6.1176, Sum: 'Vowelless' languages

[The Linguist List]

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-6-1176. Tue Aug 29 1995. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines:  105
 
Subject: 6.1176, Sum: 'Vowelless' languages
 
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---------------------------------Directory-----------------------------------
1)
Date:  Tue, 29 Aug 1995 16:34:50 +1200
From:  LING003 at cantva.canterbury.ac.nz
Subject:  Sum: 'Vowelless' languages
 
---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date:  Tue, 29 Aug 1995 16:34:50 +1200
From:  LING003 at cantva.canterbury.ac.nz
Subject:  Sum: 'Vowelless' languages
 
A few weeks ago I broadcast a query about recordings of languages which
have been analysed as being vowelless or having very few phonemic vowels.
The spark for this interest was the claim by Grover S. Krantz ('Laryngeal
descent in 40,000 year old fossils', _The genesis of language_ 173-180, ed.
by Marge E. Landsberg, 1988, Mouton de Gruyter) that such languages might
reflect a pre-modern stage of language evolution, before the descent of the
larynx had made the full repertoire of vowel sounds available.  I commented
that a small inventory of vowel phonemes is compatible with a big phonetic
range of vowel realisations, so if 'vowel-poor' languages nevertheless have
plenty of vowel *sounds* ([i, u, a] and points between), then Krantz's
argument is weakened (quite apart from what one may think of it on other
grounds).
 
I am grateful for responses from (in no particular order) Charles Scott,
Mike Maxwell, John Petersen, David M.W. Powers, Alex Francis, Susan Banner
Inouye, Paul Kiparsky, Steven Berbeco, Ali Idrissi, Philip Hamilton, John
Kingston, Jaye Padgett, Andrew Pawley, Kimberley Barskaitiki, Bruce Nevin,
Jeffrey Howard Allen and one person whose message I inadvertently deleted.
 
The consensus is that phonologically vowel-poor languages do indeed have
plenty of vowel *sounds*.  As to recordings, I was told of a few phonetics
labs from which tapes may be available (see below).  One thing I discovered
is that it's not just the NW Caucasus where there are vowel-poor languages.
Here are some references, sorted geographically.
 
Caucasus
- ------
Allen, W.S. on Abaza. Transactions of the Philological Society 1956 and
Lingua 1965.
Kuipers, A.H. 1960. Phoneme and morpheme in Kabardian.  Mouton.
(For references on the surrounding controversy, see B. Comrie _Languages of
the Soviet Union_ pp 205-7.)
Colarusso, John. 1988. The Nort-West Caucasian languages: a phonological
survey.  Garland.
Colarusso, John. 1992. A grammar of the Kabardian language. Univ of Calgary
Press.
Tapes of Kabardian, made by John Choi, possibly available from UCLA
Phonetics Lab.
 
Australia
- -------
Leeding, Velma. 1989. Anindhilyakwa phonology and morphology. Sydney Uni
PhD thesis.
Work on Anindhilyakwa by Jeffry Heath and on Kaytej by Harold Koch (ANU).
Article on Arrernte in _Phonetica_ 1977 (author not given).
Wilkins, David. 1989. Mparntwe Arrernte (Aranda): studies in the structure
and semantics of grammar. ANU PhD thesis.
Tapes possibly available from Gavan Breen, Institute of Aboriginal
Development, Alice Springs, or the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and
Torrest Strait Islander Studies, Canberra.
 
Papua New Guinea
- --------------
Biggs, Bruce. 1963. Article on Kalam in Anthropological Linguistics.
Pawley, Andrew. 1966. Unpublished PhD thesis on Kalam.
Languages phonologically similar to Kalam mentioned by William Foley in
_The Papuan languages of New Guinea_, 1986.
 
I was also reminded about languages in which texts have unusually few vowel
*tokens*, i.e. they have big consonant clusters, even though the range of
vowel *types* is normal.  This wasn't strictly relevant to my question, but
here are some examples:
 
Kutenai, a language isolate of Canada: recordings possibly available from
the UC Berkeley phonetics archives.
Possibly other languages of the Pacific North-West coastal region.
Berber: articles by Dell and El-Medlaoui, discussed in the 1993 _Optimality
Theory_ Research Report by Prince and Smolensky (Rutgers).
Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy
Department of Linguistics, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800,
Christchurch, New Zealand
Phone +64-3-364 2211; home phone +64-3-355 5108
Fax +64-3-364 2065
e-mail a.c-mcc at ling.canterbury.ac.nz
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