ-ɔ yak? [jɑk] how? yok [jɔk] well

ngak [ŋɑk] oil ngok [ŋɔk] also ɔ-ʊ ngok [ŋɔk] also nguk [ŋʊk] saliva

modok [mɔd ɔk] stars wuduk [wʊd ʊk] lips ʊ-u yuzu [jʊzʊ] grass yüzü [juzu] hot

däbuk [d əbʊk] year däbük [d ɘbuk] colleague

All attested vowel melodies combining the eight vowel phonemes in disyllabic words are shown in (23). If a word is asterisked, it is the only instance of that vowel melody in existing data. Words without asterisks are exemplars of a word pile for that vowel melody. As argued earlier in 5.3, systematic gaps (———) for certain high vowel melodies are attributable to ATR harmony.

Russell Norton 210

(23) Vowel melodies in disyllabic words

ü yiddr

ük*

pig

——

—

gedü

sh

ield

däbü

k co

lleag

ue

ya+rü

* lio

n

boyü

* du

ll

——

—

bürü

k os

trich

u ——

—

bïbun

g*

their

ngelu

* oc

ean

däbu

k ye

ar

dawu

k do

g

gocc

u co

ugh

nguc

u ba

by

——

—

o ginyo

sco

rpion

gïnyo

bu

rn

dello

ng

ram

bädo

k sto

ne

ngaz

ok

mud

boro

k sto

ol

dung

ko

lash

düwo

tre

e hole

a gricc

ang

knife

bïja

tree

dera

* str

eam

bälla

ca

t

dalan

g wa

ter po

t

guwa

k fo

rest

güra

k sk

in

ä girän

g k.o

. fish

bïzän

g se

es

ngerä

k*

water

gädä

k do

or

wabä

k me

at

gozä

k sh

oe

burä

k pe

rson

güng

käk

thatc

h

e wige

gir

affe

zïre

girl

deren

g sti

ck

gäbe

po

t

baze

* ne

w

boye

k.o

. plan

t

yuwe

riv

er

güny

ek

rib

ï ——

—

gïddïk

wh

ite an

t

becc

ïk*

your

& m

y

Gänz

ï Go

d

zacï

gour

d

rorïn

g go

od

wumï

k go

at

——

—

i giddik

bo

dy pa

rt

——

—

zeny

ik*

char

coal

zägik

he

art

macc

ing*

yeste

rday

yori

k.o. s

nake

——

—

güdik

tai

l

i ï e ä a o u ü


The absence of an example of the melody {o-a} fits a trend in which {a} combines only rarely with the mid vowels {e,o} in existing data. The mid front vowel {e} is rare as the first vowel of the word, but common as the second vowel.11 The [+ATR] vowels {iü} are less common than their [–ATR] counterparts.

6. Umlauted vowels as marked vowels

Three umlauted letters were used in the written vowel inventory, but the umlaut does not correspond to any one contrastive feature. However, the markedness of these vowels can be understood linguistically in the following ways.

6.1 The six vowels in monosyllables and pronouns

Six vowels were found in monosyllabic words in (2), but these were not adequate to phonemically represent disyllabic words. Rather, the eight vowel phonemes distinguished among words with two identical vowels prove an adequate inventory for representing disyllabic words.

However, the six-vowel inventory is adequate for the class of pronouns. Pronoun sets are shown in (24). Many of the person-number distinctions are made in the second vowel. All of the six vowels /iɪɛɑɔʊ/ found in monosyllabic words occur here. There is a minimal contrast for /i/ and /ɪ/ between 1sg and 1pl possessive. On the other hand, the umlauted vowels {üä} and the phonemes /uə/ they represent are unattested in these paradigms.

11 The mid front {e} is rare as the first vowel, but especially common in absolute word-final position. This is in near-complementary distribution with the phonetically similar mid central vowel {ä}. {ä} is common as the first vowel, but unattested in absolute word-final position (see (12) above). Furthermore, {e} occurs in monosyllables but {ä} does not (see (2) above). Nevertheless, some contrastive pairs for these two vowels exist, as in (22).

