Plosives

Mono Lake Northern Paiute's unique three-way contrast is manifested acoustically in closure duration, aspiration duration, and voicing during the closure interval. This contrasts with the typical textbook usage where ‘lenis’ and ‘fortis’ are defined in terms of respiratory or articulatory energy (Ladefoged & Maddieson Reference Ladefoged and Maddieson1996: 95–98).

The lenis plosives have a shorter closure duration and trend toward shorter aspiration duration. In running speech, they often surface as voiced fricatives, [β] or [ɣ], in the case of bilabial and velar plosives, or as a voiced tap, [ɾ], in the case of alveolar plosives:

1. (2)

The lenis plosives contrast with the voiced fortis and fortis plosives in aspiration and closure duration, as shown in Figure 1. Voiced fortis and fortis plosives overlap, with considerably longer aspiration and closure durations. These latter categories, in turn, contrast with one another in the presence or absence of voicing during the closure. As the pair of spectrograms in Figure 2 shows, the (voiced fortis) velar closure of /puɡɡu/ ‘horse’ shows voicing through the closure, while the (fortis) closure of /tuku/ ‘flesh, skin’ does not.

Figure 1

Lenis plosives (duration: M = 64, SD = 27; aspiration: M = 7, SD = 13) contrast with voiced fortis plosives (duration: M = 151, SD = 26; aspiration: M = 24, SD = 12) and fortis plosives (duration: M = 163, SD = 28; aspiration: M = 33, SD = 15) in aspiration and closure duration. For the lenis plosives, closure duration either refers to the actual duration of the closure or, when they have lenited to a fricative or approximant, to the duration of the approximation of articulators.

Figure 2

Voiced fortis and fortis velar plosives contrast in voicing during closure.

As we mentioned above, lenis, voiced fortis, and fortis plosives only contrast word-medially. In word-initial position, the contrast is neutralized. There are no word-final consonants.Footnote ² Generally, word-initial plosives correspond most closely to the fortis category. They are realized as voiceless aspirated stops. On occasion, strong prevoicing does occur, most frequently with inalienable noun stems uttered in isolation. Since these nouns, in spontaneous speech, are obligatorily possessed, we attribute this variation to analogy from the default possessed form of nouns, which take the indefinite possessor proclitic /a = /. Thus, /tama/ ‘tooth’ can be realized as [t^haˈma] or [d^haˈma]. The alveolar plosive of the latter approximates its counterpart in [a = dd^haˈma] ‘someone's tooth’ (the equals sign ‘=’ represents a clitic boundary).Footnote ³

The plosives are generally not susceptible to changes in place – with the notable exception of the velar plosives. The lenis, voiced fortis, and fortis velar plosives are all backed, approaching a uvular-like articulation, when they are preceded or followed by /a/:

1. (3)

Affricates

The affricates, like the plosives, show a three-way contrast between lenis, voiced fortis, and fortis realizations. The lenis affricate often surfaces as a voiced alveolar fricative:

1. (4) kudzabi [k^huˈʣabi] ~ [k^huˈzabi] ‘brine fly pupae’

As shown in Figure 3, the lenis affricate contrasts with the voiced fortis and fortis affricates in both stop duration and fricative duration. But, again, as with the plosives, the voiced fortis and fortis affricates are distinguished by voicing.

Figure 3

Lenis affricates (closure duration: M = 15, SD = 22; fricative duration: M = 95, SD = 36) contrast with voiced fortis affricates (closure duration: M = 60, SD = 15; fricative duration: M = 76, SD = 18) and fortis affricates (closure duration: M = 100, SD = 14; fricative duration: M = 91, SD = 16) in both stop duration and fricative duration.

Nasals

While in more northerly dialects of Northern Paiute nasals show a three-way distinction in place – bilabial, alveolar, and velar – the Mono Lake variety only has a two-way distinction – bilabial and alveolar (northern dialect data from Liljeblad Reference Liljeblad1966):

1. (5)

Both bilabial and alveolar nasals show a distinction in nasal murmur duration, as shown in Figure 4. The lenis nasals are short, and the fortis nasals long.

Figure 4

Lenis and fortis nasals contrast in murmur duration.

Sibilants

Mono Lake Northern Paiute has a coronal fricative best-described as an alveolo-palatal sibilant, /ɕ/; see Babel (Reference Babel, Stanford and Preston2009: 37–42) for palatograms and discussion.Footnote ⁴ Like the nasals, the alveolo-palatal sibilant participates in a two-way lenis–fortis contrast. The lenis sibilant has a shorter fricative duration than the fortis sibilant, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5

Lenis (〈s〉) and fortis (〈ss〉) sibilants contrast in fricative duration.

The sibilant has a palatalized allophone following /i/, characterized by higher laminal contact of the tongue surface and lip rounding:

1. (6)

As shown in Figure 6, the prominent spectral peak of the palatalized allophone (represented by the solid grey line) is around 4000 Hz, lower than that of the nonpalatalized allophone (represented by the solid black line), whose prominent peak lies around 6000 Hz.Footnote ⁵ The spectra in Figure 6 have been averaged across four tokens for each of the words in (6) above.

