ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE IPA Ibibio Eno-Abasi E. Urua Department of Linguistics and Nigerian Languages University of Uyo [email protected] Ibibio is a Lower Cross (Delta Cross, Cross River, New Benue-Congo, Niger-Congo) language spoken mainly in Akwa Ibom State and in parts of Cross River State, both located in the southeastern part of Nigeria. The number of speakers is estimated at about four million (Essien 1991). Previous work on Ibibio phonetics includes Connell (1992, 1994, 1995) and Urua (1996/97, 2000, 2002). The variety presented here is spoken in Uruan area and Uyo, the capital city of Akwa Ibom State and the recording is that of the author, a female university teacher from Uruan. The Ibibio language has variants, which appear to be drawn along clan boundaries. Ibibio speakers can easily identify other Ibibio speakers from other clans based on their speech, e.g. Ibiono, Uruan, Uyo, Iman, Ikot Abasi/Mkpat Enin, Ikono, etc. Such dialectal variation is pronounced in the vocalic and tonal domains. For instance, [i] and [I] contrast in Ibiono (Essien 1990) but not in Iman, Uruan or Uyo dialects. A similar situation is true of tones. We provide the following examples from some Ibibio dialects: Uyo Ibiono Iman Ikono Gloss sI!nsI!nsI!nsI!n ‘insert’ so!o!nsi!nso!o!nso!o!n‘mock’ a!faN$ a!faN$ a!fa~N a!faN$ ‘type of edible vegetable’ e!bo!te!bo!te!bo!ti!bo!t ‘goat’ Cross-speaker and dialectal variation is also widely attested, depending on speech tempo, especially with vowels in interconsonantal position, e.g. ko~p ∼ kE~p ‘hear’. Consonants The Ibibio consonant system shows variation depending on the position of the consonant in the syllable or foot. Word-initial position is generally the position of contrast for Ibibio oral (stop) consonants. Nasal consonants, on the other hand, show contrast in all positions. Consonants that occur in medial position are weakened especially when they occur intervocalically. In pre-pausal position the contrast between voiceless and voiced plosives is neutralised. What we find are unreleased stops, indeterminate as to voicing status. The result is that different researchers have proposed different phonemic consonants for Ibibio. In the chart presented here, we provide for thirteen phonemic consonants where there are clear cases of contrast. Apart from the dental and alveolar plosives, /t1/ and /d/, which contrast, obstruents in Ibibio are generally voiceless. The bilabial plosives, [p] and /b/, occur in complementary distribution Journal of the International Phonetic Association (2004) 34/1 C International Phonetic Association DOI:10.1017/S0025100304001550 Printed in the United Kingdom Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. 27 Sep 2021 at 20:22:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use. 106 Journal of the International Phonetic Association: Illustrations of the IPA and do not contrast. Nasal consonants also occur as homorganic syllabic prefixes, e.g. N~-ka~ ‘group’; n~-ne~me! ‘conversation’. ba! ‘be’ ≠a~m ‘sell’ k°pa! ‘die’ N°we~n ‘be dark’ ka~a! ‘go’ sa!t ‘be dry’ ta! ‘chew’ fa!t ‘embrace’ da! ‘stand’ je!t ‘wash’ ma! ‘like’ we!N ‘console’ nO~ ‘give’ Another interesting feature of the Ibibio consonant system is that single nasal consonants contrast with the geminate ones in intervocalic position: sa!na! ‘be clean’ sa~nna! ‘move a bit further’ jo~mo! ‘be noisy’ jo~mmo! ‘boo at’ 1. In stem initial position, /N/ is realised as [Nw]° and [N] elsewhere. 2. Consonant clusters are rare; in prevocalic position C| and CG are attested, where | is an alveolar tap (from intervocalic weakening of the dental and alveolar plosives) and G is a palatal or labial-velar glide. Examples of the clusters include [f|e#] ‘forget’, [sja!k] ‘split’, [kwO!] ‘sing’. 3. Ibibio has a dental [t1] rather than an alveolar although [d] is alveolar. Plosives are weakened in intervocalic position as follows: [p, b] →[B]; t, d → [|]; k → [R] ∼ [˜](where[R]is used as the voiced uvular tap and [˜] the voiced velar approximant). Vowels There are seven contrastive vowels, /i, e, a, O, Ø, o, u/, and three phonetic variants, [I, ´, Ë] (Urua 2000). These variants, which have a restricted distribution in C-C position, are in complementary distribution with /i, o, u/, respectively, although other dialects (e.g. Ibiono) attest contrast (Essien 1990). i u , e v o c a Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. 