Russell Norton 212

(24) Pronouns subject pronouns IPA Category oïng I oung you (sg) occïk I and you (sg) ongok he/she oning we (exclusive) onong you (pl) occong we and you (pl) ogeng they

[ɔɪŋ] [ɔʊŋ] [ɔssɪk] [ɔŋɔk] [oniŋ] [ɔnɔŋ] [ɔssɔŋ] [ɔɡɛŋ]

1sg 2sg 1sg&2sg 3sg 1pl 2pl 1pl&2pl 3pl

possessive pronouns IPA Category bïbïng my bïbang your (sg) beccïk my and your (sg) bïbung his/her bibing our (exclusive) bïbong your (pl) beccong our and your (pl) bïbeng their

[bɪbɪŋ] [bɪbɑŋ] [bɛssɪk] [bɪbʊŋ] [bibiŋ] [bɪbɔŋ] [bɛssɔŋ] [bɪbɛŋ]

1sg 2sg 1sg&2sg 3sg 1pl 2pl 1pl&2pl 3pl

Thus, we have an eight-vowel inventory /iɪɛəɑɔʊu/ in general, but a six-vowel sub-inventory /iɪɛɑɔʊ/ for the class of monosyllabic words and the class of pronouns.12 While the umlauts on {ü} and {ä} express different contrastive features within the vowel system, the two vowels share the property of being excluded from the word classes of monosyllables and pronouns, and thus are both marked in the language by virtue of this shared distributional limitation.

6.2 The feature [RTR]

The other umlauted vowel {ï} is not marked in this distributional sense, however. Far from being absent from monosyllables and pronouns, there are 12 Pronouns have in common with monosyllabic words the use of monovocalic stems. The subject pronouns in (24) all have (C)VC stems preceded by an ɔ- prefix that also occurs on kinship terms and other familiar persons (Norton 2000ː 30, see also Smits 2012). Six out of eight possessive pronouns have a VC stem preceded by a reduplicated concord prefix b-ɪ-b-. It is a matter for further research to determine whether all monovocalic stems in the language employ only the six vowels /iɪɛɑɔʊ/.


minimal contrasts between {i} and {ï} in both these word classes (1sg and 1pl possessive among the pronouns, several other minimal pairs among monosyllabic words).

Neither is {ï} marked with respect to the feature [ATR]. The [+ATR] vowels /iu/ are the more marked, being less frequent than their [–ATR] counterparts, and dominant in ATR harmony in stem vowels. Umlaut is used for [+ATR] in the high back vowel {ü} and moreover, both [+ATR] high vowels are written with umlauts in the neighbouring Talodi languages Lumun and Tocho (Alaki and Norton, this volume). However, this was not the course taken by the Acheron literacy programme leaders, before, during, or since the workshops.

The stable use of umlaut for the [–ATR] vowel /ɪ/ in Acheron calls for explanation. In 5.1 and 5.3 we referred to the retracted and creaky quality of this vowel. This is attributable to the presence of a further distinctive feature of retracted tongue root, [RTR]. This feature can be seen to affect surrounding vowels through vowel harmony. In (25), the high front vowels in the verb suffixes Reciprocal -itt and Collective -iyo harmonise to {ï} following the vowels {ï} or {a}, but not following other vowels.

(25) RTR harmony in reciprocal -itt and collective -iyo a. following {ï} or {a}:13

d-ïnna-ïtt-ïyo know each other d-orab-ïtt-ïyo-de greeted each other d-a-+räm-ïtt-ïyo are looking at each other d-a-wukk-ïkk-ïtt-ïyo making each other dance d-urïg-ïtt-ïyo-k insulted each other d-ïzäm-ïtt-ïyo see each other

b. Following other vowels:

d-ikk-iyo-de drank together d-oräny-itt-iyo-k fought each other d-o+räm-itt-iyo looked at each other d-a-wukk-itt-iyo dancing with each other d-ikk-ikk-itt-iyo-de caught each other

13 The effect following {ï} or {a} is seen even if the stem contains an intervening {ä}, from which we conclude that /ə/ is unspecified for [RTR]. On the other hand, the harmony effect following {a} is blocked by {u} in d-a-wukk-itt-iyo in the left column, suggesting that /ʊ/ is specified as [–RTR].

