Omaha fricative set

[Bryan Gordon]

Rory -

Much of what you've said matches some of my impressions on hearing spoken Ponca.

I would offer that what you're describing as /s/-series pronounced
with the tip of the tongue against the lower teeth are probably simple
laminal /s/. Laminal (or "distributed" in some phonological theory)
are articulated with the part of the tongue behind the tip. Where the
tip goes is therefore not very important, and it doesn't make much of
a difference whether the tip remains raised or is totally lowered.
Dutch and Finnish both have widespread laminal /s/ and this is why the
/s/ in those languages sounds "dark" or like a cross between /s/ and
/s^/. I believe Nepali also pronounces /s/ with a lowered tongue tip
in certain contexts. Anyway, "laminal" is a very concise way to
describe the sound, and it's a word most people who know IPA are
familiar with.

As far as the /x, g^/ thing goes, your analysis fits what I've noticed
also. I do believe /x/ is, as you said, pronounced much farther
forward on the velum than we traditionally have said. The word for
something pronounced against "the back of the tongue and the velum or
tonsils" would probably be "uvular." A laryngeal would be something
like /h/ or a glottal stop; while a pharyngeal would be something
pronounced by the root of the tongue in the throat itself, and I don't
believe this is what's happening in OP. Uvular pronunciation, on the
other hand, is very common in many Plains languages, including as an
allophone for /k/ or even a separate phoneme.

- Bryan Gordon

On 9/24/06, Rory M Larson <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu> wrote:
>
>
> 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
>