Optimizing Display Other Formats:      PDF - 1425k

Volume 7 Issue 1 (2009)        DOI:10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.332

Note: Linguistic Discovery uses Unicode characters to represent phonetic symbols. Please see Optimizing Display for requirements to accurately reproduce this page.

Aspects of Northern Mao (Bambassi-Diddesa) Phonology

Michael Ahland

University of Oregon and SIL International

1. Introduction

Northern Mao, also known by the toponyms Bambassi and Diddesa, is one of the least documented Omotic languages (Bender 2000:180). A Mao language of the Omotic family, a subclass of the Afroasiatic phylum (Bender 1985; 2000; 2003; Hayward 2000), the language is spoken by an estimated 5,000 speakers (Siebert et al. 1993) living primarily in the areas around Bambassi town, especially the areas known as Muts’a and Muts’a Mado, as well as in the Dimt’u area of the Diddesa Valley in western Ethiopia (Siebert et al. 1994:9; Bender 2003). A small community of speakers may also be found outside the Mao area proper, in the town of Asosa. Northern Mao speakers refer to their own language with the autonym /mawes aats’ tose/ MH↓MLL which may be translated literally as ‘Mao-person-tooth-talk’. The self-name for the people themselves is /maweswole/ MH↓MM ‘Mao-person-PL’. Most neighboring groups and official Ethiopian documents such as census reports simply refer to the Northern Mao and other Mao groups as [ma ʔo] without distinguishing among them. A complicating factor is that the name may be used to refer to at least two non-Omotic languages. The recent determination of the Mao Special Woreda (a small political designation on the level of a county in the U.S.) includes speakers of the Kwama (Nilo-Saharan) language within its borders. Kwama speakers may be found outside the towns of Zebshir and S’uru as well as further to the west, presumably across the border into Sudan. Speakers of Komo, another Nilo-Saharan language, are also frequently called Mao. This group may be found to the south of Kwama, also along the Sudan-Ethiopia border area.

The Omotic-Mao languages, all of which are closely related to Northern Mao (Bender 2003), are Hozo and Sezo (which, according to the author’s consultants, are spoken south of Bambassi around Begi town in Kash Mando and Bangga Tarku k’ebeles, an administrative district below the level of woreda) and Ganza (which is spoken in the area west of Bambassi town in Boshima, Shiyo and Bergush k’ebeles). Intelligibility between Northern Mao and these languages is not high enough to allow for communication between them without the use of languages of wider communication, most typically Oromo or Amharic. This is based upon the author’s observations while working in the area as well as reports by speakers. Bender also notes that Northern Mao is not mutually intelligible with Hozo-Sezo (1975:128). It remains to be seen what degree of intelligibility exists between the Hozo and Sezo varieties; they are widely considered to be different languages by their speakers.

Previously, the available data on Northern Mao have included wordlists of a few hundred words (Bender 1985, 1990, 2000, 2003; Fleming 1986; Grottanelli 1940; Siebert et al. 1993), a three-page phonological sketch (Wedekind and Wedekind 1993) and a set of morphological paradigms (Bender 2003). Baye Yimam has published the most comprehensive sketch of Northern Mao phonology, morphology and syntax to date (2006). The phonology portion of Baye’s work was based on approximately 250 words.

Issues of more general typological interest in the Northern Mao phonological system include the phenomenon of sibilant harmony which exhibits itself both as a root constraint word-internally as well as a harmony system across morpheme boundaries, vowel harmony, contrastive vowel length, a set of four ejectives including the areally rare /p’/and a tone system with three contrastive heights. In terms of Omotic studies, this work provides the first in-depth look at the phonology of Northern Mao and thus, the first study based on a large set of data (over 3,000 words and phrases) on any of the languages of the Mao subgroup, certainly the least-studied of the three branches of the Omotic family (Bender 2000:180). Given that Mao is the least-studied subgroup within Omotic and that Omotic itself is the least studied member of the Afroasiatic family (Bender 1990:584; Hayward 2000), work on any of the Mao languages is of interest. Previously, it was not possible for historical reconstructive work to include input from large sets of data of any of the Mao languages (Bender 2000, 2003; Hayward 1988, 2000); it is likely that some of the reconstructions will either be bolstered or perhaps need to be reconsidered in light of new findings.

The data contained in this description are the result of roughly twenty months of field work in Ethiopia. Twenty-five speakers of Northern Mao have participated in this study by providing lists of words, elicited sentences and more than 8 hours of natural texts. Only those speakers who live and work within the language areas and who speak Northern Mao as a mother tongue were consulted in an attempt to lessen the effect of loss or contact with other languages. It should be noted that the language of wider communication within the Benishangul Gumuz region is West-Central Oromo while the language of government and official business is Amharic. There is also a great deal of influence from Arabic due partly to the close proximity of the Sudan border and partly to the fact that the vast majority of the Northern Mao in the Bambassi area identify themselves as Muslims and value Arabic highly. There is little to no influence of Arabic in the Diddesa area, where West-Central Oromo (primarily) and Amharic (secondarily) serve as languages of wider communication.

This work, detailing results of research^[1] undertaken in the Bambassi, Diddesa and Asosa areas of Ethiopia, is limited in scope to an examination of the contrastive features of the phonological system as well as word-internal constraints. The discussion includes inventories of contrastive consonants, contrastive vowels, an examination of the vowel space, contrastive vowel length, vowel harmony in roots, syllable patterns, sibilant harmony, and an inventory of surface tonal melodies in nouns and verbs in citation form.

2. Consonants

There has been some discussion in the literature regarding the inventory of contrastive consonants. While Wedekind and Wedekind (1993:11-13) have provided a brief sketch of various aspects of Northern Mao phonology and posit 23 consonants, Bender (2000:182) lists 24 with significant differences. Bender posits a set of voiced plosives, whereas Wedekind and Wedekind suggest these are in an allophonic relationship with the voiceless series. Wedekind and Wedekind report the existence of an alveolar implosive /retroflex, as well as a voiced post-alveolar affricate and a palatal nasal, all of which Bender notes as lacking in his data. Baye adds to the discussion, claiming the existence of the voiced post-alveolar [ʒ] (2006:168), which is usually found to be in complementary distribution with other consonants within Omotic, as is the case of [ʒ]~[dʒ] in Koyra (Hayward 1988:273).

