Eastern Pomo phonology

## Vowels

Eastern Pomo has five vowels, which all occur both short and long. The vowels /i/, /e/, and /a/ are all unrounded vowels (respectively high, mid, and low), and the vowels /u/ and /o/ are rounded vowels (high and mid, respectively). In many linguistic descriptions of Eastern Pomo, Americanist phonetic notation is used, and a mid-dot represents long vowels: a· e· i· o· u·.

There are no occasions in Eastern Pomo where multiple vowels appear in sequence within the same syllable. There is one occasion where two vowels are in sequence across a syllable boundary, and that is in the word /tʃéː.al/, meaning 'toward where' or 'whither.' Also, vowels do not occur word-initially in Eastern Pomo.

## Consonants

Eastern Pomo has thirty-eight consonants. The voiceless plosives have a three-way distinction for each point of articulation: unaspirated (plain), aspirated, and ejective. The plosives also distinguish between lamino-dental and apico-alveolar points of articulation for each series, transcribed /t̪ t̪ʰ t̪ʼ/ and /t̺ t̺ʰ t̺ʼ/ respectively. /tʃ/ is pronounced as an affricate, [tʃ], in word-initial position, and as a voiceless palatal plosive, [c], in word-medial position. /ʃ/ is a laminal pre-palatal fricative, while /s/ represents [s̺], an apico-alveolar fricative, with a slightly retroflexed tongue tip. In linguistic publications using Americanist phonetic notation the alveolar plosive series is distinguished from the dental one with the addition of under-dots: ṭ ṭʰ ṭ’; the palatal consonants /tʃ tʃʰ tʃʼ ʃ/ are written č čʰ č’ š; the alveolar affricates /ts tsʰ tsʼ/ are written c cʰ c’; and the voiceless nasals, semivowels, and liquid are written using capital letters: M N W Y L.

There are a number of restrictions on the distribution of the various phonemes. /p/, /ts/, and /tʃ/ are relatively rare in Eastern Pomo. Voiceless unaspirated (plain) stops; voiced stops; voiceless nasals, semi-vowels, and voiceless /l̥/; and the fricative /h/ never occur in word-final position. /x/ never occurs before /i/, and very rarely before /e/ and /u/. /h/ only occurs at the beginning of syllables, and only occurs word-initially before /o/ and /u/ in words borrowed from Spanish. The voiceless nasals don't occur before the vowels /e/ and /o/.

The various pronunciations of the rhotic /r/ are complex. Syllable-finally, it as a voiced alveolar trill, [r], though word-finally, it has a fricative release. Word-medially, it is a voiced alveolar flap, [ɾ]. It is more frequently found initially in unstressed syllables than in stressed syllables, and occurs most commonly in syllable- and word-final position.

## Syllable Structure

The most common syllable structure used is a two-syllable form, CV:CV(:)(C)(C), with primary stress on the second syllable (where "C" represents a consonant, "V" represents a vowel, ":" represents vowel length, and items enclosed in parentheses indicate that the position is optionally filled). An example of this is /biːt̺ʼéːmkʰ/, "maggots to move around on something; many blackbirds to be in a field." In word-medial position, the syllable boundary falls before the final consonant in a sequence. For example, the structure [CV(:)(C)(C)(:)] is used for non-final syllables in words. Non-final syllables in words will end in C, CC, C:, or CC: only if another syllable beginning with a consonant follows. Word-final syllables can take the shape CV:CC.

The following words illustrate possible syllable shapes for words in Eastern Pomo:

* **CV** : /ká/ 'house'
* **CV:** : /káː/ 'for one to sit'
* **CVC** : /kál/ 'to the house'
* **CV:C** : /káːm/ 'stay, remain sitting!'
* **CVCC** : /dójkʼ/ 'several each to grind with mortar and pestle'
* **CV:CC** : /xéːlkʼ/ 'stretch'
* **CV:CV** : /muːká/ 'wild wheat, any grain'
* **CV:CV:** : /maːkáː/ 'look, search for something or someone'
* **CV:CVCC** : /maːt̺ʰinkʰ/ 'to massage, press certain part of body with feet'
* **CV:CV:CC** : /biːt̺ʼéːmkʰ/ 'maggots to move around on something; many blackbirds to be in a field'

Vowels do not occur in sequence (VV) within a syllable, nor across syllable boundaries. Sequences of two or more consonants within a syllable only occur at the end of a syllable, not initially. For example, /pʰorkʰ/, 'knock something (as acorns, fruit) off something (as tree)', shows a two consonant cluster in word-final position.

Across syllable boundaries in the middle of a word, it is common for there to be two-consonant sequences without restrictions, except that unaspirated stops, voiced stops, voiceless nasals, voiceless semi-vowels, and /h/ don't occur syllable-finally.

## Stress

All roots carry primary stress. Most words begin with a two-syllable sequence of the sort, CV:CV (with primary stress on the V). The roots of polysyllabic words cannot always be isolated in this language, making it impossible to predict where the primary stress is going to fall solely on the type of morpheme. However, primary stress does occur on the second syllable of most words, including the words in which the roots cannot be isolated.

The weakest degree of stress falls on a syllable following a primarily or secondarily stressed syllable, and alternates on the following syllables. The syllables following the primarily stressed syllable alternates with every second syllable being slightly louder than the preceding unstressed syllable, but not as loud as the primarily or secondarily stressed syllable.

Secondary stress occurs when a word contains two or more primary stressed syllables, in which case all but one primary stress is reduced to secondary. There are exceptions in certain syllables that are always secondarily stressed, regardless of the alternating pattern of lightly and heavily stressed syllables following the primarily stressed syllable. This type of secondary stress is included as part of the morpheme. Suffixes that have this type of stress include /-kiːmà/ 'plural habitual', and /-bàja/ 'sentence connective'.

## Phonological Processes

Here are some examples of phonologically conditioned variation within the Eastern Pomo language involving one of the three processes: vowel harmony, consonant ablaut, or consonant and vowel deletion.

**Vowel Harmony**: This process affects the two high vowels, /u/ and /i/. The vowel /u/ lowers to become the mid vowel /o/ in instrumental prefixes. The vowel /i/ lowers to become the mid vowel /e/ if followed by /h/ or /ʔ/ and another /e/.

**Consonant Ablaut**: This process affects aspirated stops (plosives) except /t̺ʰ/, and the fricative /x/. When aspirated stops are in morpheme-final position, and are followed by a morpheme beginning with a vowel, the aspirated stops (other than /t̺ʰ/) deaspirate to become the corresponding unaspirated stops, and /x/ becomes /q/. For example, /xótʃʰ/, 'two', becomes /xótʃ-a/, 'two (things)'; and /kóːx/, 'to shoot' becomes /kóːq-a/, '(someone) shot something'.

**Deletion**: This process affects suffixes beginning with the vowels /i/ or /a/, or with the consonants /j/ or /l/:

* **Vowel Deletion** occurs when the morpheme before a suffix ends in a vowel, the suffix begins with /i/ or /a/, and the rest of the suffix does not consist only of this vowel. An example of this is the morpheme, {-aya}, indicating 'plural'.
* **Consonant Deletion** occurs in a similar situation, except instead of the vowel initializing the suffix, it is either /j/ or /l/, and the previous morpheme ends in a consonant. This can be seen in the morpheme, {-yiNàl}, indicating 'indirect object'.