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Vowels of Upper Tanana Athabascan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2011

Siri G. Tuttle ,
Olga Lovick  and
Isabel Núñez-Ortiz
Siri G. Tuttle
Affiliation:
University of Alaska Fairbankssgtuttle@alaska.edu
Olga Lovick
Affiliation:
First Nations University of CanadaOlga@lithophile.com
Isabel Núñez-Ortiz
Affiliation:
University of Alaska Fairbanksisabel.nunezortiz@gmail.com
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Abstract

This paper provides a detailed phonetic, synchronic description of the oral vowels of Upper Tanana, an Athabascan language spoken in eastern interior Alaska and the western Yukon Territory. Upper Tanana has, depending on the dialect, six or seven oral monophthongs that can be modified for (low) tone, nasalization, and length. Previous accounts are auditory. They disagree regarding the articulation of two of the vowels (which we represent as /ɘ/ and /ʌ/), and raise the question of whether ‘length’ indicates a quantity or a quality distinction. In contrast to earlier accounts, we provide acoustic measurements of F1, F2, and the duration of the vowels of two Alaskan dialects of Upper Tanana: Northway and Tetlin. We find that the phonetic realization of one of the vowels is quite different from the earlier auditory descriptions. For the other vowels and for the quantity distinction, our findings support earlier descriptions while supplying new details. Several co-articulation effects, previously undescribed, are also identified.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the International Phonetic Association , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , December 2011 , pp. 283 - 312
Copyright
Copyright © International Phonetic Association 2011

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