2.1. Phonemic Consonants

Table 1 exhibits the full inventory of contrastive consonants found in Northern Mao. As noted in the introduction, these data are based on a collection of more than 3,000 words and phrases, as well as thirty fully interlinearized texts. There are a total of 22 contrastive consonants. The voiced plosives are indeed contrastive, as Bender suggested. While there is an alveolar implosive, its distribution is predictable relative to the ejective /t’/, as discussed below. The presence of the affricates is limited: only a single example of the voiceless post-alveolar affricate has been found in the entire set of data and this is in free variation with the /ʃ/ across the speech community; the voiced counterpart [dʒ] is more frequent, though limited entirely to borrowed words, mainly from Arabic and is thus not included in the chart below. The ejective post-alveolar affricate is also limited to borrowed words and is not included in Table 1. The palatal nasal is predictable in relation to the alveolar, which is far more frequent, as noted in the discussion below, section 2.5.2.

The data in Appendix A provide evidence of contrast between each of the consonants and their most phonetically similar counterparts. Since long vowels in monomorphemic words carry only a single level tone, only one tone is indicated per long vowel. These tones are represented by the letters H, M or L.^[2]

2.2. Suspect Consonants and Those Limited to Borrowed Words

As noted above, only a single example of the affricate /tʃ/ has been found in non-borrowed words. This is found in the far-distal demonstrative /gjet ʃe/ HH ‘that’. It is quite clear that this affricate has today merged with the /ʃ/ for the most part. Some speakers still produce it consistently in this one word while others alternate between the affricate and the fricative. As a result, the consonant is listed in parentheses in the consonant chart in Table 1. The other examples of post-alveolar affricates (either voiced or glottalized) are found exclusively in borrowed words:

Bender reports the existence of /ts/ and /dz/ in Northern Mao (2003:305). Only the ejective /ts’/ is attested as contrastive according to this author’s data. In the forms where Bender reports [dz], this author finds /z/ in the speech of most speakers: in words for ‘dig’ /hakwinza/ MHM and ‘hit’ /haheza/ MHM. Two of the speakers consulted do exhibit the alternative [dz] in ‘hit’, though not in ‘dig.’ Since this is the only instance of this phone found thus far, and since [dz] is not found initially, the interpretation as a sequence is preferable. No example of the non-glottalized [ts] has been found.^[3]

In terms of borrowed words, Arabic loans are found throughout the speech of those living in and around Bambassi (most typically related to names for clothing as well as religious terminology) but are not found in the speech of those speakers living in the Diddesa valley. It seems likely that the Arabic loans found in Bambassi were borrowed after the emigration to Diddesa, which is said to have occurred an estimated 60 years ago (Siebert et al. 1994:9).

2.3. Free Variation within /p/: [p], [f] and [ ɸ]

The phoneme /p/exhibits variation between the phones [p], [f] and [ɸ], found in every environment, initial, medial and final (final is only attested in connected speech and is thus not utterance final).

This variation is optional, and in many words all three variants are recognizable to speakers as the same sound, ^[4] represented in this paper with /p/, undoubtedly the historical source (Fleming 1986; Bender 2003). Some speakers show signs of a split, where [f] is produced without variation in a small number of lexical items, as in /aːpe/ HH ‘eye’, but this is not yet spread widely throughout the community of speakers.

Fleming (1986:38) notes a ‘small tendency’ for /p/to be expressed as its allophone [f], noted in both the Bambassi-Diddesa and Sezo varieties. Fleming reconstructs *p which is attested in other so-called Mao varieties (including Hozoid and Sezoid) but does not reconstruct the innovative [f] (1986). In Northern Mao today, the variation is most frequent intervocalically but, as noted above, is attested in all enviroments, in both the Bambassi and Diddesa varieties of Northern Mao.

Baye suggests that labial stops /p/ and /b/ are weakened (spirantized) in intervocalic environments (2006:173). While the spirantization of /b/must be a feature of the speech of some (according to Baye’s findings), it is not indicative of the entire community. The spirantized /b/, as a voiced bilabial fricative, is not attested in the data in this study, nor was it found when Baye’s data were re-elicited from this author’s Northern Mao consultants. The database used in this study yields the following results: 1) only the voiceless labial stop appears to weaken, exhibiting the fricatives [ɸ] or [f]; 2) spirantization of [p] is also attested in both initial and final environments; and 3) the relationship is best characterized as variation and not complementary distribution, as the process is not obligatory and is not found to be consistent within the speech of even a single speaker (among those consulted), much less the community.

This variation of [p], [f] and [ɸ] is found elsewhere in Omotic, as well. Rapold notes that in Benchnon, /p/may be expressed as [p], [f] or [ɸ] in any environment (2006:73) and notes that the process appears to be optional. Variation between [f] and [ɸ] is noted in Dizin (Beachy 2005:26).

2.4. Glottal Stop Epenthesis

The glottal stop is predictable under a strictly phonemic analysis, as an onset to all vowels which exhibit no other onset, and is thus considered epenthetic. Unambiguous syllable patterns in Northern Mao show CV and CVC types (section 4). Where an onset is not already filled, a glottal stop is realized:

In both (7) and (8), the glottal stop is inserted to meet an onset requirement; in (9), the first word in the compound, /maw/ L ‘Mao’, provides the onset for /ese/ [^ʔɛ.sɛ] ML ‘person’. Likewise in (10), an onset is provided by the 1PL prefix /ham-/. Some speakers occasionally maintain the glottal stop in very slow careful speech as an onset to verb roots, even when an onset is provided. This has not been attested in nouns (as in example (9)). But no speaker consulted has exhibited this maintenance of the glottal in verb roots consistently, even in hyperarticulated speech. The analysis of the glottal stop as an epenthetic consonant finds further support in that the glottal stop is severely limited in its distribution, only occurring word-initially in monomorphemic words and word- or root-initially in verbs carrying a vowel-final prefix. The other glottal consonant, /h/, on the other hand, may be found word-initially and intervocalically^[5] in monomorphemic words and is considered a phoneme.

The /ha-/ prefix, as seen in (8) above, has been tentatively considered a declarative prefix on the basis of its distribution. The form is optionally found in declarative realis and irrealis verb forms as well as in polar/yes-no questions (most consistently those where the expected answer is affirmative). The prefix is obligatorily prohibited in negatives, content-interrogatives, imperatives and optatives/jussives.

2.5. Complementary Distribution

The major phonological processes which may be observed in Northern Mao include voicing assimilation (both voicing and devoicing), deglottalization (loss of glottalized release of stops), gemination of stops produced at the same point of articulation and nasal assimilation. Each is discussed below. The post-alveolar groove fricative [ʒ], which Baye reports and lists within his chart of contrastive consonants of Northern Mao (2006:168), must be considered an allophone of /ʃ/: Baye’s data include [biža] ‘be present’ (2006:194) and [kažäya] ‘baboon’ (2006:221). This author has found [biʃa] /habiʃa/ HM ‘be present’ (the non-past existential) and [kaːʃajɛ] /kaːʃaje/ LHL ‘baboon’, respectively. No speaker with whom this author has consulted produces the [ʒ] form in the same words; rather each instance is pronounced as [ʃ]. In less-careful, fast speech however, the voiced variant has been found in these intervocalic environments, in these words.

