32 Chapter 2 Phonology
(24) ə ~
ə
p pəkkɨl ‘angry’ p pɨkkəm ‘grip’
t təbbɨl ‘thick’ b bɨccɛ ‘good’
ṭ ṭət.ə ‘robust’ t ɨrrɤp ‘belch’
c cəppə ‘fast’ d dɨrpək ‘stout’
k kəɲɲa ‘full’ ṭ ṭɨkkəp ‘embrace’
m məlla ‘lukewarm’ ḍ ḍɨrrɨ ‘roar’
n nəppɤ ‘flat’ c cɨlli ‘see’
ɲ ɲəccɛ ‘too short’ ɨrruk ‘citrus fruit’
əppɨ ‘face down’ k kɨlɤ ‘crazy’
l lmb’ ‘soft’ g gɨmmɔ ‘fat’
r rəppɤ ‘grass’
s sənnə ‘happy’
#___ ənḍ ‘willing’
The alternations are most dramatically illustrated in the pairs of root/nasal
actor voice forms of verbs. The actor voice nasal prefix, which is // in underly-
ing form, replaces the initial consonant of the verb root with a homorganic nas-
al. This is illustrated first for roots with bilabial stops in initial position.
(25) underlying root surface root actor voice
/pɛna/ [pɛna] [mɛna] ‘ask’
/bɛɔ/ [bitɔ] [mɛ] ‘count’
The data in (24) demonstrate the Vowel Raising process in deriving surface root
forms and actor voice forms from the underlying forms /pɛa/ ‘ask’ and /bɛ/
‘count’. The underlying forms contain only non-high vowels. In the surface root
forms, [pa] and [bitɔ],^18 the non-high vowel [ɛ] follows [p] in the first syl-
lable of the first word and the high vowel [i] follows [b] in the first syllable of
the second word, following the application of Vowel Raising. In the actor voice,
the initial bilabial stop of each root is replaced with the bilabial nasal [m]. For
the root [pa], the vowel of the first syllable remains the same. However, for
the root [bit], the vowel of the first syllable surfaces as [] following the gen-
eral principle that high vowels do not occur immediately following nasals.
(^18) Surface root forms occur in the citation form of the word (as in a dictionary entry) as
well as in the object voice form, which consists of the object voice prefix ɛ- and the
root. For the two verbs in (25) the object forms would be [ɛpɛna] and [ɛbiɔ].