Advanced exercise:Describe the rules which govern the co-distribution of consonants and vowels. [E.g. back consonants select back vowels, but not vice versa. Palatalised, but not labio-palatalised consonants and back vowels are generally mutually exclusive in the same word.] The logical consequence is to consider the palatalised and the back series as variants (allophones) in complementary distribution. There has been/is a lively debate going on among Akan phonologists regarding this question. Part of the question is the exact phonetic nature of palatalisation and labio-palatalisation in Akan. What exactly happens when Akan speaker palatalise or palatalise and labialise at the same time. Another issue is the phonetic and phonological effects of palatalisation on 'a' - the consequence could be either a 9-vowel system or, alternatively, a fully symmetrical 10-vowel system with /a1-a2/ participating at the phonological level in the vowel harmony dichotomy.
Research Notes Palatalisation: Boadi (1963, 1988), Mensah (1977: 82) Understanding palatalisation (Boadi, 1988: 3 ff.): "… either (i) a
synchronic or diachronic shift towards the palatal
region; or (ii) the simultaneous raising of the
front of the tongue towards the hard palate during
the formation of a major stricture in the
production of a non-palatal consonant." "The first type results from
a shift of the primary stricture. In the second
type, the major point of articulation remains
outside the palatal area, while the secondary
stricture is superimposed giving the articulation a
front-vowel colouring." (Boadi, 1988: 5) "as we and others
have argued, the palatals and velars are
conditioned variants." (Boadi, 1988: 12) |