Figure 6

Prominent spectral peak of palatalized fricatives (grey line) is lower than that of unpalatalized fricatives (black line).

Monophthongs

Formant values for the six monophthongs are presented in Figure 8, plotted logarithmically in two-dimensional F1-F2 space. Measurements were taken at the vowel midpoint and averaged across the consultant's productions recorded for the purposes of this illustration (N = 735). The long vowels occupy the periphery of the vowel space, having more extreme F1 and F2 values than the short vowels.

Figure 8

Mono Lake Northern Paiute monophthongs charted in two-dimensional F1-F2 space. (〈o〉 represents the low-mid back vowel /ɔ/, and 〈y〉 the high central vowel /ɨ/.)

All of the monophothongs except for /e/ exhibit a binary length distinction, as illustrated by the following near-minimal pairs:

1. (7)

Vowel durations were averaged across all tokens recorded for the sketch; long vowels averaged 193 ms (SD = 56), while short vowels averaged 131 ms (SD = 52). Since /e/ does not exhibit a length contrast, it is not illustrated above.

The vowel /e/

The vowel /e/ deserves special mention. Nichols (Reference Nichols1974: 38f.) claims that, while Northern Paiute has only five phonemic vowels, Mono, Kawaiisu, and all of Central Numic ‘have a sixth vowel contrasting with the five common to the other languages (see Map 3). This sixth vowel is usually written e, but in most of the languages the actual phonetic vowel varies among [a ~ e ~ e ~ ɛi]’. Most dialects of Northern Paiute do indeed lack this Numic ‘sixth vowel’, but the Mono Lake variety has it.Footnote ⁶ Like its counterparts elsewhere in Numic, it is variably realized as a monophthong, [e], or as a diphthong []:

1. (8) ego [eˈɡɔ] ~ [ˈɡɔ] ‘tongue’

And, as Nichols observes (p. 42), the sixth vowel usually counts only as a single mora, which means that, when it occurs in a word-initial syllable, primary word stress falls on the second syllable, as in (8). The cognate forms in northern varieties of Northern Paiute has a high front vowel instead of the sixth vowel, e.g. Bannock [iɡɔ] ‘tongue’ (Liljeblad Reference Liljeblad1966: 75).Footnote ⁷ Nichols argues (pp. 38–50) that the sixth vowel must be reconstructed as a Proto-Numic diphthong /*/, though see Babel et al. (to appear, Section 7.1) for a different historical analysis.

Community orthography

Yübano nümmi süügganna a nakabodomanekaasi. Suumi süüggabodonna yaisi oopiddunna. Yaisi dammi opiwünüpütuhu. Saa'a oka mamaggwüusi yaisi nümmi opomadabu'i. Yaisi tuadzu yaddatu. Tuadzu wonotu. Unika nümmi mada'e saa'a opiwünümma süübi hanimaggwüsi. Mihu sabbü yaisi nüü süübiggwetu waha.

Phonemic transcription

jɨbanɔ nɨmmi ɕɨːɡɡannaa = nakabɔdɔmanekaːɕi. ɕuːmi ɕɨːɡɡabɔdɔnna ˈjaiɕi ɔːpiddunna. ˈjaiɕidammi ɔpiwɨnɨpɨtuhu. ɕaːʔa ɔkamamaɡɡʷɨuɕi ˈjaiɕinɨmmi ɔpɔmadabuʔi. ˈjaiɕituaʣujaddatu. tuaʣuwɔnɔtu. unikanɨmmimadaʔe ɕaːʔa ɔpiwɨnɨmma ɕɨːbihanimaɡɡʷɨɕi. ˈmihu = ɕabbɨ ˈjaiɕinɨː ɕɨːbiɡɡʷetuwaha.

Phonetic transcription

jɨˈβanɔ nɨˈmmi ˈɕɨːɢɢannaa = naˈq^haβɔɾɔmaneq^haːɕ. ˈɕuːmi ˈɕɨːɡɡaβɔɾɔnna ˈjeiɕi ˈɔːpidd^hunn. ˈjeiɕi ɾaˈmmi ɔˈp^hiwɨnɨp^hɨt^huh. ˈɕaːʔa ɔˈq^hamaˈmaɡɡ^whɨuɕi ˈjeiɕinɨˈmmi ɔˈp^hɔmaɾabuʔi. ˈeiɕt^huˈajaˈddat^hu. t^huˈawɔˈnɔt^hu. uˈniq^hanɨˈmmimaˈɾaʔe ˈɕaːʔa ɔˈp^hiwɨnɨmma ˈɕɨːβihaˈnimaɡɡʷɨɕ. ˈmih = ɕabb^hɨ ˈjeiɕ ˈnɨː ˈɕɨːβiɡɡ^whet^hwaˈha.

Translation

In the autumn, we gather willows after they're done losing their leaves. At that time, we go around collecting willows, and then we clean the bark off them. We then make willow string. Later, after we finish that, we make round baskets. Or then, we make winnowing baskets. Or, we make burden baskets. We learn to make those kinds later with the willow string, after we're done gathering the willow. That's all I have to say about willows.