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4. Frequency of occurrence. If a sound is rare compared to other sounds in the
language, this may call into question to what extent it is part of the phonological system.
There are two ways of counting phonemes—frequency of occurrence within a text or
frequency of occurrence within a lexicon. Trubetzkoy (1969: 256) notes that the former is
more appropriate for simple phoneme counts, whereas the latter is more appropriate for
studying functional load. In this chapter, I will note when a phoneme is rare in discourse
according to the frequency counts in Tables A.1, A.2, and A.3 in Appendix A. In
addition, I will note if a phoneme is attested in less than a dozen items in the lexicon,
given in Appendix B. The lexicon contains about 2000 lexical items.
5. Loan words. If a sound only occurs in words borrowed from another language,
this calls into question its phonological status in the language. I make note of cases where
a sound only occurs in loan words.
Most of the data in this dissertation are given in phonemic form. I present
phonemic data in boldface font, e.g. K(CK( K(CK( K(CK( K(CK( ‘water’. Phonetic data, showing allophonic
variation, is given in square brackets, e.g. [KCK(] ‘water’. In a few cases, I will discuss
abstract analyses, akin to the Underlying Representations of generative phonology. In
these cases, the data are presented between slash marks, e.g. /CK(/ ‘water’.
The choice of presenting the data predominantly in phonemic form is to a certain
extent a practical decision. On the one hand, a major goal of the dissertation is to be as
descriptive as possible. This leads me to keep abstract analyses to a minimum, although
even a phonemic analysis is an abstraction to a certain degree. On the other hand,
presenting the data with a narrow phonetic transcription would be cumbersome,
especially in trying to present gradient behavior such as vowel nasalization. I find
presenting the data in phonemic form to be a good compromise between the two. In
addition, it is a form of data which is well-known in the literature.
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