Chapter 2 Distinctive Phonemes in Deori
2.2 Deori consonants: a literature review
This section presents a detailed literature review of the Deori segmental properties elaborately described in the works of Brown (1850), Brown (1895), Goswami (1994), Jacquesson (2005), Nath (2012), Deori (2012), and Saikia (2013). While reviewing the literature on the phoneme inventory of Deori, IPA symbols of the phonemes are used alongside the generic alphabets15 or non-standard symbols used by the researchers.
Brown (1850) reports eighteen consonants in Deori16 (as cited in Jacquesson, 2005). The phoneme inventory in Brown (1850) comprises of six obstruent stops /p, b, t, d, k, ɡ/, three nasal consonants /m, n, ŋ/, three fricatives /s/, <sh>, /h/, three affricates <j>, /ts/, <ch>, two liquids /l, r/, and one glide <y>. We follow the IPA conventions to represent the phonemes identified in
14 The theory of markedness has played a central role in phonology since its inception in 1930s by Trubetzkoy and Jakobson.
15 The generic alphabets or non-standard symbols used by the researchers are presented within brackets
‘< >’ and the IPA symbols of the phonemes are presented surrounded by ‘//’ in transcription.
16 The description of Brown (1850) is derived from Jacquesson (2005). Jacquesson (2005) presents a list of words from Brown (1850) which shows the existence of the total number of phonemes in Deori.
Brown (1850): <sh> is voiceless palato alveolar fricative /ʃ/ (for example: <sha> ~ /ʃa/ ‘one’ ;
<j> is voiced palatal-alveolar affricate /dʒ/ (for example: <ji> ~ /dʒi/ ‘water’ ; <ch> is palatal alveolar affricate /tʃ/ (for example: <chi> ~ /tʃi/ “blood”); and <y> is palatal approximant /j/ (for example: <ya> ~ /jɑ/ “moon”). Brown explains that voiceless alveolar affricate /ts/ occurs only word-initially: e.g., tsima “mother”, tsagu “road” and tsinga “fish” and not elsewhere.
Brown (1895) reports twenty consonants in Deori. The consonant inventory in Brown (1895) comprises of six obstruent stops /p,b,t,d,k,ɡ/, three aspirated obstruent stops /th, kh,dh/, three nasal consonants /m/,/n/,<ng>, three fricatives /s/,<sh>,/h/, two affricates <ch,j>, two liquids /l,r/, one glide <y>. Brown states that the voiceless alveolar fricative /z/ does not occur in the language and the alveolar and the velar nasal /n/ and <ng> are often dropped in the syllable-final position. Brown states that aspirated obstruent stops /th/, /kh/, and /dh/ are phonemic in Deori.
Following the IPA convention of representing the phonemes, <sh> in Brown is voiceless palato alveolar fricative /ʃ/ (for example: <mishi> ~ /miʃi/ “wife”, <mousha> ~ /mouʃɑ/ “child” ; <ng>
is voiced velar nasal /ŋ/ for example: <sing> ~ /siŋ/ “salt”, <ding> ~ /diŋ/ “grandfather” ; <ch>
is palatal alveolar affricate /tʃ/ (for example: <chi> ~ /tʃi/ “blood”, <chimi> ~ /tʃimi/ “tail” ; <j>
is voiced palatal alveolar affricate /dʒ/ (for example: <jabura> ~ /dʒɑburɑ/ “vegetables”, <jiti> ~ /dʒiti/ “star” and <y> is palatal approximant /j/ in IPA for example: <yua> ~ /juɑ/ “bamboo” .
Goswami (1994) reports twenty consonants in Deori. The consonants are six obstruent stops /p,b,t,d,k,ɡ/, three nasal consonants /m/,/n/,<ṅ>, five fricatives /s/,/z/,<ś>,/x/,/h/, two affricates
<c>, <j>, two liquids /l,r/ and two glides <y>, /w/. Goswami suggests that the palatal voiceless fricative <ś> (equivalent to /ç/ in IPA: e.g., çu “bark”, çui “high” is rare in the language and is not found occurring finally. Except for voiceless velar fricative /x/, all the consonants occur initially and medially. The phoneme /x/ occurs only word-initially (for example: xouba “there”, xidu “to enter” . The IPA symbol of phoneme <ṅ> is /ŋ/ for example: <ṅada> ~ /ŋada/
“verandah”, <ṅi> ~ /ŋi/ “cloth”, <ṅe> ~ /ŋe/ “fire” . Goswami states that velar nasal /ŋ/ occurs both word-initially and word-finally. The consonants licensed to the final position are the voiceless stops /p, t/, the nasals /m, n, ŋ/, and the liquids /l, r/. The IPA symbol of the phonemes
<c> and <j> in Goswami (1994) are voiceless palatal alveolar affricate /tʃ/ and voiced palatal alveolar affricate /dʒ/ respectively.