The alveolar ejective /t’/ exhibits a voiced implosive allophone [ɗ] intervocalically. Fleming notes this phenomenon, only for Northern Mao (1986:40).

In (11), the /t’/is found in the intervocalic position before the final nominal ending [-ɛ] /-e/ while in (12), the [t’] is found in the less sonorant environment, preceding the [k] (in connected speech, final vowels of nouns are not pronounced and are limited to utterance-final and citation form environments). ^[6] The phenomenon is also noted root-internally, as in /kit’iʃe/ MLL ‘neck’ which, apart from very slow, careful speech, is pronounced [kɨɗɨʃɛ] MLL.

In agreement with Fleming, Wedekind and Wedekind (1993:11) also report the existence of the alveolar implosive in the Bambassi variety. This author’s research shows that the phenomenon is found in both Bambassi and Diddesa varieties and the relationship between the ejective and the implosive may even be seen in loanwords such as the toponym Diddesa [ɗɨɗɛsa] which in very slow careful speech is pronounced [t’ɨt’ɛsa] as well as [t’ɨɗɛsa] by speakers from each area, where even the initial implosive, which is not normally found in Mao words, is reanalyzed as an ejective.

Wedekind and Wedekind suggest the implosive is retroflexed (1993). Greenberg writes, “A recurrent feature of injectives [implosives] which deserves special mention and treatment is that the injective corresponding to a noninjective dental is often retracted to the alveolar or alveopalatal position and is consistently apical, often with accompanying retroflexion” (1970:129). He continues, noting that these retroflexed implosives are quite common, “The examples in the sample were so numerous that this property can be considered normal and one may suspect that it is present in some instances without being noted in the phonetic description” (1970:129). Greenberg’s observations were supported by Haudricourt’s earlier work (1950), where it was suggested that “the tendency towards retroflexion and retraction in apical injectives...could...be attributed to the rarefication of the air in the supraglottal cavity caused by the descending larynx. While it is not clear that the pressure difference is substantial enough to cause this (Greenberg 1970:139), it is important to note that several researchers have remarked on the frequency of the retroflex implosives which are formed posterior to the dental region.

While no palatography or linguagraphy which could aid in identifying both passive and active articulators has yet been attempted on the Northern Mao data, it is possible to note that the implosive does appear to be produced with the tongue tip slightly posterior to the alveolar ejective, in the post-alveolar region. However, retroflexion does not appear to be involved and is not observed in perturbations of the third formants of surrounding vowels, as can be seen in Figures 1 and 2, below.

Figure 1: Wave and Spectrogram for [kjaɗɛ] ML ‘house’

Figure 2: Wave and Spectrogram for [koɗ-ɛs ɛsɛ] LH ↓ML ‘have-NEG.REL person’

In each case, there is no appreciable drop in the third formant which could indicate retroflexion.

2.5.1. Stop Sequences

When voiced stops immediately precede voiceless stops, forming a sequence, the first stop devoices, assimilating to the following stop. Consider the following examples where the final consonants of the verb root devoice before the relativizer /-te/:

Alternatively, some speakers tend to epenthesize the /i/before the relativizer /-t/when it immediately follows another stop. The result in this instance is that the first stop is not devoiced.

In Northern Mao, if a glottalized consonant (ejective) is immediately followed by a non-glottalized stop, the first consonant loses its glottalized release and is pronounced as an unreleased oral stop at the same point of articulation—a case of assimilation in manner.

In the first instance, the ejective [k’] of /ak’e/ MM ‘grain/corn’ is unreleased when the [k’] immediately precedes the [t] of ‘harvest’, /ha-tul-a/ MHM. The /ha-/declarative marker, which is generally included in the citation forms^[8] of verbs in Northern Mao, is not always obligatory. It is the lack of this declarative prefix that allows the final consonant of the noun to become adjacent to the initial consonant of the verb root. For an additional example, see ‘harvest time’ (19) below. In (16) above, the verb ‘see’ is relativized with the /-te/relativizer. The result is a geminate (phonetically lengthened) [tː] without a glottalized release.

This process of loss of glottalized release is part of a more general phenomenon in Northern Mao, where initial stops in a sequence of two are generally unreleased. Of course, the involvement of loss of glottalized release is more interesting because it leads to neutralization between the ejective and oral stops in this environment. As might be expected, in CC sequences where the final C is a glottalized stop, the release of the stop is maintained and no neutralization is observed, as in the example ‘nephew’ (20) below. This is likely due to the fact that the consonant’s release is before a vowel and not hampered by any following consonant.

As has already been seen in the data above (16), stops which are produced at the same point of articulation and which are found in sequence form a lengthened stop. Of course, these processes which involve the lack of release of the first stop in a sequence of stops, the loss of glottalization of the first stop in a stop sequence, and voicing assimilation of the first stop in a sequence actually allow for the sequence to be produced as a single long stop. Gemination is only attested across morpheme boundaries and is best understood as epiphenomenal to the processes above, which leave no alternative for phonetic production of stops in sequence when they are produced at the same point of articulation. Additional examples of this heteromorphemic gemination are provided below:

While voiceless stops which are immediately followed by voiced stops do not typically undergo voicing, the voiceless /voiced stop sequence in example (17) forms a long stop which begins with a period of voicelessness and is followed by 30 ms of prevoicing before its release into the following vowel. Due to the lack of release of the first stop and the presence of prevoicing, the series may be perceived as [gː] and is transcribed as such here. The waveform and spectrogram is provided in Figure 3. Figure 4 highlights the [ʃgːo] sequence from the same file, showing the prevoicing before the release of the stop.

Figure 3: Waveform and Spectrogram for [^ʔoʃgːombolɛ] MMMM ‘meat mortar’

Figure 4: Waveform and Spectrogram for [ʃgːo] sequence

2.5.2. Nasal Assimilation

While the bilabial nasal [m] and the alveolar nasal [n] occur initially, intervocalically and root-finally,^[9] the [m] shows no indication of involvement in assimilation and may be found preceding alveolar or velar consonants. The alveolar nasal [n], on the other hand, when preceding a consonant, is found only before alveolars, [t, t’, d, s, ts’, z], exhibiting assimilation to the place of the following consonant. The velar nasal [ŋ] occurs intervocalically and root-finally; before consonants, it exhibits assimilation to the following consonant, preceding only the velars [k, k’, g].

