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7. Borrowed words. If the sound is only found in words borrowed from a trade
language or a language of wider communication, it is doubtful that the sound should be
considered part of the phonological system of the language.
At this point, a caveat regarding the data is in order (cf. Croft 1990: 25). Certain
problems concerning the data make a cross-linguistic study challenging. For example,
descriptive sources vary with regard to quality, and it is not always clear how to interpret
the phonetic transcription in some sources. However, the most serious problem concerns
the completeness of the data. Survey reports and sketch phonologies, while providing
helpful information, do not by definition cover the above criteria comprehensively. As a
result, evidence for the systematicity of the labial flap in some languages may actually be
greater than what we are able to infer from the sources. This problem would only be
resolved if comprehensive descriptive studies were available for all the languages studied
here, a ideal which is at present far from being realized.
D.5.2 Sample languages in which the labial flap is phonological
1. Mono. The first language we examine in detail is the Ubangian language Mono,
a dialect of Mid-Southern Banda spoken in the northwestern corner of the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC). We examine Mono in light of the criteria mentioned above.
First, the labial flap is fully contrastive with the other labial sounds in Mono.
Minimal pairs, or near-minimal pairs, are listed in (2):
(2) Contrast with other labial sounds in Mono (Olson & Schrag 1997)
labial labial-velar
stops F= F= ‘speak’ F= F= F= F= ‘flee’
>== >== >== >== ‘greet’ C>= C>= ‘rot’
>== >== >== >== ‘elephant’ C>= C>= C>= C>= ‘be many’
implosives =J= =J= =J= =J= ‘since’
fricatives B= B= ‘cook’
L= L= ‘pour’
nasals = = = = ‘show’
flap M= M= M= ‘send’
approximant M= M= ‘cut’
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