a phonetic mystery

[ROOD DAVID S]

This is precisely why I think we've been sloppy about this phenomenon.  I
agree that the vowel in the ma- prefix is strongly nasalized, as is the
prefix in mani 'to walk'. The position of that vowel is also considerably
higher -- more schwah-like -- than the oral equivalent.   But the -na in
wana 'now' is much less obviously nasalized most of the  time, and the
position is low central, more like the stereotyical "a as in  father" than
like a schwah.  Most speakers deny any difference when I ask  them about
it, but their practice belies their intuitions.  Another set  would be the
nasal u in nupa 'two', which is so strongly nasalized that  many people
are tempted to write numpa until we train that out of them, in  contrast
with nuwaN 'to swim' or manu 'to steal', where the "u" is higher, tenser,
backer,  and far  less strongly nasalized, and no one every tries to write
a nasal consonant after the "u".  I don't think anyone has ever
suggested that manupi 'they steal' should be written manumpi.
But I do not  completely trust my own  ears at this point, and I am not
sure how much consistency there is from  speaker to speaker or place to
place, though I am convinced that any given  speaker is quite consistent
about which pronunciation goes with which word.  If there are
contradictory data out there, I'd like to hear about them.

David

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
Campus Box 295
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Wed, 21 Mar 2001, Pamela Munro wrote:

> I do not agree that "there is not much perceptible nasality in vowels
> following nasal sonorants in Lakhota". I've only worked with two
> speakers (representing two generations; born about early '20s and early
> '40s), so maybe they were unusual, but both these ladies quite strongly
> nasalize(d) vowels after nasals. E.g. the ma- 'I'/'me'/'my' "patient"
> prefix has an overwhelmingly nasal vowel. But perhaps others hear things differently.
>
> Pam
>
> The impression I've always gotten from you is that there isn't much
> perceptible nasality in vowels following nasal sonorants in Lakota.  I
> tend to interpret this as a sort of lexical shift of nasality into
> sonorants or sonorant clusters where this was possible.
>