The presence of a palatal nasal was reported by Wedekind and Wedekind (1993:21): [nú:nɪɲɑ̀] ‘how?’. The data gathered for this study show [nu:nɨɲa] /nu:nin-ja/ HLL ‘how is it?’, where the root [nu:nɛ:] HL is the interrogative ‘how?’ followed by /-ja/, a bound copula found on most interrogatives and employed in stative verb derivations. The /-ja /suffix whose presence triggered the assimilation which led to the root’s final nasal becoming palatalized also carries the low tone of the /-a/ L question marker (some speakers lengthen the [a] vowel of the copula while others do not). This same copula is found to the right of other interrogatives pronouns: /komis-ja/ HHL ‘what?’, /naːt-ja/ HL ‘when?’, /hindet-ja/ MHL‘where?’. The only other instance of a palatal nasal in Wedekind and Wedekind’s wordlist is in the word [hàɸɑ́ːɲá] ‘swim’ (1993:25). But when checked carefully with various speakers, the nasal is velar, not palatal: /hapaːŋa/ MMH ‘swim’. Bender also notes that the nasal in ‘swim’ is a velar (2003:307). This author has found no data to suggest the existence of a contrastive palatal nasal.

2.6. Sibilant Harmony

Northern Mao, in contrast to some other Omotic languages, exhibits a smaller inventory of sibilant consonants. Hayward has suggested that Proto-Omotic likely had *s, *z, *ts’, *ʃ, *ʒ, *tʃ’, *ʂ , *ʐ , *ɕ’ in initial position and an additional three *ts, *tʃ, *ɕ, in non-initial positions (1988: 292). In Northern Mao, only the following sibilants are contrastive and attested apart from loanwords: /s, z, ts’, ʃ, tʃ/; of course, both [tʃ’] and [dʒ] may be added to this inventory, when loanwords are considered. As noted above, [ʒ] is only attested occasionally, as a voiced variant of /ʃ/.

It is well-known that sibilants within roots in Omotic languages tend to agree in terms of place of articulation. Hayward writes, “There is, in fact, in many languages a very strictly observed co-occurrence constraint or morpheme structure condition for roots, to the effect that co-occurring sibilants must agree with respect to palatality” (1988:287). This claim obtains for Northern Mao. Within roots, without respect to airstream mechanism, sibilants are found only at the same place of articulation. Tables 2 and 3 provide evidence, below. There are no counterexamples where sibilants of different places of articulation may be found in the same root except in the loanword /ʃemize/ LHH ‘shirt’. It should be noted, however, that due to the weak attestation of /z/, no word containing the voiced alveolar sibilant and any other sibilant has been found—apart from this loanword, where the expected harmony does not apply. Roots containing palatal sibilants are provided in Table 2 while those containing alveolar sibilants are featured in Table 3.

This phenomenon of sibilant harmony does not extend to suffixes regularly in Northern Mao. At times, in the texts collected thus far, there is some evidence that this optionally occurs in fast, connected speech: /diʃ-es maŋk’e/ LH↓MM be.known-NEG.REL sickness ‘unknown disease’ sometimes pronounced [diʃ-eʃ maŋk’ɛ], where the negative relative clause marker /-ese/ HL undergoes harmony with the root. This is also seen in [t’oʃ-eʃ k’ɛts’ɛ] HH↓MM sprout-NEG.REL land ‘barren land’. The /-ese/ negative relative clause marker is unaffected when following roots without palatals: [ʔeːŋ koɗ-ɛs ɛsɛ] MMH ↓ML^[10] heart have-NEG.REL person ‘one who doesn’t have heart’ (i.e. ‘coward’).

This phenomenon where sibilants in suffixes agree with the place of articulation of sibliants in roots appears only to be a tendency with exceptions existing, particularly in careful speech. Rapold has found a similar phenomenon, though more frequent in Benchnon, which does exhibit sibiliant harmony (where a more elaborate harmony system is attested with marked sibilants imposing on less marked, requiring harmonization) where sibilants in suffixes harmonize with root sibilants only optionally and not in slow, careful speech (2006:67).

Certainly, it is clear that in Northern Mao, the nominative case marker /-iʃ/does not exhibit any harmony with sibilants in the root noun, as in the following examples: [soːnts’-iʃ] ML ‘child-NOM’ and [ɛs-iʃ] ML ‘person-NOM’. It may be that, as Rapold has found in Benchnon, markedness plays a role where roots with more marked ^[11] sibilants, such as palatal sibilants, impose upon less marked sibilants in suffixes (2006:67). That is, in Benchnon, sibilants in roots are preserved and do not agree with marked sibilants in suffixes nor do the more marked palatal sibilants in suffixes agree with non-palatal sibilants in roots. The smaller inventory of sibilants in Northern Mao may obscure this phenomenon, as sibilants are found only at the alveolar and palatal places of articulation. There are no alveo-palatal sibilants (as in Benchnon), and the post-alveolar /tʃ/is found in only one word, thus far.

3. Phonemic Vowels

Northern Mao has a five vowel system, each of which also exhibits a long counterpart: /i, e, a, o/ and /u/. Examples of length contrast are attested throughout the five-vowel inventory: /int’e/ HH ‘seeing’ and /iːnt’e/ HL‘grunt’; /jeʃe/ HH ‘near-distal demonstrative’ and /jeːʃe/ HH ‘honey’; /ape/ ML ‘maternal uncle’ and /aːpe/ HH ‘eye’; /t’uʃe/ LL ‘strapping’ and /t’uːʃe/ HH ‘a meeting’; /t’oʃe/ HH ‘sprouting’ and /t’oːʃe/ MH ‘vomit’.

The citation form of all nouns includes the post-thematic vowel /-e/, which never exhibits contrastive length. Duration and fundamental frequency measurements of 50 words with short vowels and 50 words with long vowels show that long vowels are 1.5 to 2 times the length of short vowels. It is also clear that pitch does not necessarily rise with increased length; pitch and vowel length are wholly independent phenomena in Northern Mao.

Evidence of contrast between each of the five vowel qualities is provided in Appendix B, including examples of both short and long counterparts for each quality (except /i/vs. /a/and /u/vs. /a/, since it is assumed that these are too distant from one another to be in any likely relationship).

3.1. Vowel Quality

In order to describe the vowel space most accurately, measurements of the first and second formants, which show the actual place of articulation of vowels acoustically, of ten words featuring each short vowel and each long vowel have been completed. ^[12] This F2 x F1 examination of vowel space provides a more detailed account of the vowel target and variation within space than can be conveyed by IPA transcription alone. The measurement of the formant was made at the vowel mid-point to lessen the effect of consonant perturbation. The full set of words used in the study, along with each measurement, is found in Appendix C. These measurements provide the actual vowel qualities produced by speakers without relying on the transcriber’s ability to determine vowel status—a phenomenon that becomes difficult as the articulatory space for vowels is difficult to gauge between languages and even between speakers with different vocal tract lengths.

