Garawa Phonemes and Orthography

Phonemes and Orthography

Flint’s original transcriptions can, in general, be described as phonetic rather than phonemic. In his data he distinguishes some of the vowel allophones represented by each vowel phoneme (note the relatively extensive set of vowel sounds found in his transcriptions), but tends not to make allophonic distinctions among the consonantal phonemes. For a description of allophonic variants of consonants and vowels in Garawa, see Furby 1974: 3-6.

Consonants

The set of consonants which Flint uses in his transcription is given below (the symbols used by Flint are given in the "Flint" column, and the corresponding orthographic symbols are given in the "orth" column):

	labial		alveolar		palatal		velar
	Flint	orth	Flint	orth	Flint	orth	Flint	orth
stop		b		d		j		k
nasal		m		n		ny		ng
lateral				l
flap				t
approximant				r		y		w

Sources on Garawa vary as to the range of consonant phonemes they include in the Garawa phoneme inventory. The phoneme inventory identified by Osborne (1966:1b) comprises the same set of consonants as those which Flint records, although Osborne, in his transcriptions, records flaps far more often than Flint does. Furby (1974:1) distinguishes the greatest range of consonantal phonemes: six stops, six nasals, three laterals, three semi-vowels and three laterals, as well as a voiced apico-alveolar vibrant. This set of phonemes, with the corresponding orthographic symbols used in our transcription, is set out below (the dots distinguishing the retroflex sounds are under the letters in Furby).

bilabial

apico-alveolar

apico-domal

lamino-alveolar

lamino-velar

velar

Furby

orth

Furby

orth

Furby

orth

Furby

orth

Furby

orth

Furby

orth

stops

nasals

yng

laterals

vibrant

semi-consonants

- (from Furby 1974:1)

Note:

Furby (1974:8) reports the following nasal + stop clusters in Garawa (transcribed into our orthography):

Homorganic: mp, nt, rnrt, nyj, yngyk, ngk

Heterorganic: nyp, np,rnp, rnj, nk, rnk

In this database, homorganic clusters are written out in full (as in Furby 1974 above) only when quoting from sources who write them out in full (eg -rnrt-,-nyj- etc.). Elsewhere, they are "abbreviated" (eg -nyj- is written as -nj-, and -rnrt- is written as -rnt-).

The status of r

Flint generally transcribes all rhotics as r, not distinguishing between a trill/tap phoneme and an approximant. (We are using the term "tap" rather than "flap" based on a definition of taps as apico-alveolar, and flaps as retroflexed). Other sources distinguish two rhotics in Garawa: a trill or flap phoneme and an approximant (Furby 1974:1; Osborne 1966:1b; Belfrage 1992:4). Furby, who distinguishes a retroflex series of consonants, categorises the approximant as a retroflexed phoneme, and the trill ("vibrant") as an apico-alveolar phoneme (1974:1). Osborne and Belfrage, who do not distinguish a retroflex series, group both sounds with the apico-alveolar phonemes. Thus an r in Flint’s transcription may correspond to a retroflexed approximant in the informant’s pronunciation (as in the entry ngu"rujbangayu ("pant")) or to an apico-alveolar tap or trill (as in the entry ku"riijba"ngaka ("scratch")).

An r in Flint’s transcription can also correspond to a retroflexed stop in the informant’s pronunciation (although see the note on retroflexes below). The entry ma"riiba "ngayu ("I am cold") provides a particularly clear example of a word containing a retroflexed stop.

Thus the symbol r in Flint’s data represents, in general, three sounds: an apico-alveolar trill or tap, a retroflexed approximant or a retroflexed stop.

The status of t

t (written as t in our orthography) appears to be the symbol for a trill or tap in Flint’s transcription. The use of t is rare in Flint’s data, as he does not generally distinguish between a trill or tap and an approximant.

Furby notes that the "apico-alveolar vibrant" occurs in free variation with a voiceless flap allophone in word-final position, and that "in emphasized speech the voiceless trill allophone … tends to occur in word final position" (1974:4). Flint’s informant generally pronounces the sound as a tap. Flint’s use of t (a "voiceless" symbol) may be intended to represent devoicing (Flint uses the symbol d to represent the alveolar stop phoneme), although the majority of examples seem to be voiced. In the following two sentences (from Garawa 297 Sentences), t is utterance-final as well as word-final, a factor which may increase the likelihood of devoicing.