Russell Norton 214

We therefore analyse the two phonemes /ɪɑ/ as having the specification [+RTR], giving them both a more retracted and creaky articulation than other [–ATR] vowels in Acheron, and suffix vowels only become [+RTR] following these [+RTR] vowels. RTR harmony can be further observed in two common word pairs where the vowel /ɔ/ sounds more retracted and creakier next to /ɪɑ/ than when next to /ʊ/: (26) Word pairs showing presence/absence of RTR harmony oïng /ɔɪŋ/ [ɔ$ ŋ] I oung /ɔʊŋ/ [o uŋ] you (sg)

boga /bɔɡɑ/ [bɔɣɑ] be bonu /bɔnʊ/ [bo nu] have Hence, the stable use of umlaut in {ï} reflects the feature value [+RTR].

7. Summary and evaluation

To summarise, we will evaluate the participatory analysis of Acheron vowels from the perspectives of psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and (structural) linguistics. Psycholinguistically, the mother-tongue participants successfully mapped eight letters to emic vowels enabling them to write the language successfully.

Front Central Back High +ATR i ü High –ATR ï u Mid e ä o Low a

The letter symbols {ë} and {ö} were not needed to express emic vowel distinctions in a corpus of 336 monosyllabic and disyllabic words. In the other three umlauted letters adopted by participants, the umlaut did not correspond to any one linguistic feature within the vowel system. There was an observable difference of perception between the two [ATR] contrasts in high front and high back positions. The need for {ï} was clear to all from the first day, but in starkly different fashion it took three workshops for the writing of {ü} to be established. This was partly a problem of locating the contrast, since in data sets where contrast was easiest for participants to interpret (monosyllables, pronouns, words with two identical vowels), minimal pairs for the two high front vowels were abundant whereas minimal pairs for the two high back vowels were lacking. But there was also


a particular problem in perceiving the contrast itself. The mother-tongue participants were unable to perform the expected step of replicating the use of umlaut from [–ATR] /ɪ/ to [–ATR] /ʊ/. Clearly they did not perceive [–ATR] /ʊ/ as marked the way they perceived [–ATR] /ɪ/ as marked. Only when the mother-tongue participants switched to using the umlaut to represent [+ATR] /u/ in the third workshop (which they conducted without the linguist), were they able to distinguish the two high back vowels. We conclude that participants perceive [+ATR] as the marked value and reflect this in the high back position. Something different is happening in the front, where the participants are reflecting the marked specification [+RTR] on /ɪ/ in their use of umlaut.

Turning to a sociolinguistic evaluation, the participatory workshops empowered community members to make needed refinements to their written language by providing them with exposure to the linguistic evidence. The significance of this process was recognised when elders were called in to endorse what was happening. The workshops reflect a practical model for doing linguistics in a way that passes on benefit to the community, although to achieve this, it mattered that the workshop participants were literacy programme representatives — recognisable to their own community and its elders as language actors.

At the same time, the workshops had a significant weakness socio-linguistically. They were held in the capital city, with diaspora speakers, away from the active rural speech community. There was an element of language revitalisation in the workshops, whereby some of the workshop time was taken up by rediscovering pronunciations or meanings of words, rather than simply taking words in active spoken use and developing a written version of them. If this was true of individual words, then it is reasonable to suspect also that the revitalisation process was part of the reason why it took as long as three workshops to bring the contrast between the vowels /ʊ/ and /u/ into conscious written usage. Ultimately, the diaspora setting also impacts who owns the results of the workshops. If participation in the analysis was primarily open to diaspora speakers, then it is primarily diaspora speakers who own the results. Indeed, endorsement by active rural speakers of the workshops’ conclusions is still not complete at the time of writing, although the word piles have been compiled into a vowel booklet so that they can be made available for more people to inspect.

