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Proto-Inuit Phonology

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Proto-Inuit Phonology * Proto-Inuit Phonology Doug Hitch Independent Scholar Proto-Inuit and the daughter dialects have two non-nasal, non- lateral consonant series, /p t c k q/ and /v ʐ j ɣ ʁ/. The distinctive feature separating these sets has been generally regarded as continuance but voicing is a better candidate. PI *c has been seen as affricate [ts] or [tʃ] but a voiceless palatal stop value [c] better explains the diachronic and synchronic data. PI *ʐ and modern /ʐ/ have received a wide range of phonetic characterizations but a voiced retroflex sibilant value [ʐ] best accounts for the historical and descriptive evidence. Some historical documents and modern descriptions are reassessed. Some suggestions are made for the reconstruction of PI. 1 Introduction The Inuit language family stretches from Big Diomede Island in the Bering Strait to the east coast of Greenland. Probably all of the many intervening dialects have been studied, and while the studies have varying degrees of depth, there is no doubt about the basic identity of the phonemic units for any dialect and there is much known about phonological and morphophonological patterning. With the numerous distinct dialects, and the existence of much historical documentation, the language area offers a rich field for historical linguistics and linguistic typology. In these pages much effort is made towards refining our phonetic understanding of the segments /c/ and /ʐ/ in both Proto-Inuit and the daughter dialects. This information has both diachronic and synchronic implications. It can simplify both descriptions and make them more natural. Also presented here is a fresh look at the distinctive feature specification of the consonants. By regarding voicing rather than continuance as the primary distinguishing feature among the consonants, other improvements may be made in the descriptions. After the introductory sections (1.1–1.3) there are sections devoted to individual voiceless (2–2.6) and voiced (3–3.6) consonants. These sections cover historical and synchronic information relating to the phonetics and phonology of each of these consonants. The phonemic nasals /m n ŋ/ are phonologically straightforward and are not discussed. There is a final short section (4) on vowel epenthesis in consonant clusters. Appendices A to H contain lists of examples illustrating the phonetics of some segments. Appendix I provides a list of comparative symbology, and Appendix J is a list of abbreviations and dialect names with geographic indications. 1.1 Method At least three levels of transcription are needed when working with non-phonological sources: the original transcription in the original orthography or non-standard transcription; a phonetic transcription; and a phonemic transcription. Sometimes there is overlap among them, but often all three require * In early June 2017 Sean Guistini from Arctic College made a special effort to find and send a copy of Dorais 2003 which is out of print (3rd rev ed. in press). In late July 2017 I had a useful discussion with Elan Dresher and Daniel Hall about continuance being non-phonemic. The first draft of this paper received useful comments in October 2017 from Michael Fortescue, Louis-Jacques Dorais, Michael Cook and two anonymous reviewers. In the same month André Bourcier assisted with some Siglitun and French issues. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics (TWPL), Volume 39 © 2017 Doug Hitch DOUG HITCH different symbols. Most scholarship to date makes compromises with these levels. They are combined or modified for the sake of expediency. This is not a criticism. Much very good work has been achieved with compromise transcriptions1 and some compromises are made here in two cases (see below). But at times a rigorous division of levels is necessary for accurate descriptions. Here, source transcriptions are in italics, phonetic in square brackets [ ], and phonemic in slanted brackets / /. These rules do not apply in quotations from other writers where the original apparatus is retained.. In the Inuit language field, the array of symbols in use now and in the past can be daunting. There is no consensus on symbology. The practice here has been to reproduce exactly what the original authors wrote. This is fairly easy now with Unicode and done almost without exception.2 For the phonetic and phonemic transcriptions, IPA is employed. It is not perfect but with so many symbols in use by Inuit language researchers, a symbolic system which is commonly understood is useful if not almost essential. Appendix X+1 has a chart comparing symbols from the major systems relied on here. Where there is any doubt about a representation, there should always be an accompanying phonetic or phonemic rendering in IPA. In phonetic transcriptions here the vowel