In the following, compare the English words with the Kriol equivalents (Kriol is an English-based creole spoken in northern Australia). Focus on consonants. What is the phonological process that has led to the changes in Kriol — where possible give the linguistic label for this process (i.e. assimilation, deletion and so on); if no label exists, then simply describe the process. Note, the Kriol words aren’t in phonetics, but assume the spelling is close to the pronunciation
- ?t] ot ‘hot’
- ?:sk] aks ‘ask’
- ?:ft?n?n] apinum ‘afternoon’
- ?ð?] nother ‘other’
- ??t?k?:] modiga ‘vehicle’
- ??t?p] shurup ‘shut up’
(Kriol r here represents a voiced flap)
4. Phonology [4 marks]
Consider the following data, which comes from a west African language
1. zr?~ ‘to be smooth’ 15. dru ‘to be bent’
2. ?ra ‘to rage’ 16. fle ‘to pluck’
3. l?~ ‘to love’ 17. glamaa ‘uneven’
4. kpla ‘to intertwine’ 18. litsa ‘chameleon’
5. mlagoo ‘thick’ 19. dzre ‘to quarrel’
6. gblaa ‘wide’ 20. ?la ‘to hide’
7. lolo ‘to be large’ 21. xloloo ‘rough’
8. wlu ‘to dig’ 22. tsro ‘bark (of tree)’
9. ßla ‘suddenly’ 23. ?le ‘to buy’
10. sr?~ ‘wife’ 24. blema ‘formerly’
11. la~kle ‘leopard’ 25. d?lele ‘illness’
12. hle ‘to spread out’ 26. ?l? ‘to write’
13. vl? ‘to go far away’ 27. jre ‘evil’
14. atra ‘mangrove’ 28. adoglo ‘lizard’
a. In English, [r] and [l] are separate phonemes. What is the status of [l] and [r] in this language? In other words, are [r] and [l] allophones of one phoneme or two separate phonemes?
b. If you think they are allophones, state which allophone is the underlying phoneme and the environment in which each allophone occurs. Write a rule that accounts for this distribution.
c. If you think they are separate phonemes state the evidence that has led you to this conclusion
