draft manuscript - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley
draft manuscript - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley
draft manuscript - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley
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2.1 Phonological Inventory<br />
Old Omagua exhibited twelve phonemic consonants, given in Table 2.1.<br />
Table 2.1: Old Omagua Consonants (Phonemic)<br />
Bilabial Alveolar Alveo-Palatal Palatal Velar<br />
Stop p t k k w<br />
Nasal m n<br />
Fricative s S<br />
Affricate<br />
(ts)<br />
Flap<br />
R<br />
Glide w y<br />
The phoneme ts is included parenthetically as it is not attested in the Jesuit texts. It occurs in<br />
a single pronominal form tsII 1sg.fs in the female genderlect <strong>of</strong> modern Omagua (see Table 2.2), 15<br />
and we assume it existed in Old Omagua, but attribute its absence in the ecclesiastical texts to<br />
the fact that these texts were written in the masculine genderlect. The inventory in Table 2.1 is<br />
identical to the consonant inventory <strong>of</strong> the modern language with the exception <strong>of</strong> the phoneme tS.<br />
This phoneme is not attested in the Jesuit texts, and because all instances <strong>of</strong> this phoneme in the<br />
modern language can be accounted for as the result <strong>of</strong> either a historical palatalization processes<br />
(e.g., *ti > tS) or as borrowings from Quechua, Spanish or Kokama-Kokamilla, we do not grant it<br />
phonemic status in Old Omagua. 16<br />
Old Omagua exhibited five phonemic vowels, as given in Figure 2.1.<br />
i<br />
1<br />
u<br />
e<br />
a<br />
Figure 2.1: Old Omagua Vowels (Phonemic)<br />
The vowel inventory given in Figure 2.1 is identical to that <strong>of</strong> the modern language, with the<br />
exception that modern Omagua I corresponds to Old Omagua *e, the outcome <strong>of</strong> an unconditioned<br />
sound change whereby Proto-Omagua-Kokama *e raised to I (see O’Hagan and Wauters (2012)).<br />
We do not believe, however, that this change had yet occurred in Old Omagua, becuase reflexes <strong>of</strong><br />
Proto-Omagua-Kokama *e are consistently written as in the Old Omagua ecclesiastical texts.<br />
It is possible, <strong>of</strong> course, that this change had already occurred by the time the Jesuit texts were<br />
produced, and that the Jesuit authors simply did not have the orthographic means to represent<br />
this phoneme. However, if that were the case, we would expect considerably more inconsistencies<br />
in the texts in the Jesuits’ orthographic representation <strong>of</strong> forms with segments corresponding to<br />
15 The 1sg.fs tsII forms a minimal pair with sII ‘be.sweet’.<br />
16 The word tSinani ‘be quiet’, whose etymological origin we have been unable to determine, is the one exception to<br />
this generalization.<br />
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