Figure 5 shows the vowel space derived from acoustic measurement of the first and second formant midpoints of short medial vowels in 50 Northern Mao words.

In general, an expected V shape is visible for the five-vowel inventory in Northern Mao as is seen in other five-vowel systems (Ladefoged 2001:35,42). The ranges of the formants in Hz and length in ms are provided in Table 5.

Figure 6 provides the formant chart for the long vowels. For the most part, the vowel space is quite similar to that of the short vowels, showing a lack of other vocalic phenomena such as ATR contrast.

Again, the ranges of formants for the long vowels as well as the length in ms are provided in Table 6.

In Table 5, the average length of short vowels is 88ms while the average length of long vowels in Table 6 is 171ms, a significant difference to be sure. The long high vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are: twice the length of their short counterparts, while the long vowels /eː/, /oː/ and /aː/ are well over 1.5 times the length of their corresponding short vowels.

As can be seen in the ranges and means of Tables 5 and 6, the long /eː/ vowels tend to be a bit higher and more to the front of the oral cavity than their short /e/ counterparts. As a result the short /e/ vowels tend to be phonetically closer to [ɛ] than [e] and are transcribed as such when phonetic brackets are used in this work. Baye 2006 transcribes these short vowels with the [ä], the Ethiopianist symbol which corresponds to the I.P.A.’s [ɛ]. At times, the short vowel /e/may be realized phonetically as [e], especially in the environment of post-alveolar/palatal sounds (as seen in [diʃ-eʃ maŋk’ɛ] LH↓MM be.known-NEG.REL sickness ‘unknown disease’ and [t’oʃ-eʃ k’ɛts’ɛ] HH↓MM sprout-NEG.REL land ‘barren land’, repeated here from section 2.6 above). Since the long [eː] and short [ɛ] vowels correspond to the same phonological space (despite some phonetic differences) within the larger Northern Mao vocalic system, they are represented with the /eː/ and /e/ phonologically. The slight differences in formant means between the short and long /e/ vowel and to a lesser extent, the short and long /o/ vowel, may be due to the increased amount of time in lengthened articulation, allowing speakers to more consistently reach the articulatory target and produce less-centralized vowels.

Some speakers exhibit an assimilatory process where the final post-thematic /-e/ vowel, which is found marking all nominals, may become [a] when the nominal root contains an /a/ vowel. This is not attested consistently throughout the entire speech community but is observable in the speech of some, where /kawe/ LL ‘top; upwards’ and /kaːwe/ LL ‘griddle’ may be alternatively pronounced as [kawɛ]~[kawa] LL and [kaːwɛ]~[kaːwa] LL respectively.

3.2. Deletion of Final Vowels in Connected Speech

The final vowels of nouns and other word-categories are lost in connected speech. For nouns, the citation form ends with the /-e/vowel, whether the noun is derived from a verb or not. That is, verbal nouns like the infinitive and non-derived prototypical nouns are marked the same. This final /-e/ vowel is lost in connected speech unless the word is positioned at the end of an utterance. This phenomenon may be seen in various examples which are provided above (6, 12, 15, 16, 19) and (20). In the case of (6), the citation form of the noun /ape/ ML ‘maternal uncle’ is not provided and is thus provided here for the sake of demonstrating the loss of the final /-e/vowel in connected speech. Other word-categories, including for instance, adverbs of time and a special category of relator nouns, which today show signs of grammaticalization as new postpositions, also lose their final vowels ([e], [o] or [a]) in connected speech, showing the phenomenon to be phonologically rather than morphophonologically motivated.

Baye first noted the loss of these final vowels and suggested that the loss of final vowels on nouns could be due to the incorporation of ‘non-head’ nouns into larger syntactic units with their syntactic ‘heads’, forming a ‘phonological unit’ (2006:176). The text corpus used in this study, however shows that head nouns in complex noun phrases, pronouns, which are themselves syntactic noun phrases, and single nouns, which make up a simple noun phrase, drop the final /-e/ vowel in connected speech and need not be seen as phonologically nor syntactically bound to the many elements which may follow. In texts, some speakers produce the final /-e/on nominals before pauses, but this is not consistent throughout the speech community; when nominals are found at the ends of sentences, they always carry the /-e/ vowel.

3.3. Epenthesis of the Vowel [i]

The epenthetic vowel in Northern Mao is the high front [i]. This may be found before the relativizer /-te/on erstwhile verbs such as [geːts’-it ɛsɛ] LH ↓ ML ‘person who is beautiful’, from the verb /ha-geːts’-a/ MLH ‘be beautiful’ and [nok-it munts’ɛ] HH LL ‘woman who is good’ from the verb /ha-nok-a/ MMH ‘be good’. Verbs whose roots end in an approximant, do not exhibit the epenthetic [i]: /ha-kaːw-a/ MMH ‘be white’ > [kaːw-t waːrɛ] H ↓ ML ‘clothes that are white’, nor do verbs whose roots end in a vowel: /ha-ki-a/ MH-M ^[13] ‘come’ > [ki-t ɛsɛ] MML ‘person who came’. As expected, the vowel [i] is not lengthened since the requirements for epenthesis are not satisfied. In some instances, this epenthetic vowel appears internally within nouns, as in /kog ʃe/ [kokʃɛ] ML ‘lung’ which may alternatively be pronounced [kogiʃɛ] MLL. Only in the most careful speech does the /g/maintain its voicing in the absence of the epenthetic vowel—the same devoicing phenomenon noted in section 2.6, above.

3.4. Vowel Harmony (a Root Constraint) in Tri-syllabic Nouns

Tri-syllabic noun roots show vowel place harmony in terms of backness: /kit’iʃe/ MLL ‘neck’; /iliʃe/ HHL ‘pot’; /ts’ugune/ HLL ‘squirrel’; /ugume/ HLL ‘snail’; /ʃundoːre/ LHH ‘donkey’; /ewete/ HLL ‘eavesdropping’; /t’epile/ HLL ‘patch’; /koloole/ HLH ‘malaria’. Of course, the final post-thematic vowel /-e/, which marks the citation form for all Northern Mao nouns and is homophonous with the infinitive marker, does not participate in this root harmony. Thus, there is no vowel harmony which may be observed in bi-syllabic nouns; each of the five vowels may co-occur with the final /-e/. While the majority of Northern Mao nouns are bi-syllabic, there are noun roots which are three syllables (even seven isolated four-syllable noun roots have been found; see section 5.2.) and do exhibit an apparent constraint in which either front or back vowels may be found in roots. Northern Mao exhibits no monosyllabic nouns.

