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literature, I would argue that there must be more than four phonemes and more than
twelve surface vowels. Consider the following minimal pair:
(1) mat [m ƒ åt ƒ ] 'be full' (after eating)
maat [m ƒ ååt ƒ ] 'all gone'
In this example, a difference in vowel length – short as in mat and long as in maat –
results in a difference in the meaning of the word. Since the vowels of both words are
surrounded by the same consonants, vowel length cannot be determined by the
surrounding consonants. Therefore, it seems that long and short vowels are separate
phonemes and that long vowels should be added to the phoneme inventory.
As this issue has never been investigated, I am unsure if all Marshallese short
vowels have corresponding long vowels. Therefore, I will not include them in Table 4,
which lists Marshallese surface vowel forms. As long vowels are written with two vowels
(i.e. a represents [å] and aa, [å:]), this issue is not essential to any discussion that follows
and will therefore be set aside for now.
Table 4. Marshallese vowels
(adapted from Choi 1992 and Hale 2000)
[-back, -round] [+back, -round] [+back, +round]
i µ u
I F U
e √ o
E å ç
When a vowel appears between consonants having different secondary places of
articulation, the vowel consists of a smooth transition from one target to another (Bender
1968, Choi 1992, Hale 2000). There are, therefore, twenty-four Marshallese diphthongs,
six at each specification of height and ATR.
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