Biloxi/Ofo

[R. Rankin]

> . . .Haas states that the allophone [e] for 'i' occurs with length and in
> utterance final position before glottal stop.  I don't think this was
> mentioned by Dorsey in the dictionary however.

No, Dorsey always writes the length distinction as if it were a quality
distinction.  No one has had the courage to undertake a complete analysis of
JOD's use of the breve and other vowel diacritics (it would be a massive
undertaking).  But in Biloxi, it may make a tremendous difference.  All
linguists since Dorsey have already screwed up Biloxi by collapsing the two
series of stops, and I'm afraid the vowels are no different.  It is especially
important in the SE, where [e] is an allophone of /i/ and [epsilon] is an
allophone of /e/, to figure out JOD's transcription.  As a starting point, I'd
look for his <e-breve> to represent short /e/.  Then his <e> with no diacritics
will be either [+long] or an allophone of /i/ (or both, unfortunately).  But
there are other E's (e.g., with circumflex) to deal with too.

Haas's comment about [e] representing long /i:/ I find especially interesting,
because I think the Ofo rule is the same, and I hadn't reread Haas when doing my
Ofo analysis.  I'll double check.  Thanx for the tip.

Bob