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The low central vowel = is optionally raised to [] when preceded or followed by
a high vowel, as shown in (15). Phonetic evidence for this raising is given in Section
8.2.1.
(15) [J =] ~ [J ] ‘tongue’ [==] ~ [=] ‘morning’
[K(M=] ~ [K(M] ‘flour’ 3 [J5=(BK] ~ [J5(BK] ‘odor’
[> 5=] ~ > 5] ‘two’ [CS>=> ] ~ [CS>> ] ‘bone’
Vowel nasalization is not contrastive in Mono. It occurs on vowels which follow
nasal consonants. I also observed weak nasalization on word-initial vowels preceding a
nasal or prenasalized consonant, e.g. [b@A] ~ [Ab@A] ‘3PL’.
According to my auditory impressions, nasalization is most pronounced on low
back vowels and least pronounced on low non-back vowels. It is strongest on and :
(16) []]] ‘Mono’
[] ‘be tired’
[] ‘hippopotamus’
On other vowels, nasalization occurs, but it is weaker:
(17) [KKb] ‘head’
[ ] ‘bother’
[C(A]] ‘dew’
[]] ‘1SG’
[L==]] ‘four’
This variation in the perceived strength of nasalization is likely due to the interaction of
nasal formants with vowel formants. When there is significant overlap between these, the
effect will be a greater perception of nasalization. Acoustic characteristics of vowel
nasalization will be discussed in Section 8.2.3.
Nasalization does not spread across a consonant:
(18) [@K ] ‘play’ (*[@K ]])
[]J(JH] ‘(proper name)’ (*[]JJH])
3 A more common alternant is [K(MK].
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