Baye (2006:180) notes the preponderance of bi-syllabic nouns in Northern Mao and hypothesized that the few tri-syllabic nouns found in his set of 250 words might be loans. The larger corpus gathered for this study has yielded far more of these tri-syllabic nouns (as well as the four-syllable nouns which are provided in Table 20, below), suggesting that while these are certainly far rarer than the bi-syllabic nouns, the tri-syllabic nouns are likely not borrowed. In these tri-syllabic nouns, unlike the bi-syllabic nouns, all but two examples of non-borrowed words ^[14] out a set of 146 attest to this root constraint in terms of front-back status of the root vowels: [k’ok’iʃɛ] HHH ‘crust’, and [koginɛ] LHH ‘sewing’.

By far the most common sort of harmony is where each of the root vowels is either /i/or /u/. There are far fewer examples of both root vowels at the mid aperture. Thus far, for instance, only one root has been found including the back vowels /o/and /u/, provided in Table 7. Finally, as is often the case in instances of harmony, the most sonorant, low vowel /a/(in the case of Northern Mao, a low-central vowel) does not participate in the harmony system and may be shown to co-occur with each of the other vowels: /alime/ LHL ‘turban’, /hademe/ HLL ‘work’, /k’awone/ MLL ‘dwarf’, and /kaʃuwe/ LHL ‘medicine’. The constraint prevents roots containing both front vowels and back vowels.

As noted above, two possible exceptions to this tendency have been found: [k’ok’iʃɛ] HHH ‘crust’, and [koginɛ] LHH ‘sewing’ . These two examples may be instances of the epenthetic vowel [i] inserted between unallowable CC sequences, as noted in the variant pronunciation of /kogʃe/[kogiʃɛ] ML ‘lung’ in section 3.3. It may also be the case that the examples with both high and mid front vowels in the same root are actually instances of the epenthetic vowel [i] as well. No examples where /i/precedes /e/have been found out of 3,000 entries.

There is some corroborating evidence for vowel harmony observed in the allomorphy of the nominative case marker /-iʃ/.

When this suffix attaches to front-vowel, /o/-vowel or /a/-vowel roots, the shape [-iʃ] is found. However, when the suffix attaches to roots with the /u/-vowel roots, the allomorph [-uʃ] results. Both height and backness are required for triggering harmony (the /o/-vowel roots do not trigger any vowel harmony morphophonologically); this would support the existence of the roots containing both [o] and [i] vowels (as opposed to the interpretation of [i] as an epenthetic vowel), in the discussion above.

4. Syllable Structure

The most common and unambiguous syllable patterns are provided in Table 8. Phonotactics is discussed in section 4.1., below.

As noted in the discussion on consonants, the glottal stop is epenthesized to meet the requirement of an onset as in the following: / ese/ [^ʔɛ.sɛ] ML ‘person’ and /alde/ [^ʔ al.dɛ] LH ‘knowledge’. Thus, each of these words exhibits the CV.CV pattern.

Only three monomorphemic forms exhibiting complex codas (of the pattern CVNC) have been found out of the entire Northern Mao data set.^[15] The first consonant in the complex coda is limited to the nasal /n/which is then followed by either of the sibilants /ts’/or /s/, where the following onset is either /k/or /k’/.

The long vowels fit within the CVV and CVVC syllable patterns, as seen in Table 10 below:

The VV pattern is limited to geminate (i.e. identical vowel) sequences and, despite the addition of vowel length, does not exhibit tonal contours in monomorphemic words.

4.1. Phonotactics

Table 11 provides a list of consonants which may be found in initial, intervocalic and in CC sequences across syllable boundaries in isolated^[16] monomorphemic words. Those consonants which are suspect on account of very few attestations (as in the case of [tʃ]) or their being found only in borrowed words ([dʒ, tʃ’]) are included in the distribution chart. All consonants, except [tʃ, tʃ’, ŋ] may be found initially. Of these, only [ŋ] never occurs as a syllable onset; that is, all other consonants may serve as syllable onsets. However, [r] is found initially only in borrowed words. There is only one example of the lateral serving as an onset /luke/ LH ‘curdling’. All consonants except [dʒ] are found intervocalically.

Within CC sequences across syllable boundaries, the first consonant (i.e. the coda of the preceding syllable) may not be any of the following [p’, t’, k’, h, tʃ, dʒ, j or w] . The second consonant in the sequence (i.e. the onset of the following syllable) may not be any of these: [tʃ, ŋ, l, r].

4.2. Interpretation of Labialization and Palatalization

Northern Mao exhibits an ambiguous sequence where certain obstruents may be followed by either the labio-velar [w] or palatal [j] approximants, word-initially. Consonants with a following labio-velar approximant have not been found before the vowels /u/ or /o/ but are attested before each of the other vowels. The labio-velar approximant has not been attested following the obstruents [p, b, d, p’, z, h, or ts’]. The full inventory found thus far is noted in Table 12, along with the number of times attested and the following vowels.

Consonants with a following palatal approximant have not been attested before the vowels /i/, /o/ or /u/. Word-initially, they are not found following the obstruents [b, t, d, t’, s, z, ʃ, h, or ts’]. The full inventory is noted in Table 13, again with the number of times attested and the vowels which are found following.

There are limited instances of these consonant-approximant sequences found medially: [k’] and [k] may precede [w] while [k] and [p’] may precede the [j].

These consonant-approximant sequences are ambiguous in that they could be interpreted as a single C (that is, as a labialized or palatalized consonant), as a CC cluster, as a consonant followed by a VV sequence with [u] or [i] as the first vowel, or as a diphthong [u ̯V] and [i̯V], formed with the following vowel. These phenomena are interpreted as CC clusters on the grounds that positing complex consonants would increase the consonant inventory by 11 and lead to an inventory which does not follow a principle of economy nor which exhibits natural class symmetries; that is the sets of labialized and palatalized consonants would not be found systematically distributed throughout the inventory. Additional observations, which are perhaps less convincing as phonological arguments but which are relevant to the consonant-approximant sequences, include: 1) there are no non-geminate (i.e. non-identical) VV sequences in monomorphemic words; 2) there is no evidence of diphthongs, and the distribution of the approximants would require positing five diphthongs; 3) in the vast majority of cases, they are found word-initially and when they do occur medially, consonant distribution and syllable structure suggest they must be seen as onset clusters; it might be expected that were these single Cs, they could be found more often internally—more generally distributed. All unambiguous Cs which occur initially also occur as medial onsets, apart from [dʒ], which occurs only in borrowed words.

In short, as all analyses are problematic, it is preferable to minimize the consonant inventory rather than complicate it in a nonsymmetrical, nonsystematic manner. It is the assumption of the author that more data may yield other examples of these CC clusters, where additional obstruents may be followed by either of the approximants.

