34 3 Phonology3.1.2 Vowels
3.1.2.1 Full and short vowels
The vowel phonemes are the short V's in (26) and the full V's in (27).(26) Short Vowelshigh:
low:3
ae(27) Full Vowelshigh:
mid-height:
low:u
ο
αeThe short V's do not occur word-finally. All seven V's occur in closed
syllables, in nonfinal open syllables (though a is syncopated in some contexts),
and word-initially before a C. Some neutralizations occur before BLC's (see
§3.1.1.2, below).
All of these V's occur as distinct phonemes word-initially and word-
medially. All may occur in either open or closed syllables, though under some
conditions medial interconsonantal a is subject to syncope. Word-finally, only
full V's occur. The high (H) and low (L) V's constitute sets in ablaut
patterning; note in particular that a patterns with {u i} while ae patterns with a.
The mid-height V's are largely outside of the H/L system, but behave like low
V's in the environment for Short-V Harmony.
The difference between short and full V's is entirely unrelated to accent.
The Default Accentuation rule is based on syllable counts, regardless of how
"heavy" the syllable is.
The only phonemic opposition expressed primarily by length is se (=short
a) versus α (=full or long a). Duration is not the only cue, however; the
phoneme ae varies phonetically from (short) [as] to (short) [a] depending on
consonantal environment, while the phoneme α is realized as [a:] with little
variation in quality. A pair illustrating ae versus α is ae-kala 'rope for pulling
camel' versus ά-kaela 'moist flesh (of melon)'.
Since the sets of short and full V's are not parallel, it is not really
necessary to use macrons for the full V's, e.g. e and a. Such transcriptions,
however, are reasonable structurally.
I use the symbol "as" for short a, and "a" for full (long) a. For Niger
Tamajak, LTF2 used "ä" and "a," respectively. For Mali, DN86 uses "a" and
"a". My choice is designed to make the two symbols more clearly distinct.
Furthermore, by avoiding the micron (i.e. breve diacritic) in the symbol for