Typological implications of Kalam predictable vowels

Kalam is a Trans New Guinea language of Papua New Guinea. Kalam has two distinct vowel types: full vowels /a e o/, which are of relatively long duration and stressed, and reduced central vowels, which are shorter and often unstressed, and occur predictably within word-internal consonant clusters and...

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Published inPhonology Vol. 27; no. 1; pp. 1 - 44
Main Authors Blevins, Juliette, Pawley, Andrew
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.05.2010
Subjects
Consonant clusters
Consonants
Dialect Studies
Language typology
Languages
Lexical stress
Linguistics
Orthographies
Phonemes
Phonemics
Phonetics
Phonological stress
Phonology
Stress
Suprasegmentals
Syllables
Syntax
Trans-New Guinea languages
Vowels
Words
Yams
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Summary:Kalam is a Trans New Guinea language of Papua New Guinea. Kalam has two distinct vowel types: full vowels /a e o/, which are of relatively long duration and stressed, and reduced central vowels, which are shorter and often unstressed, and occur predictably within word-internal consonant clusters and in monoconsonantal utterances. The predictable nature of the reduced vowels has led earlier researchers, e.g. Biggs (1963) and Pawley (1966), to suggest that they are a non-phonemic ‘consonant release’ feature, leading to lexical representations with long consonant strings and vowelless words. Here we compare Kalam to other languages with similar sound patterns and assess the implications for phonological theory in the context of Hall's (2006) typology of inserted vowels. We suggest that future work on predictable vowels should explore the extent to which clusters of properties are explained by evolutionary pathways.
Bibliography:PII:S0952675710000023
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ArticleID:00002
We are grateful to Bernard Comrie, four anonymous referees and audiences at the 2nd Sydney Papuanists' Workshop and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology for comments on earlier versions of this paper. Pawley's fieldwork on Kalam was supported by grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the University of Auckland and the University of Papua New Guinea.
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ISSN:0952-6757
1469-8188
DOI:10.1017/S0952675710000023