It is worth noting that Rapold finds a somewhat similar situation, at least with regards to the palatalized consonants, ^[17] in Benchnon (Gimira-Omotic) (2006), where “all four analytical possibilities” are considered and found to be problematic (2006:102). Ultimately, a CC cluster analysis is also chosen. In general, labialized and palatalized consonants are not included in the inventory of contrastive consonants in Omotic languages, as is the case in Benchnon (Rapold 2006) in particular, as well as in Maale (Azeb 2001), Dizin (Beachy 2005), a wide variety of languages and reconstructed Proto-Languages (Bender 2003).

4.3. Maximal Syllable

Given the evidence above concerning the obstruent-approximant CC sequences, the most common maximal syllable attested in Northern Mao is CCVC, apart from the very rare example of CCVNC. This latter example may be parsed as follows:

5. Tonal Melodies

Northern Mao, like other Omotic languages, exhibits contrastive tone. Wedekind and Wedekind (1993:12) report the existence of two distinctive pitch levels in two-syllable words: H and L (with an allotonic M), though no discussion of the allotonic M tone is provided. Four tonal melodies are reported for two syllable words but discussion is lacking as to tonal melodies on words of more than two syllables. Baye 2006 also reports the existence of the H and L tones.

5.1. Three Levels of Tone

First, it is helpful to establish the levels of tone which appear to be contrastive. Contrary to Wedekind and Wedekind and Baye’s findings, current research suggests there are three levels of tone in Northern Mao. Consider the following words, which are distinguishable only by melody:

There is a large set of nouns for each of the three level melodies. Table 14 provides the fundamental frequency measurements and mean vowel lengths based on three utterances of each word. The three examples in (27) are controlled for vowel length, demonstrating that each features a short vowel, as well as the same syllable pattern and part of speech. That is, only tonal melody distinguishes these otherwise identical nouns. Each of these words is well within the typical length range for short vowels, as discussed above.

5.2. Surface Melodies of Nouns Arranged by Syllable Type

Of course, as is expected of languages with three levels of tone, a variety of possible melodies is found on words. In the discussion below, the melodies of words of various syllable patterns are inventoried. Tone melodies are inventoried by syllable type to show contrast relative to syllable patterns. Tonal phenomena, apart from contrastive tone, are beyond the scope of this analysis and will be dealt with in a later work.

With these three levels of tone, seven (of the nine possible) melodies may be found for two-syllable nouns. There are three level melodies, two rising melodies and two falling melodies. The two melodies not attested are HM and LM; the M tone is limited in distribution in the second syllable, following only M:

Thus, before a H tone or a L tone, each of the three levels is clearly contrastive, as may be observed on the [ka] syllable in each of the following words: /kawe/ HH ‘hanging thing’; /kane/ MH ‘dog’; /kawe/ LH ‘arm’; /kale/ HL ‘corral’; /kawe/ MM ‘bamboo mat’; /kame/ ML ‘fire’; /kawe/ LL ‘top; upwards’.

The tables below provide evidence of the full seven-melody inventory, arranged by CV pattern. While it has been well established that so-called depressor consonants may interact with tone systems in African languages (Hyman and Mathangwane 1998; Pearce 1998; Kutsch Lojenga 2000), the phenomenon is not observed in Northern Mao. Regardless of consonants involved, the full set of expected melodies is attested. Table 16 provides the full set of melodies for the most common short vowel syllable shapes.

Syllables with nasal codas have not been found to impact surface tonal melodies (as seen in Table 16); thus, from this point forward, nasal codas will be specified only in those positions which are limited to nasals in the Northern Mao database.

Table 17 provides examples of the most common two-syllable CV shapes with long vowels. As noted in the section on syllable structure above, two-syllable nouns with long vowels exhibit the same seven melodies as two-syllable nouns with short vowels. ^[19] As noted above, M tone is found on the final vowel only when following a M tone.

While additional CV patterns are attested for two-syllable nouns (provided in Table 18, below), these are far less frequent than the others. In each instance, the data are too few to attest a full set of the seven melodies found in the tables above. However, it should be noted that there are no additional melodies attested in words with these syllable patterns; gaps in the melodic inventory are assumed to be accidental.

Three-syllable nouns are less common than two-syllable nouns in Northern Mao and they exhibit a wider variety of surface melodies; a full 12 different surface melodies have been attested in the set of 146 three-syllable nouns: three level melodies (HHH, MMM, LLL), three melodies where the pitch rises across the word (LHH, LLH, MHH), three melodies where the pitch falls (HLL, HHL, MLL), two melodies where the pitch rises and then falls (LHL, MHL) and one melody where the pitch falls and then rises (HLH). Important generalizations regarding this melodic inventory include 1) the lack of MML and MMH melodies, a notable absence while both LLH and HHL are found and 2) the only melody attested with all three pitch levels present is MHL. Thus, the M tone is lacking in some distributions where we do find H and L attested, just as was the case with the two-syllable nouns.

Unlike the two-syllable nouns, there is no single syllable pattern of three-syllable words which exhibits all twelve of the melodies attested. Thus, the number of tokens of each melody by syllable type is provided in Table 19 and an example of each is provided in Appendix D. The syllable patterns are arranged by frequency of occurrence in the database.

It is not possible at this point to say with any certainty that the gaps in Table 19 are ‘accidental’. It is, however, assumed that this is the case—that these gaps are due to the overall small inventory of tri-syllabic words. It is admitted, though, that these gaps may be due to tonal phenomena which have yet to be discovered.

Only seven examples of four-syllable nouns have been found. No clear indication of borrowing or internal morphology is present in these examples.

5.3. Tonal Melodies of Verbs in Citation Form

The citation form of the verb is marked with the declarative /ha-/prefix and the perfective /-a/ suffix. There are three tonal melodies found on verbs in this citation form, regardless of syllable pattern: MHM, MMH, MLH, where the initial M corresponds to the declarative prefix. These melodies then allow for roots with a surface H, M or L tone. The tone of the suffix is H underlyingly; the M tone is the result of a downstep due to a floating root-final L tone. A few examples of verbs in their citation form, their surface melody and the surface melodies of corresponding nominal forms ^[21] are provided in Table 21, below.

It is clear here that there is not a simple relationship between the surface melodies of verbs and nouns in these data. The following generalizations, however, may be drawn: 1) nouns with the melodies HH and HL relate to verbs with either MMH or MLH melodies 2) nouns with the melodies LL, MM, ML, and MH relate only to verbs with the melody MHM; 3) nouns with the melody LH correspond to the verbal melody MLH 4) the verbal melody MMH is found in correspondence with nominal melodies HH and HL and with nothing else. This is unlike the other two melodies found with the set HH and HL; they may be found in verbs with MLH melodies. These generalizations are represented in Table 22, below.

