Positional Neutralization - Linguistics - University of California ...

Hausa short mid vowels behave differently. While these are distinguished
consistently in word-final position, there are no underlying short mid-vowels in medial
position in non-ideophonic native vocabulary. Medial short mid-vowels could in
principle be created through the process of closed syllable shortening effective in Hausa.
This outcome is in fact described by Carnochan 1988, who gives derived closed-syllable
forms with the lowered and centralized short mid vowels shown in (16):
(16) Hausa medial short mid vowels à la Carnochan 1988
a. kare [kre] ‘dog’
mace [mte] ‘woman’
goro [oro] ‘kolanut’
b. karen Audu [kraudu] ‘Audu’s dog’
macen Audu [mtaudu] ‘Audu’s woman’
goron Audu [oraudu] ‘Audu’s kolanut’
Both Schuh and Yalwa 1988 and Newman 2000, however, are in agreement that at least
for most speakers in closed syllables the contrast between short /e/, /o/ and /a/ is
neutralized. The resulting vowel is transcribed [], but in fact varies greatly in realization
depending on its environment. This is shown in (17), with forms taken from both sources:
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