27 Sep 2021 at 20:22:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use. E.-A. E. Urua: Ibibio 107 Ibibio vowels partake in many interesting morphophonemic processes, some of which include length, harmony, deletion and assimilation. The harmony system is based on height and back features. Length contrast Six of the seven vowels have a length contrast for lexical and morphological functions. ba~k ‘be early’ do!m ‘bite’ ba~ak ‘be afraid of ’ do!om ‘bite many things/times’ ne~m ‘be delicious’ fØ!k‘cover’ ne~em ‘crack palm kernel’ fu!uk ‘cover many things/times’ bO!p ‘tie’ kI!t ‘see’ bO!Op ‘tie many things/times’ ki!it ‘see many things/times’ The difference between the vowels in fØ!k ‘cover’ and fu!uk ‘cover many things/times’ is dialectal in the singular form – some Ibibio dialects have fu!k while some have fØ!k. The speaker’s variant is fØ!k. Interestingly, Ibibio makes a distinction between outright vowel deletion where both the vocalic melody and the vocalic slot or position are lost for one vowel, and vowel assimilation where one of the vowels is modified but both vocalic positions are retained. Examples include: /CVVCVC/ → [CVCVC] /ke! i!ka!N/ → [ki!ka!N] ‘in (the) fire’ /ke! u!bO!k/ → [ku!bO!k] ‘in (the) hand’ /CVVCVC/ → [CVVCVC] /ke! i~Nwa!N/ → [ki!i~Nwa!N]‘in(the)farm’ /ke! u~ta!N/ → [ku!u~ta!N] ‘on (the) rafter’ Tone Ibibio is a register terraced level tone language with two level tones (H)igh and (L)ow. Combinations of the level tones from tone spreading and segment deletion result in the formation of two types of contour tones, namely, High-Low and Low-High, which are not contrastive with each other. Ibibio also has a downstepped feature, which affects High tones, and manifests both automatic and non-automatic downstep. Tonal variation and alternation are common in Ibibio, depending on the dialect and whether or not one is dealing with items in isolation or in connected speech, as can be observed in the transcribed text below; for instance, items with an LH pattern may be realised as LH or HÕH, depending on the context. Variation between final HL contour tones in nouns and Low tones is dialectally determined, e.g. [u!fO$k] ∼ [u!fO~k] ‘house’. Tone performs both lexical and grammatical functions in the language. Lexical contrast da! ‘stand’ jo!mmo! ‘be pregnant’ da~ ‘mate, friend’ jo~mmo! ‘boo at’ kO!p ‘scoop food’ m!bO!k ‘wrestling (N.)’ kO~p‘lock’m!ÕbO!k ‘please’ ke!|e! ‘think’ O!bO!N ‘mosquito’ ke~|e! ‘be named’ O!bO~N ‘cane’ O!ÕbO!O!N ‘chief’ Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. 27 Sep 2021 at 20:22:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use. 108 Journal of the International Phonetic Association: Illustrations of the IPA Grammatical contrast Progressive aspect a~a!ko~na! dep$O~fO~N.‘Akonis buying (a) dress.’ a~a!ko~na! wet$N~we~t. ‘Akon is writing (a) book/letter.’ Completive aspect a~a!ko~na! Õa! de!p O~fO~N.‘Akonhas bought (a) dress.’ a~a!ko~na! Õa! wet$N~we~t. ‘Akon has written (a) book/letter.’ Basic tones on the verbs used to illustrate grammatical tone in Ibibio are H and L, thus: de!p ‘buy’ and we~t ‘write’. Verbs have two tone classes H and L. Disyllabic verbs have predictable high tone on the final syllable in isolation and in simple declarative sentences. Tone patterns in nouns are more variable. High ( !), Low ( ~) and the downstep feature (Õ) are marked. Where long vowels have identical tones, only the first vowel is marked with a tone. Transcription of recorded passage a!fI$me!de~re! ju~ u!tI!ne!ke!Õni!e µ!fa!aNe! ba!Na! n~dikoB$u~ko! N~ka!n, ke! i~ni~ a~ka~i!sa~N aÕ! ma!ake! Õfu!uR i!de!m O!mO~ ke! e~fO~N u!fØ~RO~twe~B a!sa!Na~ke~ di!sI$m. O~mmO$e!Õma! e!Õ≠I!mme! te~ ke! n~di!di!i~to$i~ka$ni~na$mnO~ O~ka~i!sa~N a!sI!NNe~ fO~N u!fØ~RO~ ke! e~≠e! do~ ke! di!i~da$tn~te~ ≠e! ko$B u~ko! o!ka$na~≠e!ko~.a!fI$me!de~re! Õma!afI~me! eta!a! kpO~sO~NO!kpO!sO!N ke!e~f| u!ke~me! mO~,o!do~ da!Na! n~te ≠e! ka$B a!ne!ne~kke! fI!me~ kpa~ n~tro$N!Õko !ke! e~ka~i!sa~N a!ne!ne~kke! tu!u|O~fO~N u!fØ~RO~ O!ÕfØ!R i!de!m O!mO~.ke! u~tI~|e! fI!me!de~re! Õma!aÕsI!NN i!de!me!fe~p. u!tI!n a!Õma!adi!sa!kka! O!nO~ u!fjo!b, n~di!en i~ni~ke~e| i~ni~ke~e| a~ka~i!sa~N a!Õma!asI!NNe! O~fO~N u!fØ~RO~ O!mO~.ke! e~kpa~tre# fI$me!de~|e! Õma!adi!≠I!mme! e!te~ ke! tu! m!ÕmO! m!ba~ ku!tI!no! ko$B u~ko! o!ka$n.