uvularization is not marked. It predictably occurs before uvular segments. This is a kind of compromise phonetic transcription as it does not write some phonetic information. In phonemic transcriptions of Utkuhiksalingmiutut the glottal stop symbol ʔ is used to show where the glottal stop allophone of /t/ occurs. This is also a compromise transcription as it shows non- phonemic information. Many abbreviations for dialect names are necessary in work like this. Where there is material reproduced from the Comparative Eskimo Dictionary (CED; Fortescue et al., 2010), the CED dialect abbreviations are used. Also, when the CED more narrowly defines a source by putting it in square brackets, this too is reproduced. Almost all Proto-Eskimo (PE) or Proto-Inuit (PI) reconstructions are from the CED and not especially noted as such. In the few cases where a new, non-CED reconstruction is suggested, this should be clear from the text. Page numbers are not given to sources which are properly indexed. There is little point in giving page numbers to the CED which has two editions with differing pagination. PE and PI forms from there are found in alphabetical order. In contrast to Alaska, Greenland, and the western Canadian Arctic, the word “Eskimo” has been deprecated in the eastern Canadian Arctic for more than a generation. Unfortunately, it is long established in the scientific community as the name of a family with three branches, Inuit, Yupik and Sirenikski. It is also used in the name of the parent family, Eskimo-Aleut or Eskaleut. The scholars involved in this field have the highest respect and admiration for the people whose language, culture, and history they study. They mean no disrespect through the limited scientific use of the “E-word”. Perhaps even more unfortunate is that no-one has been able to suggest a manageable alternative. Proto-Inuit-Yupik-Sirenikski is perhaps too unwieldy. It is easy to use the word Inuit when referring to the Inuit. It is difficult to find a new word to describe the parent family. “Proto-Eskimo” is used here with reservation. 1.2 The previous phonemic charts I have noticed in the literature just one chart specifically of reconstructed Proto-Inuit consonants, but there are also examples of Proto-Eskimo charts which the authors appear to intend as serving also for Proto-Inuit. Bobalijk (1996: 325) provides a PI chart reproduced here as Table 1. 1 For instance, the CED, which is fundamental to this study, has a section stretching over four pages detailing the well-thought-out compromises needed to provide representations of a wide range of dialects and languages in the dictionary entries (xiii–xvi). 2 The only quasi-exception is with the subscript circle used to show the voiceless counterparts of [y] and [ŋ] in Yupik and Sirenikski transcriptions. Here the circle is put above the symbols: ẙ, ŋ̊ . Technically this is not an issue with Unicode but with the text processing software. 2 PROTO-INUIT PHONOLOGY Table 1: Bobalijk’s Proto-Inuit phonemic chart labial coronal (laterals) velar uvular stops p t k q continuants voiced v ɹ, j l ɣ R voiceless s ł nasals m n ŋ The CED chart has no phonetic or phonological labels, but much can be inferred by relative placement of the phonemic symbols. It also includes various symbols in parentheses which do not reflect phonemic units in PE. Those extra symbols are omitted in the version of the CED chart given here as Table 2: Table 2: CED Proto-Eskimo phonemic chart p t c k q v ð l y ɣ ʀ ł m n ŋ Dorais (1993) offers another presentation of the Proto-Eskimo consonant phonemes, based on that of the CED. His chart, Table 3, has phonological labels. He has substituted symbols more recognizable to people familiar with Canadian Inuit orthographies. He uses Ummaqmiutun r̂ in place of CED ð, the ICI & in place of ł, and ICI j in place of y. Beside three of these symbols he includes Canadian Roman spellings in square brackets, that is, ɣ [g], R [r] and ŋ [ng]. He has also grouped seven symbols under an “apical” label: Table 3: Dorais’s (1993) Proto-Inuit-Yupik phonemic chart bilabial apical velar uvular stop p t c k q fricative v j r̂ ɣ [g] R [r] lateral & l nasal m n ŋ [ng] Dorais (2003) presents a somewhat different chart. It has no labels. Under t there are d̶ , ł, l, and under c there is j. Under k is added x and under q is added x̂ . In all of these charts the content of the (bi)labial, velar and uvular columns is essentially identical (Dorais 2003 has extra x and x̂ ). The chief difference in the layouts occurs with the remaining seven symbols. The view here is that the hesitation is due to an unclear understanding of the phonological status of the segments concerned. Refinement is needed in both manner and place specifications. The top rows in all charts contains segments, p t k q, that in the daughter dialects are usually described as voiceless stops.
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