Siouan Long Vowls

[Rankin, Robert L]

> The real questions are, of course, (a) is the length really there in
> Omaha-Ponca, which seems to be the case, and (b) is it contrastive in
> accented syllables and in non-accented syllables, omitting any
> possibility of polymorphemic sequences.

> It would suffice to be contrastive in one or the other of accented and >
unaccented syllables, of course.  It wouldn't have to be both, and it >
would be typical Siouan phonological perversity if it weren't.

I think we are ignoring some basic tenets of phonology. It would suffice
even if all long vowels were traceable to polymorphemic sequences. It isn't
legitimate to consider the morphological environments in determining what is
distinctive in the phonology. For example, many instances of 'locative a-
prefix' are derivational and have little or no semantic content. The only
way they are identifiable is if we write them properly, either with a length
diacritic or with double vowels when they appear in sequences with other
instances of /a/. If we permit ourselves (as Dorsey often did) to write wa+a
or, worse, wa+a+a all as "wa-", we have made our transcription useless to
future generations. It will only be useful if we write ALL long vowels as
long. It isn't legit to write length "just where there is contrast". Who
knows in advance where there will be contrast?

Looked at across Siouan, it is notable that Crow, Hidatsa and Tutelo and
Ofo, at opposite geographical ends of the family, had length transcribed in
the same (i.e., cognate) lexemes as early as the late 19th and early 20th
century. Miner's Winnebago clearly shows that this persisted into
Mississippi Valley Siouan.

These languages have length in both accented and unaccented syllables. They
also have it morpheme-internally as well as at boundaries. If memory serves
(and Randy can correct me on this) Crow has three degrees of length, tho' I
don't know how this is resolved phonetically. High, low, rising and falling
pitch are all distinctive. I don't see how we can do less than transcribe
these things just as we hear them without ANY "assumptions" about
predictability.

Note that I am as guilty as everyone else in my early field transcriptions.
I am going to have to retranscribe all my notes before going much farther.

Bob