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Two Patterns of /A/ and /O/ Alternation in Subanon

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Two Patterns of /A/ and /O/ Alternation in Subanon Two Patterns of /a/ and /o/ Alternation in Subanon Sharon Bulalang UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA Two patterns of alternation affect the phonemes /a/ and /o/ in Subanon, an underdocumented Austronesian language spoken in the southern Philippines. Under suffixation, /a/ becomes /o/ in the antepenult (Pattern 1), and /o/ becomes /a/ in the penult preceding a palatal glide (Pattern 2). Pattern 1 has no apparent synchronic motivation, but comparative evidence shows that Proto-Subanen *a weakened to schwa when placed in pretonic position through suffixation, and that schwa from any source then became Subanon /o/. Pattern 2 is similar to a Subanon process called “partial vowel harmony assimilation,” as well as to the alternation of final -əy/-əw with penultimate -ay/-aw in Western Bukidnon Manobo. However, in both cases, these processes turn out to be unrelated. In conclusion, Pattern 2 shows no clear synchronic and diachronic motivation, and we are left with a descriptive statement without an explanation. 1. INTRODUCTION.1 Western Subanon [ISO 639-3 suc] (henceforth, Subanon) is an indigenous minority language in the Philippines spoken by about 300,000 people in the southwestern part of the Zamboanga Peninsula of Mindanao. Subanon is one of a small subgroup of languages called Subanen, that belongs to the Greater Central Philip- pines (GCPH) branch of the Austronesian language family (Blust 1991, 2005; Lobel 2013; Simons and Fennig 2018). Figure 1 shows the position of Subanon in relation to the other Subanen languages. Figure 1 reflects the fact that the Western subgroup of Proto-Subanen (PSUB) diverged prior to the breakup of the other Subanen languages. Additionally, it identifies the eight members of the Subanen subgroup divided into Western and Nuclear Subanen. The Western subgroup includes only Subanon and Western Kolibugan, while the Nuclear subgroup encompasses Tawlet-Kalibugan, Salug-Godod Subanen, Southern 1. This article was originally a qualifying paper for the doctoral program in linguistics at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Special thanks to Laling Alas’as, Annaliza Bulalang, and Gloria Lumapang, as well as a number of other Subanon speakers who speak the Malayal dia- lect, from whom the data were elicited. I am also grateful to William Hall and Shaira Estioca for assisting me in data collection, to Thomas Dougherty and Bryn Hauk for sharing insights valuable to this study, and to two anonymous reviewers and my committee members, Robert Blust (chair), Gary Holton, and Victoria Anderson, for reading several drafts of the paper and providing helpful suggestions for improvement. Abbreviations that may require explanation are: AV, Agent Voice; GCPH, Greater Central Philippines; IMP, imperative; GV, Goal Voice; PSM, Proto-Subanen-Manobo; PSUB , Proto- Subanen; PV, Patient Voice; WBM, Western Bukidnon Manobo; WSUB, Western Subanon. Oceanic Linguistics, Volume 57, no. 2 (December 2018) © by University of Hawai‘i Press. All rights reserved. 2 9 0 OCE A NIC LI N G UISTICS , V O L . 5 7, N O . 2 FI GURE 1. T HE L OCATI ON OF SUBAN ON IN T HE GCP H † G C P H C e ntr al S o ut h Pala wanic Dana w Subanen Manobo Gorontalic P hili p pi n es Mangyan Wester n N uclear Subanon Kolibugan West Nuclear East Nuclear Ta wl et- K ali b u g a n, S o ut h er n, C e ntr al, Salug- Godod Northern, and Eastern Subanen Subanen † Fro m Blust (1991), modi fi ed to acco m modate Lobel’s (2013) Subanen Subgrouping. Subanen, Central Subanen, Northern Subanen, and Eastern Subanen ( Lobel and Hall 2 0 1 0, L o bel 2 0 1 3). All Subanen languages have a re fl e x of Pr ot o- S u ba ne n ( P S U B ) * ǝ. T his re fl e x is / ǝ/ i n m ost of t hese la n g ua ges, b ut, i n S u ba n o n a n d Wester n K oli b u ga n sc h wa beca me / o/, as see n i n t he la n g ua ge na mes t he msel ves. S u ba n o n e x hi bits t w o pr o d ucti ve patter ns of a /o alter nati o n f oll o wi n g af fi xati o n. I n Patter n 1, t he /a/ i n a pre pe n ulti mate s ylla ble c ha n ges t o / o/ ( Rei d 1 9 7 3; Bric h o u x 1 9 7 7; Bl ust a n d Nielse n 2 0 1 6: 6 3 0). 