Omaha nasal vowels

[R. Rankin]

> I just got regular access to email after a very long long gap.

Welcome back!


> In reply
> to the question about nasal vowels, I second John & add:
> The uN definitely seems to be transcribed when before a back consonant
> like 'k' or 'g' (hence allophonic variation).

Like John, I'd like to have all the examples you can locate of [oN] as opposed
to [aN].  No Dhegiha dialect has VNC contrasting with VnC or VmC.  Nasal
vowels have a consonantal offglide preceding a voiced stop, so you'll
routinely hear words like naNba, ttaNde or ttaNga with an [m], [n] or [agma]
respectively in OP and in Kaw.  As far as I know the only Siouan language
actually to have the Vn sequences is Nakota or those D dialects that have -na
diminutives, etc.

The Dakotan cognate for Omaha goNdha 'want' is  kuN 'covet', so beware of any
automatic assumption that *uN and *aN have completely fallen together in OP or
any other DH dialect.  The conflation seems to be something that is an ongoing
process in these dialects, but it may be incomplete.  On the other hand, there
may well be something to Ardis's idea of conditioning by an adjacent velar.
This is something that is happening in other languages too.  French, in some
speech styles, no longer distinguishes 'langue' from 'longue', etc.

In Quapaw it appears the two back nasal vowels may have fallen together and
then resplit, with the long vowel becoming rounded, oN, and the short vowel
remaining aN or a nasalized schwa.

Bob
--
Robert L. Rankin, Visiting Fellow
Research Center for Linguistic Typology
Institute for Advanced Study
La Trobe University
Bundoora, VIC 3083 Australia
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