Jacquesson (2005) reports seventeen consonants in Deori. This includes six obstruent stops /p,b,t,d,k,ɡ/, three nasal consonants /m,n,ŋ/, two fricatives /s,h/, two affricates /tʃ,dʒ/, two liquids
/l/,[r], and two glides /j/, [w]. Liquid [r] and approximant [w] are the allophonic variations of liquid /l/ and bilabial plosive /p/ respectively. The phoneme /l/ is licensed to occur at the beginning of a word and [r] occurs elsewhere except the beginning of the word. Jacquesson (2005) posits that /l/ occurring intervocalically (for example: biloni “plant for rice-beer”, bilahi
“tomato”, gila “knee-cap”17) and [r] occurring word-initially (for example: roja “king”, roŋ
“colour” are borrowed Assamese words18. Labial approximant [w] which is a conditioned variant of bilabial plosive /p/ occurs intervocalically mainly in compound words such as hela- wa19 “this”, gime-wa “respectable person”. Jacquesson (2005) further states that except for /ŋ/, [r], and [w] all other consonants occur word-initially. Coda consonants are rare in Deori. Only the nasal consonants /m, n, ŋ/, and liquid [r] occurs word finally. He further states that the velar nasal /ŋ/ in the coda position mostly gets deleted inducing nasalization of the preceding vowels and hence its occurrence in the language is very rare. However, there are a few lexical items with velar nasal /ŋ/ in the final syllable such as kiŋ “hair”, siŋ “salt”, guŋ “grasshopper”, yuŋ “insect, worm”, and yeŋ “ginger”. He further states that guŋ “grasshopper” is today pronounced as g , however, words like kiŋ “hair” and siŋ “salt” are pronounced with velar nasal /ŋ/ in the final position. Jacquesson also posits that there is a suffix -ŋ “honorific marker” which gets attached to kinship terms such as ba-ŋ “father”, yo-ŋ “mother”, di-ŋ “grand-father”, ji-ŋ “grandmother”.
Except for this handful of occurrences, velar nasal /ŋ/ in Deori is rarely used. Jacquesson further states that the voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ does not occur word finally. Aspiration in Deori is not phonological. Jacquesson (2005) also reports some instances of free variation: voiceless palatal alveolar affricate /tʃ/ is realized variably as voiceless alveolar affricate /ts/; voiced palatal- alveolar affricate /dʒ/ is realized variably as voiced alveolar fricative /dz/, and voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ is realized variably as voiceless palato alveolar fricative /ʃ/. Jacquesson (2005) also posits that the native speakers use both voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ and voiceless palato alveolar fricative /ʃ/ interchangeably but never /h/, unlike Assamese.
17 /ghila/ in Assamese.
18 Jacquesson cites Burling (1961) in which evidences of /r/ and /l/ featuring in complementary distribution in Garo is reported. In Garo, the place of occurrence of /r/ and /l/ are opposite to Deori. In Garo, /r/ occurs at the beginning of the word and /l/ occurs in the middle of the word. Jacquesson also cites Bhattacharyya (1977) in which the phonemic status of /r/ and /l/ in Dimasa and Kokborok are reported. In Dimasa and Kokborok /r/ and /l/ are two distinct phonemes occurring in all syllabic position maintaining phonemic contrasts. Jacquesson thus mentions that Deori and Garo have “simplified” one old opposition in Bodo-Garo in reverse ways.
19 -wa is a thematic marker as reported in Jacquesson (2005).
Nath (2012) reports seventeen consonants in Deori. The consonants are six obstruent stops /p,b,t,d,k,ɡ/, three nasal consonants /m,n,ŋ /, three fricatives /s,z,ɦ/, one affricate /ts/, two liquids /l, ɾ/, two approximants /ʋ, j/. Nath (2012) states that voiced glottal fricative /ɦ/ changes to voiceless velar fricative /x/ word-medially (for example: muɦini > muxini “two”20). Nath (2012) states that voiceless palato alveolar fricative /ʃ/ as reported in Grierson (1909) has changed to voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ (for example: ʃiŋ > siŋ “seven”, piʃa > pisa “son”).
Deori (2012) reports seventeen consonants in the language /p,b,t,d,k,ɡ,m,n,ŋ,s,tʃ,dʒ,l,r,h,j,w/.
The consonants are six obstruent stops /p,b,t,d,k,g/, three nasal consonants /m,n,ŋ/, two fricatives /s,h/, two affricates /tʃ,dʒ/, two liquids /l,r/ and two approximants /j,w/. Unlike Jacquesson (2005), Deori (2012) considers labial approximant /w/ and alveolar lateral /l/ as contrastive phonemes. Deori (2012) further suggests that the voiceless palato- alveolar /tʃ/ is extensively used in the language and there are no aspirated stops in the language.
Saikia (2013) reports seventeen consonants /p,b,t,d,k,g,m,n,ŋ,s,tʃ,dʒ,l,r,h,j,w/ in Deori which complies with Deori 2012 . aikia 2013 mentions that the velar nasal /ŋ/ occurs word-initially and word-finally whereas semi-vowel /w/ can occur only word-medially. The stop consonants /p,b,t,d,k,ɡ/, alveolar fricative /s/, palato-alveolar voiced affricate /dʒ/, laterals /l, r/, glottal fricative /h/ and palatal approximant /j/ are used extensively word initially and word medially.
