Omaha fricative set

[Rory M Larson]

Mark and I have just had a session with three of our speakers to try to
hammer out the phonology of Omaha fricatives.  We came to some tentative
conclusions, which I present below.  Any comments or critiques would be
welcome.

In the past, we've roughly assumed a set of three oral fricative locations,
each of which may be voiced or unvoiced:

  s     s^     x^
  z     z^     g^

We've also been aware that s and s^ have "muted" alternates s. and s^.,
which occur regularly before n, and sometimes elsewhere as well.

I seem to recall somebody mentioning on the Siouanist list some time back,
perhaps a year or so ago, that some Siouan language(s) made [s] with the
tip of the tongue pressed against the lower front teeth, rather than just
under the alveolar ridge, as in English.  In other words, the [s] hiss
would be made between the top of the tongue (convex upwards) and the
alveolar ridge, rather than between the leading edge of the tongue (curled
up so the top of the tongue is concave upwards) and the alveolar ridge.
After some uncertainty, it seemed everyone agreed that Omaha [s] is made
with the tip of the tongue against the lower front teeth.  [z] is made the
same way, and with less confidence it seems that [s^] is also made with the
tip of the tongue against the lower front teeth, rather than against the
back of the alveolar ridge as in English.  The difference between the Omaha
[s] and the English [s] is hard to detect by hearing.  Not only have we
native English speakers been using our version of [s] when speaking Omaha,
but apparently our Omaha informants still use their version of [s] when
speaking English.  Our eldest speaker remarked that English words spoken
with the English version of [s] didn't sound right to her.

Second, the "muted" versions of s and s^ seem to be more widespread than we
had supposed.  According to one of our speakers, we seem to have a minimal
triplet of words in the s series:

  si        'foot'   (<MVS *si)
  s.i       'seed'   (<MVS *su)
  zi        'yellow' (<MVS *zi)

The word for 'turkey' is problematic.  When Mark elicited the word from one
speaker last Monday, and from another today, asking them to repeat it three
times, both speakers pronounced it s.izi'kka all three times, with the
initial sound a muted s ([s.]).  Then he asked the third speaker, the
youngest, and she gave zizi'kka.  The others (or her older sister at least)
agreed with her staunchly, insisting that the right way to pronounce it was
in fact zizi'kka.

The "muted" form seems to be indifferently voiced.  Typically the voicing
for the following vowel or n begins in the middle of the fricative, so it
starts out unvoiced and shifts to voiced in the middle of producing it.
More importantly, I think the traditional "voiceless" version is marked by
a greater forcefulness in pushing the air through the gap.  So the "muted"
form might be the basal unmarked form, with forcefulness being added to
mark the "voiceless" series, and voicing being added to mark the voiced
series.  For the s and s^ locations we should have:

  forced   (+forcing; -voicing)      s       s^
  muted    (-forcing; -voicing)      s.      s^.
  voiced   (-forcing; +voicing)      z       z^

Finally, we come to our ever problematic x^/g^ sounds.  These in fact to
not seem to be alternates in a single series.  They are made at different
articulation points.  [x^] is more forward, I think between the top of the
tongue and the back of the hard palate.
[g^] is farther back, I believe between the back of the tongue and the
velum or tonsils or something.  (A laryngeal?)  Somebody who knows Arabic
would probably be able to describe it better.  (Bruce??)

Also, the [x^] seems to be clearly voiceless and forced.  I've never felt
comfortable describing the Omaha [g^] as voiced, although voicing sometimes
comes in on the trailing end of it.  Nor is it at all forceful.  It seems
to belong to the muted series, with indifferent or marginal voicing and
non-forceful production.

The complete Omaha fricative set, as I'm conceiving it now, is as follows:

                            alveolo-
               alveolar     palatal      palatal      velar      glottal

  forced          s           s^            x^                      h

  muted           s.          s^.                       g^

  voiced          z           z^


Looking at it this way, the g^ should probably be replaced by another
symbol, say [x.].

Does this understanding of the Omaha fricative set seem reasonable to
everyone who has opinions?

Thanks for any input,

Rory
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