Having evaluated the work from psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives, we now do so in terms of linguistics. We claimed that the participatory method was beneficial to linguistics, and the following successes are apparent. First, the greater importance given to contrastiveness

Russell Norton 216

corrected the earlier 10-vowel description to an 8-vowel one. We did not assume that the [ATR] feature generated accessible distinctions in all vowel positions, and this view was vindicated by the finding that [ATR] is contrastive only in high vowels. Second, it was found that the class of words with two identical vowels was adequate for revealing the full number of vowel phonemes, as predicted by Kutsch Lojenga (2010). Third, the participatory method was good for distinguishing contrastive differences from non-contrastive ones. Contrastive features were consistently associated with the overt same-or-different decisions of the participants, allowing the linguist to silently deduce that other phonetic features he could hear were non-contrastive and therefore could be analysed separately by the linguist looking for conditioning environments. The present paper has discussed ATR, RTR, creaky voice, and tone. Nasalisation and stiffness also occur on Acheron vowels. If a linguist analyses alone, all these features have to be sorted somehow as to their role in the system, but a participatory situation primes the analysis by setting up a difference between what is contrastive and what is not. Fourth (and finally), the participants’ letter mappings stimulated linguistic analysis. From the use of {ä} it was determined that the schwa vowel was not the [+ATR] counterpart of the low central vowel but an additional vowel quality in its own right, a finding repeated in other Talodi languages.14 In addition, the participants’ decision to use an umlauted letter for /ɪ/ but not /ʊ/ led to the observation of the retracted tongue root feature [+RTR] on the vowels /ɪɑ/ in Acheron.

References

Abdalla Kuku, Nabil. 2012. Laru vowel harmony. Occasional Papers in the Study of Sudanese Languages 10: 17-34. SIL International.

Alaki, Thomas Kuku, & Russell Norton. This volume. Tocho phonology and orthography.

Casali, Rodney. 2008. ATR harmony in African languages. Language and Linguistics Compass 2/3: 496-549.

Kutsch Lojenga, Constance. 1996. Participatory research in linguistics. Notes on Linguistics 73: 13-27. SIL.

14 Two central vowel qualities that are not distinguished by [ATR] are now claimed for Tocho (Alaki & Norton, this volume), Dagik (Vanderelst, this volume), and Lumun (Smits 2012).


Kutsch Lojenga, Constance. 2004. Lumun phonology and noun classes. Unpublished manuscript.

Kutsch Lojenga, Constance. 2010. Participatory research in linguistics. Presentation to the SIL Global Linguistics Forum, Vajta, Hungary.

Norton, Russell. 1995. Variation and change in the phonology of Asheron. M.A. diss., University of Essex.

Norton, Russell. 2000. The noun classes of Asheron. Occasional Papers in the Study of Sudanese Languages 8: 23-55. SIL International.

Pike, Kenneth. 1947. Phonemicsː a technique for reducing languages to writing. Ann Arborː University of Michigan Press.

Schadeberg, Thilo C. 1981. A survey of Kordofanian. Volume 2: The Talodi group. Hamburg: Helmut Buske.

Schadeberg, Thilo C. 1989. Kordofanian. In The Niger-Congo languages: a classification and description of Africa’s largest language family, ed. by John Bendor-Samuel, pp. 66-80. Lanham: University Press of America.

Smits, Heleen. 2012. The prefix /ɔ-/ in Lumun kinship terms and personal names. Occasional Papers in the Study of Sudanese Languages 10: 95-114. SIL International.

Stevenson, Roland C. 1956-1957. A survey of the phonetics and grammatical structure of the Nuba Mountain languages, with particular reference to Otoro, Katcha and Nyimang. Afrika und Übersee 40 (1956): 73-84, 93-115; 41 (1957): 27-65, 117-152, 171-196.

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