"biri bangayu wanga[t] ("I will sing a song")

yanba ngayu biriba wangat??/wangar?? ("Say it")

t is only used when transliterating Flint’s transcription. When quoting other sources or providing a phonemic representation (in standard orthography), the more common rr has been used to represent the tap or trill.

Retroflexes

Belfrage notes that the phonemic status of retroflexed consonants is unclear (1992:4, note 2), and sources differ on this point: Furby (1974:1) includes a series of retroflexed consonants in her phoneme inventory, while Osborne (1966:1b) does not. However, Osborne’s (phonetic) transcription contains many instances of a rC sequence (where r stands for the approximant ). Flint generally records an alveolar consonant or an approximant where other sources have a retroflex consonant or an rC sequence.

Vowels

It is generally recognised (Furby 1974:4; Osborne 1966:1b; Belfrage 1992:4) that Garawa has a three vowel system comprising the phonemes a, i and u. However, as Furby (1974:4) notes, each vowel has a range of allophones. In his transcriptions, Flint distinguishes some (but not all) of the vowel allophones represented by each vowel phoneme. The vowel symbols which appear in Flint's data are set out below, with their corresponding orthographic symbols:

flint	orth
	i
	I
	e
	a
	A
	ae
	u
	U
	o
	O

Notes

On one or two occasions in the Flint's data, the vowels i and I (our orthography) are marked with a bar, probably indicating centralisation of the vowel. These sounds are not given a separate orthographic symbol: they are written as i and I respectively, and a comment is made in the \ncft field.
One entry, "wakunyi ("the left hand") contains the symbol for the open, back, unrounded vowel [ ], rather than the more usual [a]. The backness of this vowel is in keeping with its location between a [+back] approximant and a [+back] stop. The vowel is not given a separate orthographic symbol: it is simply recorded as [a], and a comment is made in the [\ncft] field.

Vowel Glide Allophones

There are many instances in the Garawa data where the sequence VjC in Flint’s original transcription is actually pronounced with an altered vowel quality and (sometimes) the lenition of the consonant j to y, or the (apparent) omission of j altogether. The difference in vowel quality can be accounted for by phonological rules which Furby describes in her paper "Garawa phonology" (1974:4-6). She observes that the vowel phonemes /i/, /a/ and /u/ are each expressed by a number of variants before lamino-alveolar or lamino-palatal consonants (where lamino-palatal consonants are allophonic variants of the lamino-alveolar phonemes /tj/, /nj/ and /lj/ (j, ny and ly in our transcription) (1974:3)). These variants are as follows:

/i/

The allophone [i] occurs between non-velar and lamino-alveolar or lamino-palatal consonants (Furby 1974:4)

The glide occurs between non-velar and lamino-alveolar or lamino-palatal consonants (Furby 1974:5)

/a/

The glide occurs preceding lamino-alveolar or lamino-palatal consonants (Furby 1974:5)

/u/

The glide occurs between non-bilabial and lamino-alveolar or lamino-palatal consonants (Furby 1974:6)

The glide occurs between bilabial and lamino-alveolar or lamino-palatal consonants (Furby 1974:6)

Furby notes that the lamino-alveolar stop /tj/ (j in our transcription) has an unreleased variant (written as superscript) (Furby 1974:3). In Flint's data, j appears to be lenited rather than unreleased in many cases. At times this lenition is so significant that it approaches omission, and the underlying presence of the consonant is only perceived by its influence on the preceding vowel.

The above rules account for Bindie West’s pronunciation in many instances. For example, Furby gives the following narrow phonetic transcription of the verb kujba ("search"):

[] (Furby 1974:3)

This corresponds closely to our informant’s pronunciation of the word (see kujbangaya bajbunyi ngaki ("look for") in "Garawa verbs and sentences").

References

Belfrage, H. 1992. Aspects of Verb and Pronoun Morphology, Semantics and Syntax in Garrwa. (Honours Thesis, University of Melbourne). Held at the AIATSIS Library, Canberra.

Furby, C.E. 1974. Garawa Phonology. Papers in Australian Linguistics 7:1-11. Pacific Linguistics Series A - no. 37. Canberra: ANU.

Osborne, Charles. 1966. Garawa Field Notes (MS). Held at the AIATSIS Library, Canberra, as "Garawa Personal Pronouns".