Saikia also reports that the language lacks aspirated stops.
A review of the available literature reveals that there exist both commonalities and irregularities in the description of Deori consonants. Table 2.121 below summarizes the consonant inventory of Deori proposed by various researchers.
20 Nath (2012) has specified only one instance of voiced glottal fricative /ɦ/ changing to voiceless velar fricative /x/ intervocalically.
21 In table 2.1, the IPA symbols are used to represent the phonemes.
Table 2.1: Deori consonants as reported by different researchers
As can be seen in Table 2.1, most of the consonants are uniform and only a few consonants tend to vary across different studies. The most agreed upon consonants among all the researchers are the stop consonants /p,t,k,b,d,ɡ/, nasal consonants /m,n,ŋ/, alveolar fricative /s/, voiced palatal alveolar affricate /dʒ/ (except Nath 2012), voiceless palatal alveolar affricate /tʃ/, liquids /r,l/, glottal fricative /h/, and palatal approximant /j/. Glottal fricative /h/ is described as voiced (phonetic symbol /ɦ/) by Nath 2012, unlike other researchers. However, although the liquid consonants /r/ and /l/ are uniformly present in the description of the phoneme inventory of all the researchers, Jacquesson considers [r] and [w] as an allophonic variation of /l/ and /p/
respectively. Nath (2012) reports lateral /ɾ/ as tap or flap.
The consonants which stand exclusively unique are voiceless alveolar affricate /ts/ (Brown, 1850; Nath, 2012); aspirated obstruent stops /th/, /kh/and /dh/ (Brown, 1895); voiceless palatal fricative /ç/ (Goswami, 1994), voiced alveolar fricative /z/, voiceless velar fricative /x/
(Goswami, 1994; Nath, 2012), voiceless palato-alveolar fricative /ʃ/ (Brown, 1850; Brown, 1895) and labio-dental approximant /ʋ/ (Nath, 2012). It is observed that the voiceless velar fricative /x/
in Goswami (1994) changes to glottal fricative /h/ in Jacquesson (2005) (for example: xouba (Goswami, 1994) > houba “there” Jacquesson, 2005 , i (Goswami, 1994) > hi “to see”
(Jacquesson, 2005), xidu (Goswami, 1994) > hidu “to enter” Jacquesson, 2005 . Nath 2012 reports that voiced glottal fricative /ɦ/ in Grierson (1909) changes to voiceless velar fricative /x/
in present-day Deori. The lexical items with voiceless alveolar affricate /ts/ in Brown (1850) and Nath (2012) is reported as voiceless palatal alveolar affricate /tʃ/ in Brown (1895), Goswami (1994), Jacquesson (2005), Saikia (2013), and Deori (2012) (for example: tsima “mother”
(Brown, 1850; Nath, 2012) > tʃima (Brown, 1895; Goswami, 1994; Jacquesson, 2005; Saikia, 2013; Deori, 2012), tsipa “father” (Brown, 1850; Nath, 2012) > tʃipa (Brown, 1895; Goswami, 1994; Jacquesson, 2005; Saikia, 2013; Deori, 2012), tsagu “road” Brown, 1850; Nath, 2012) >
tʃagu (Brown, 1895; Goswami, 1994; Jacquesson, 2005; Saikia, 2013; Deori, 2012). Similarly, the lexical items with voiceless palatal fricative /ç/ in Goswami (1994) are reported as voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ in Brown (1850), Brown (1895), Jacquesson (2005), Nath (2012), Deori (2012), and Saikia (2013) (for example: çu (Goswami, 1994) ~ su “bark” Brown, 1850; Brown, 1895; Jacquesson, 2005; Nath, 2012; Deori, 2012; Saikia, 2013), çui (Goswami, 1994) ~ sui
“high” Brown, 1850; Brown, 1895; Jacquesson, 2005; Nath, 2012; Deori, 2012; aikia, 2013 . While Brown (1895) considers aspiration as phonemic in Deori, other researchers (Brown, 1895;
Goswami, 1994; Jacquesson, 2005; Deori, 2012; Nath, 2012; Saikia, 2013) state that aspiration is not attested in Deori.
The detailed overview of the existing literature discussed in this section has provided an insight into the description of the consonants of Deori and highlights both commonalities and irregularities in the number of consonants in Deori. The use of voiced alveolar fricative /z/ in Goswami (1994) and Nath (2012) and voiced palatal alveolar affricate /dʒ/ in Brown (1895), Jacquesson (2005), Deori (2012), and Saikia (2013) for the same set of lexical items; free variation of /s/ and /ʃ/, /tʃ/ and /ts/, /dʒ/ and /dz/ (Jacquesson, 2005) and changes from /x/
(Goswami, 1994) to /h/ (Jacquesson, 2005) and /ɦ/ to /x/ (Nath, 2012) raises some concern on the phonemic status of the consonants in Deori. Keeping in mind the observations of the earlier researchers, the next section examines the number of contrastive consonants in Deori. The consonants are discussed with reference to the distinctive feature theory to classify the phonemic contrasts of the consonants.