36 Chapter 2 Phonology
(31) Lexical items with non-alternating vowels^21
[ban] ‘tire’
[ba] ‘bank’
[bɔla] ‘ball’
[bɔrgɔl] ‘manacle’
[buku] ‘book’
[gɔbis] ‘cabbage’
[kibik] ‘cubic’
[kipas] ‘fan’
[kɔpi] ‘coffee’
[kuwi] ‘cake’
[sid.a] ‘choke’
[sipil] ‘civilian’
[surgap] ‘conceited’
[susu] ‘milk’
[ipəs] ‘typhus’
The list includes cases in which high vowels follow voiceless consonants, as in
[buku] ‘book’, [kɔpi] ‘coffee’, [kibik] ‘cubic’, [susu] ‘milk’, and [ipəs]
‘typhus’. There are also instances in which a non-high vowel follows a voiced
stop, such as [ban] ‘tire’, [ba] ‘bank’, [bla] ‘ball’, and [gɔbis] ‘cabbage’. The
only high vowels that are found in such lexical items are [u] and [i]; [ɨ] and [ɤ]
are never found outside the conditioning environment for vowel alternation.
There is another important difference among [u], [i], [ɨ], and [ɤ]: [u] and
[i] occur word-initially in a small number of lexical items (32), whereas [ɨ] and
[ɤ] never do.
(32) [irigɤsi] ‘irrigation’
[isɛ] ‘troublesome’
[istimɛwa] ‘special’
[uijɤn] ‘examination’
[usul] ‘character’
[uwɤ] ‘steam’
(^21) Often, the forms that have been borrowed from Indonesian have variants with non-
alternating and alternating vowels. Examples include:
(i) [susu] ~ [sɔsɔ] ‘milk’
[tulɛn] ~ [tɔlɛn] ‘pure’
[tulus] ~ [tɔlɔs] ‘reliable’