Orthography 57
u u u u u u
ɔ o o o o o
Of these systems, the orthography used by Zainudin et al. (1978) captures the
most phonemic and phonetic distinctions, conflating only the dental and retrof-
lex stops.
All of the romanized systems are heavily phonetic, with the exception of
those graphemes that are used for more than one sound. That is, for the most
part epenthesis, deletion, assimilation, and vowel color processes deriving sur-
face forms are reflected in the orthography, as these forms do not obscure or
confuse any phonemic contrasts. For example, sorat is the unaffixed root for
‘letter’ as it appears in a noun phrase such as sorat rowa ‘that’ letter’. With the
definite suffix -na, it is written as soradda as in soradda ebu ‘mother’s letter’,
reflecting both the gemination and aspiration processes that derive the surface
form. A few examples of such surface forms are given below. All examples are
taken from Imron (1979) as one of the few longer texts using the 1973 ortho-
graphy, and applying it very consistently.
(75) ‘base’ form affixed form phonological process(es)
nyare ‘seek’ nyare'e ‘seek (DUR)’ -epenthesis
(between root-final e and suffix e)
lako ‘work’ lakowa ‘work (IRR)’ glide epenthesis
(between root-final o and
suffix a)
senneng ‘happy’ sennengnge ‘happy with’ gemination
(root final ng to maintain
closed syllable)
sambit ‘respond’ sambidi ‘respond to’ aspiration & vowel alternation
(root-final t d, suffix e i)
salamet 'safe' kasalameddan 'safety' aspiration & gemination
(root-final t d, dd to
maintain closed syllable)
adhep ‘front’ ngadhebbi ‘face (LOC)’ aspiration, gemination &
vowel alternation
(root-final p b, geminate
root-final C, suffix e i)
An exception to the reflection of phonological processes is with prefixes. Ex-
amples are given in (76), again all taken from Imron (1979).