Thus, nouns with HH citation melodies may correspond to either of two different verbal melodies. The same is true of HL citation melody nouns. This splitting of the HH and HL melody classes is attested in various subsystems and must be the result of historical processes which have given rise to the tone classes today.

The final column of Table 21 provides the melody of the nominal form when it is modified (i.e. by another noun, a relative clause, etc.). The seven melodies found on nouns in citation form collapse into three melodies when the noun is modified: MM, ML and LL. The modifying noun maintains its citation melody. While this sort of phenomena involving both syntax and morphology is beyond the scope of this phonological study, it warrants mentioning on the grounds that it further supports the notion that nouns with the citation melody HH may be split into two classes, those which become MM (H1) and those which become LL (H2), when modified. These two classes relate to the verbal melodies perfectly: H1 nouns exhibit MM modifying melodies and MMH verbal melodies; H2 nouns exhibit LL modifying melodies and MLH verbal melodies. This same division into classes can be undertaken for the HL nouns: HL1 nouns exhibit ML modifying melodies and MMH verbal melodies; HL2 nouns exhibit LL modifying melodies and MLH verbal melodies. There are nine tone classes, one for each nominal citation melody, and an additional class for each of the HH and HL citation melodies, as observed in both the verbal citation form and the modified noun melody.

A further examination of tonal phenomena requires syntactic and morphological input that is beyond the scope of this paper, which focuses on contrastive elements within the phonological system as well as constraints within the phonological word. These phenomena as well as hypotheses as to the genesis of the tone classes will be discussed in later work.

6. Conclusions and Future Work

The discussion above shows that in addition to consonants and vowels, contrastive phenomena in Northern Mao also include both vowel-length and tone. Each of the five vowels in the system exhibits a long counterpart which apart from length, patterns in other ways as the short vowels: they carry only the same inventory of single level tones as do short vowels and they fit within the same syllable patterns. Three heights of contrastive tone are exhibited, but no contour tones in monosyllabic words are found. ^[22]

Two types of harmony systems are attested: 1) sibilant and 2) vocalic. The sibilant harmony system in Northern Mao is less complex, due to its smaller inventory of sibilants, than in many other Omotic languages (Hayward 1988), though it is still clear that the phenomenon operates as both a root constraint as well as harmony across morpheme boundaries. The vocalic harmony system is one of backness, where root vowels must agree without regard to height. The vowel /a/, which is a low-central vowel, does not participate in the harmony system and may co-occur in either front or back roots, as may the post-thematic vowel /-e/, which is found on the citation form of all nouns.

The data provided in this paper were gathered in the field from September 2007 to April 2009. This research project will result in analysis of the tonal system of nouns and verbs, morphology, syntax and a variety of discourse phenomena. A 3,000 entry tri-glot glossary (Northern Mao, Amharic and English) has been compiled, along with a collection of proverbs and a corpus of 30 fully interlinearized texts.

References

Azeb Amha. 2001. The Maale language . Leiden: Research School CNWS, Leiden University.

Beachy, Marvin Dean. 2005. An overview of Central Dizin phonology and morphology. Unpublished Master’s Thesis. University of Texas at Arlington.

Baye Yimam. 2006. A general description of Mao. ELRC Working Papers II/2:166-225.

Bender, M. Lionel. 1975. The beginnings of ethnohistory in western Wellegga: the Mao problem. Patterns in Language, Culture and Society: Sub-Saharan Africa. OSU Working Papers in Linguistics 19: 125-141.

Bender, M. Lionel. 1985. Gumuz, Koman, Mao and Omotic. Studies in African Linguistics (supplement) 9:19-21.

Bender, M. Lionel. 1990. The limits of Omotic. Omotic Language Studies, ed. by Richard J. Hayward. School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

Bender, M. Lionel. 2000. Comparative morphology of the Omotic languages. Muenchen: Lincom Europa.

Bender, M. Lionel. 2003. Omotic lexicon and phonology. (Published by author.)

Fleming, Harold C. 1986. Mao’s ancestor: consonant phonemes of proto-Mao stage one. Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Ethiopian Studies 5:26-29.

Greenberg, Joseph H. 1970. Some generalizations concerning glottalic consonants, especially implosives. International Journal of American Linguistics 36:123-145. doi:10.1086/465105

Grottanelli, Vinigi. 1940. I Mao. Centro studi per l’Africa orientale Italiana; missione etnografica nel Uollega occidentale, vol. 1. Rome: Reale Accademia d’Italia.

Hayward, Dick. 1988. Remarks on Omotic sibilants. Papers from the International Symposium on Cushitic and Omotic Languages, Cologne, January 6-9, ed. by Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst and Fritz Serzisko, 263-299. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.

Hayward, Richard J. 2000. The ‘empty quarter’ of Afroasiatic. Research in Afroasiatic grammar II: Selected papers from the Fifth Conference on Afroasiatic Languages, Paris, ed. by Jacqueline Lecarme, 241-61. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Hyman, Larry M. and Joyce T. Mathangwane. 1998. Tonal Domains and Depressor Consonants in Ikalanga. Theoretical Aspects of Bantu Tone, ed. by Larry M. Hyman and Charles W. Kisseberth. Stanford: CSLI 195-229.

Kutsch Lojenga, Constance 2000. Depressor Consonants in African Languages. Paper presented at Tone Symposium, Tromsö, Norway, June 5-7.

Ladefoged, Peter. 2001. Vowels and Consonants: An Introduction to the Sounds of Languages. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Pearce, Mary. 1998. Consonants and tone in Kera (Chadic). Journal of West African Languages 27/1.33-70.

Rapold, Christian. 2006. Towards a grammar of Benchnon. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. Leiden University.

Siebert, Kati, Ralph Siebert and Klaus Wedekind. 1993. Survey on languages of the Asosa-Begi-Komosha area. S.L.L.E. Linguistic Report no. 11. Addis Ababa: Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University.

Siebert, Ralph, Charlotte Wedekind and Klaus Wedekind. 1994. Third S.L.L.E. survey on languages of the Begi/Asosa area. S.L.L.E. Linguistic Report no. 15. Addis Ababa: Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University.

Wedekind, Charlotte and Klaus Wedekind. 1993. Survey on languages of the Asosa Begi-Komosha area part II. S.L.L.E. Linguistic Report no. 12. Addis Ababa: Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University.

Michael Ahland

University of Oregon

mahland@uoregon.edu

michael_ahland@sil.org

Appendix A

Evidence for Consonant Contrast

Appendix B

Evidence for Vowel Contrast

Appendix C

Vowel Formant Data

i

e

u

o

a

iː