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2.2 Vowels
b. Labial-velar and labial consonants before = in word-medial position:
F @F= @F= @F= @F= ‘ten’
C> (C>= (C>= (C>= (C>= ‘granary’
C> A(C>= A(C>= A(C>= A(C>= ‘alone’
M > > M= M= M= M= ‘nasal mucus’
= = = = ‘illness’
F =F=( =F=( ‘tsetse fly’
> (>= (>= (>= (>= ‘clothes’
> =>= =>= =>= =>= ‘knife’
B = = = = AB AB= AB AB ‘mid-wife’
L C=L= C=L= ‘panther’
CK= CK= CK= CK= ‘prepare’
M =M=( =M=( =M=( =M=( ‘gruel’
According to my analysis, Mono has eight vowel phonemes: E, A, , , =, K, , and
. The pronunciation of each phoneme is the same as the corresponding symbol in the
International Phonetic Alphabet. Long and nasal vowels exist, but these features are not
contrastive phonemically. Olson & Schrag (1997) and Kamanda (1998) consider the
system to be asymmetric, as shown in the chart in Figure 2.3:
Front Central Back
High E K
Mid A
Low =
Figure 2.3: Vowel phonemes in Mono
In terms of Chomsky & Halle’s (1968) distinctive features, Mono vowels can be
categorized as shown in (12). These feature values will useful for describing the vowel
spreading rules of Mono, which will be discussed in Chapters 6 and 7.
(12) E A = K
[high] + – + – – + – –
[low] – – – – + – – +
[back] – – + + + + + +
[round] – – – – + + + +
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