2 I n Patter n 2, t he / o/ i n a pe n ulti mate s ylla ble c ha n ges t o /a/ w he n it is f oll o we d b y t he palatal gli de / y/, a p he n o me n o n t hat is als o o bser ve d i n t he Ma n o b o la n g ua ges, s p o ke n i n east-ce ntral Mi n da na o ( Bl ust, pers. c o m m., A pril 3 0, 2 0 1 7). H o we ver, alt h o u g h t he Patter n 2 alter nati o n t hat is o bser ve d i n S u ba n o n a n d i n t he Manobo languages super fi ciall y a p pear si milar, t he y are f u n da me ntall y differe nt. T he p ur p ose of t his pa per is t o descri be t hese alter nati o ns b ot h s y nc hr o nicall y a n d diac hr o nic- all y, a d dressi n g t w o q uesti o ns i n partic ular: 1. H o w ca n we acc o u nt f or t he a /o alter nati o n i n pre pe n ulti mate s ylla bles s y nc hr o nic- all y a n d diac hr o nicall y? 2. W hat acc o u nts f or t he pe n ulti mate o /a alter nati o n bef ore a palatal gli de s y nc hr o nic- all y a n d diac hr o nicall y? 2. S UB A N O N. S u ba n o n is s p o ke n pri maril y i n t he villa ges of Mala yal, Li nta n ga n, La n uti, a n d Li m pa pa, i n t he district of Si b uc o; a n d i n parts of t he m u nici palities of Si o- c o n, Bali gia n, La bas o n, S ura ba y, a n d I pil —areas o n t he Za m b oa n ga Pe ni ns ula, o n Mi n- da na o. T he la n g ua ge has t hree disti n g uis ha ble a n d m ut uall y i ntelli gi ble dialects: Si oc o n Subanon, Malayal Subanon (Si mons and Fennig 2018), and Gutalac- Dicolo m Subanon ( Hall, pers. c o m m., Oct o ber 1 2, 2 0 1 6). T he s peci fi c l ocati o ns w here t he S u ba n o n la n- guage and the neighboring Subanen languages are spoken are sho wn in map 1 ( with the 2. I us e pre p e n ulti m at e or a nt e p e n ulti m at e syllable to refer to the syllable i m mediately before t h e p e n ulti m at e s yll a bl e, t h e t y pi c al pri m ar y str ess l o c ati o n i n S u b a n o n. a/o ALTERNATION IN SUBANON 291 Philippine map on the left side highlighting the position of the Zamboanga Peninsula in which the Subanen languages are found. MAP 1. LOCATION OF SUBANON AND THE NEIGHBORING SUBANEN LANGUAGES (LOBEL 2013:321) 3. PREVIOUS STUDIES ON THE PHONOLOGY OF SUBANON. Being an underdocumented language, there has been very little work done on the phonol- ogy of Subanon. Synchronic studies include phonemic analysis (Hall 1967, 1997), a description of the orthography (Hall 1972), and a description of the standardization of the orthography (Hall 2014). Only a few diachronic analyses of this language have been pub- lished. Banker (1958) is an investigation of the origin of the /gl/ cluster where the g- in the cluster is analyzed as deriving from the final -g of the case markers og, nog, and sog; Reid (1973) is an exploration of the evolution of the Philippine languages from the four-vowel system of Proto-Philippines; Lobel’s (2013:318–59) historical-comparative work on Subanen languages producing “618 lexical reconstructions of Proto-Subanen” provides the major resource for analyzing the /a/ to /o/ alternation diachronically; and Blust and Nielsen (2016) shows that Proto-Austronesian *ma- ‘stative’ metathesized in Subanon only before base-initial b- and p- to avoid widespread dispreference for dissimilar labials as the onsets of successive syllables.
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