Madija noun morphology

2. Phonemic inventory and syllable structure. Madija has the con-
sonant inventory shown in (1). There are three series of oral noncon-
tinuants — voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, and voiced. The
three series include bilabial stops, dental stops, dental affricates, and
velar stops. There is no voiced velar stop. There are two nasal stops,
bilabial and dental. The only fricative is the laryngeal fricative. The only
liquid varies between a lateral and nonlateral flap, as described below. 2

(i)

p

t

i

k

P h

t h

4 h

k h

b

d

3

m n
r

There are four vowels in Madija: /, e, a, and o. The vowel e is
generally an open mid front vowel, and o sometimes fluctuates to [u].
The vowel o may be linked to an onset position in the syllable, where we
transcribe it as w. In this position it is pronounced as [w] if it precedes a
back vowel (never o), as in awa [awa] 'tree', and [/?] if it precedes a front
vowel, as in awi [afii] 'tapir'.

The examples in (2)-(3) establish the contrasts claimed above.

(2) p

apa 'eat'

poni 'she, her'

P h

wap h a 'monkey (sp.)'

p h oro 'swat'

b

aba 'fish'

bobo 'owl(sp.)'

t

ehete 'fiesta'

tatarade 'mouse (sp.)'

t h

et h e 'dog'

t h at h a 'plant (sp.)'

d

ede 'tree trunk'

dahoni 'canoe'

*

Wipe 'gnat'

$oda 'flea'

i h

4 h i} h ite 'arrow' ,

<f h omi 'worm, parasites'

3

hiji 'honey, bee'

jipa 'clay pot'

k

akomi 'piranha'

karo 'rubber'

k h

ak h ara 'full'

k h ara 'hard, strong'

h

tehe 'egret'

hata 'daughter'

2 There are two minor facts regarding the distribution of these sounds which we should
mention. First, the r is not commonly found word-initially. Second, the unaspirated
voiceless affricate is considerably rarer than either the aspirated or the voiced one.

104 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMERICAN LINGUISTICS

m amani 'her blood 1

mahi 'sun'

n eneni 'her nose'

nami 'earth'

r ero 'cockroach'

robo 'iguana'

(3) a acta 'decorative wristband'

hija 'strange'

e ede 'tree trunk'

hijee 'joke'

/ idi 'grandfather'

hiji 'honey, bee'

o odi 'hole'

hijora 'wide'

The flap is generally lateral when it is both preceded and followed by the

vowel /, and not lateral elsewhere.

(4) po[r]e 'pierced'

o[r]i 'paddle'

o[r]a 'tree (sp.)'

je[r]o 'grass'

e[r]ibo 'our ears'

hi[r]ee 'be without'

hi[l]i 'sing'

Madija has a very simple syllable structure. In fact, we claim that
every syllable in Madija is of the unmarked syllable type CV post-
lexically, and we posit a very simple association of phonemes to the
skeleton. 3 We allow for the linking of o to an onset (C) position,
however, and the possibility of a C position being left unassociated.

There are only two restrictions of any significance. The first is that i is
not linked to a C position in any lexical representation, although it may
be linked to C postlexically. There are no instances of [y] that are not
preceded by [/]. The second restriction is that o cannot be linked to two
positions inside a single syllable. There is no syllable wo at any level of
representation.

As illustrated below, Madija allows the left-to-right association of the
vowels i and o to an empty C position postlexically. In many other cases
the C position is filled by a glottal stop. This occurs whenever the vowels
are identical (as in poo [po ? o] 'manioc'), at the beginning of an utter-
ance (as in oni [ ? oni] 'name'), and between certain vowels (such as ai),
especially (but not exclusively) when the second vowel is suffixal (as in
ka-i [ka ? i] 'it is cooked', which contrasts with kaikai [kaikai] 'parrot').
Elsewhere the C position is simply not filled, resulting in what is phoneti-
cally a syllable without an onset. The lexical and phonetic representa-
tions of several words are given in (5).

3 On the lexical/ postlexical distinction, see Kiparsky (1982; 1985) and Mohanan (1986).

MADIJA NOUN MORPHOLOGY 105

(5a)

Lexical

Phonetic

onii

o n /

?

o n i ? i

[?onPi]

1 1 A

1

Mil!

'other (fern.)'

V C V V

c

V C V C V

(5 b) oaa

o a

?

o a ? a

[ ?owa 9 a\

1 A

1

KIM

'other (masc.)'

V V V

c

V C V c V

(5c) tia

t i a

t

/ a

[tiya]

1 1 1

1

K 1

'you'

C V V

c

V C V

(5d) kao

kao

k

a o

[kao]

1 1 1

1

1 1

'prick'

C V V

c

V C V

(5e) k h ai

k h a i

k h

a i

[k h ai]

1 1 1

1

1 1

'crack'

C V V

c

V C V

There is some variation in these postlexical processes of glottal inser-
tion and spreading, with the result that some words have three possible
pronunciations, as shown in:

(6) roi [roi], [ro ? i], [ro/?/], 'wood borer'

Liclan, Patsy Adams and Stephen A. Marlett. 1990. "Madija noun morphology."
International Journal of American Linguistics 56: 102-20.