A Phonetic Description of the Kawaiisu Language

Abstract

This dissertation represents the first acoustic phonetic description of Kawaiisu, an endangered language of the Uto-Aztecan family spoken in the area near Tehachapi, California. The Kawaiisu language is understudied and underdocumented. Although an impressive grammar (with a lexicon and texts) has been published (Zigmond et al. 1990), discussion of the sound system is relegated to only a few pages. The present dissertation expands on the description of Kawaiisu phonetics and phonology contained in Zigmond et al. (1990), finding support for many of the claims made in their grammar. In addition, I show that the phonetic system of Kawaiisu is characterized by rich variation, examining acoustic evidence to illustrate the different ways that Kawaiisu sounds can be articulated. The analyses presented in this dissertation come from recordings made by Sheldon Klein in the 1950s and 1980s (Klein 1958, 1981-1983). Digital versions of these recordings are hosted online at the California Language Archive, and numerous types of data are represented therein: wordlist elicitation, sentence elicitation, traditional narratives, monologues, and conversations in Kawaiisu are all included in the archival data. In this dissertation, I examine words produced in isolation during elicitation sessions exclusively. These data come from four speakers: one male speaker recorded in the 1950s, and three female speakers recorded in the 1980s. From these data, I examine both the consonant and vowel systems of Kawaiisu. Considering vowels, evidence is presented which supports Zigmond et al.’s (1990) claim of a six-vowel system with phonemic vowel length contrast. I also find that an increase in pitch is the most robust acoustic cue to Kawaiisu stress, and that unstressed vowels often lie more toward the periphery of the vowel space than stressed vowels. Additionally, the pervasive phenomenon of word-final vowel deletion in Kawaiisu is examined, claimed by Zigmond et al. (1990) to target verbs specifically. Although word-final vowel deletion is found to be a common process in Kawaiisu, no evidence is found in the available data linking this process to a specific lexical category, and some suggestions are offered for why Zigmond et al. (1990) may have arrived at this conclusion. Concerning consonants, this dissertation provides support for some of the phonological alternations mentioned by Zigmond et al. (1990), including the palatalization of coronal sibilants preceded by front vowels. I also show that many consonants have differing articulations in apparent free variation: the rhotic phoneme of Kawaiisu is variously realized as a flap or trill, while the consonant commonly labeled as /g/ (especially by Zigmond et al. (1990), and Klein (2002)) may often be produced with fricative or approximant articulations, rather than as a stop. Additionally, I show that the glottal stop (both intervocalically and in some cases pre-consonantally) is associated with the presence of creaky voice. Finally, I discuss voice onset time of voiceless stops, finding that VOT is often greater when the following vowel is phonemically long. This research can be useful to both the community of linguists and to the Kawaiisu community. For linguists, this work presents a phonetic description of a language whose sound system was previously not adequately described. Variation in articulation has been noted where acoustic evidence for such variability was found, and several cross-linguistically rare patterns and structures have been indicated (for example, peripherality of unstressed over stressed vowels, the relationship between phonemic vowel length and VOT of stops, etc.). For community members, the information presented in this document can be used to help create pedagogical materials for purposes of language revitalization. Finally, this research highlights the importance of working with existing archival data. Archival language data is available through a number of sources, and in many cases, it may be all that remains of a once widely spoken language. This dissertation shows that important descriptive and documentary work can still be done, both to the benefit of the academic community, and to indigenous speech communities.