Omaha fricative set

[Rory M Larson]

John Koontz wrote:
> The tendency of the s set to develop into interdentals (or labiodentals
in
> Ofo) proably says something about the usual pronunciations of the s set.
> The laminal pronunciation you mention or anything more apical and less
> alveolar are likely.

I'm confused by what you mean by "apical" here.  Do you mean the tip of the
palate ahead of the alveolar ridge?

I do see how the laminar pronunciation would favor the interdentalization
of the s, though.  If the tip just swings up a little, it starts coming up
against the upper front teeth to produce the thorn sound.


> I'm pretty sure that something like an extreme laminality or apicality
> explains the LaFlesche use of c-cedilla for s, and failing a convenient
> coresponding voiced symbol he used the same for z, too.  He prized his
> pronunciation of s/z and used symbols to insist on it.  Dorsey mentions
> that members of the LaFlesche family had what ammounted to a lisp.

Wasn't a mother or grandmother of that family an Otoe?


>> 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.
>
> You'll find many of these marked with "turned s" and "turned c" in
> Dorsey's printed texts.  Copies of these I've made for people often have
> that distinction suppressed as subphonemic, of course!

Yes.  The "turned s" is a little harder to see than the "turned c".


>> 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)
>
> It's interesting that you should find muted s in *su words.  'Quail' is
> another one, I think, and one that Dorsey is very puzzled about writing,
> but I'm not sure about the turkey word.  We can probably get you a list
of
> *su/*zu words if you like.  I'm not absolutely convinced that this is the
> same thing as the muting.  But it is probably a reflex within the s of
the
> *u.  Perhaps the s is more rounded?

I'd be glad to get a list of *su/*zu words.  I'm not sure it's restricted
to those-- we seemed to be getting quite a bunch of them the other week.
But it would certainly be something to test.  I'll try to watch out for
lip-rounding too.

I'm also not sure that the only difference between 'foot' and 'seed' is the
muting, but it seemed to be one of them.  We worked on these words for a
while with one speaker, in the presence of the other two.  The speaker
insisted that the two were distinct.  Her initial explanation was that the
si of 'foot' was shorter, though perhaps not in the sense that the vowel in
the 'seed' word was long.  My impression of her pronunciation agreed.  It
seemed to me that si, 'foot' was delivered in a quick burst of force, which
quickly disappeared.  (Taking Japanese, I've noticed that when they want to
emphasize a word, say, to explain it to a class, they cut off the final
vowel sharply at the height of its career with a glottal closure in a way
that in English would only be done in situations of military strutting,
like the "p" in "Hup!".  The end of si, 'foot', was almost, but not quite,
this sudden.  It was more like a rapidly fading vowel being put out of its
misery.)  When she pronounced s.i, 'seed', the breath was not slammed
through it like that; the s seemed to be of the muted type, and the vowel
trailed off in a more relaxed way.  Also, there seemed to be a qualitative
difference in the vowel to me.  In si, 'foot', the vowel was closer to the
/i/ sound in "deed".  In s.i, 'seed', it seemed to approach the /I/ sound
in "did".  I didn't notice any lip rounding in either case.


> What about x before dh?  I don't think Dorsey pointed to any peculiar
> quality here, but logically x should be muted before gh.

You mean before dh, right?  I've been wondering about that, too.  I seem to
recall Bryan pointing out to me a few months ago that it was in fact the
muted form before dh, at least for certain words.  I'll have to dig up his
posting again.


>> 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^
>
> I think this is phonetically correct, barring my uncertainty about the
> actual position of x (you write x^).  I don't think that the three way
> mutedness distinction is necessary in writing.  The middle row can be
> merged with the top or bottom row as long as people know how to pronounce
> particular tokens.  The traditional solution would be to write the muted
> forms with the voiceless symbols.  In the same way we don't make a point
> of marking aspiration on ptk in English so we can leave it off in sp st
> sk.

That's what I've been assuming up until now too, supposing that the muted
s. and s^. forms occur only before n, or in certain other nasal contexts
where their manifestation is phonologically constrained.  But if they are
popping up arbitrarily, then they do need to be distinguished.


>> Looking at it this way, the g^ should probably be replaced by another
>> symbol, say [x.].
>
> I strongly recommend against this for two reasons:
>
> - g^ or gh (gamma) is the usual symbol for the phonemic element
>
> - the gh spelling (or something approximating gamma) was agreed upon
> independently by both the Ponca and Omahas spelling projects and there is
> nothing to be gained by flipflopping on this now
>
> I'd say, stick with x and gamma, and write gamma the way it has been.
> Just write better pronunciation guides.

Hmm.  I posed this question to the list a few months ago, and the general
opinion on orthography seemed to be indifferent.

This is fine for the Siouanist list, though I am inclined to favor marking
the x as x^, simply to make sure we really intend it to mean the sharp and
forceful form.  The x has been used for either or both velar fricatives so
much in Omaha that I really don't trust anything written with x as
necessarily being distinctive.

For Macy, the issue is touchy.  They have some investment in the old La
Flesche system, and there could be fallout from trying to revise it.  With
a push, they might accept using gh for the mute form, though that would be
painful for the very common 'make'/'do' verb, which would then have to be
written gaghe instead of gaxe.  Alternatively, I think we got a green light
in the context of the discussion we had this summer to adopt my suggestion
of diacritics for the x's: x-hacek for the sharp one and x-underdot for the
muted one.  This would have the advantage of retaining the x for both,
which should keep orthographic conservatives happy, while preserving the
phonological distinction, which should satisfy phonologic conservatives.
(Whether modern computer technology is yet capable of adding diacritics to
x remains undetermined.)

What are these Ponca and Omaha spelling projects?  Who all has been
included?


> Have you looked at the famous initial gh/medial x words, e.g.,
>
> ghage' 'to cry'
>
> or gaghe vs. gaxe?
> bighoN vs. bixoN?
>
> Do you hear waxe 'whiteman' as waxe or waghe?  How about 'ice'?  Nughe or
> nuxe?

ghage' has been our favorite example of a leading gh- word.  wax^e is a
standard x^ word.  The 'make'/'do' verb is understood to have gh.  I think
Mark has elicited 'ice', but I don't recall what he found it to be.

When you ask about "gaghe vs. gaxe?", "bighoN vs. bixoN?", are these
separate words, or are you just asking which way we hear them?  If they are
separate words, could you remind me of their respective meanings?

Thanks for your comments!

Rory
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