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The two secondary articulations found in Mono, labialization and palatalization,
present a challenge for phonemic analysis in that there is not a unique solution, but rather
there are several possible interpretations. They are phonetically unusual in that they are
perceived as being articulated like the mid vowels and A rather than like high vowels. I
gave acoustic evidence for this in Chapter 8.
Mono has a bisyllabic pattern, CV1LV1, in which the quality and tone of the two
vowels is identical. This pattern reduces to CLV in rapid speech, as discussed in Section
8.2.2. I suggest in Chapter 5 that the bisyllabic pattern has an underlying form of /CLV/
and that the presence of the CV1LV1 pattern may be due to a diachronic change.
Mono lexical words have a word minimality condition in that they must have at
least two syllables. Many nominals in Mono have a V1CV1 pattern, which I claim is the
result of the subminimal root augmentation (SRA) of an underlying /CV/ form.
Interestingly, there is also a large number of words with the shape V1CV1LV1, suggesting
that both SRA and V-epenthesis (which breaks up a CL sequence) apply to a /CLV/
underlying form.
Finally, concerning the optional process of leftward vowel spreading discussed in
Chapters 6 and 7, I note that there is an implicational restriction on which features are
allowed to spread. Specifically, if it is possible for the feature [high] to spread, then the
features [back] and [round] may only spread if [high] does. If [high] can spread but
doesn’t, then [back] and [round] do not spread.
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