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Article published In:
Variation in the Pacific: Part I
Edited by Eri Kashima and Miriam Meyerhoff
[Asia-Pacific Language Variation 6:2] 2020
► pp. 196–221

Onset glottal stop deletion in Suva Rotuman

| University of the South Pacific

This paper studies onset glottal stop deletion in the speech of Suva Rotumans, Fiji. The speech of 18 speakers was analysed and seven factors were tested to identify their prediction on glottal stop deletion. The linguistic factors tested were preceding sound segment, grammatical class, syllable stress, and style, while the social factors were age, gender, and denominational affiliation. Results reveal a change in progress, but towards glottal stop retention. Younger Rotumans and older Rotuman women are deleting glottal stops less compared to middle-aged women and older men. The low incidence of deletion by younger speakers is most probably due to identity, language education in Rotuman, and their increased awareness of their role in preserving the language. Additionally, older women are deleting glottal stops less, which could be attributed to contact, identity, and their consciousness of the standard.

Keywords: Oceanic, glottal stop, deletion, language change, language maintenance
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background on Rotuman society
  • 3.Rotuman
  • 4.The glottal stop
    • 4.1Glottal stop as a phoneme and grapheme
    • 4.2Glottal stop and sound change
  • 5.Methodology
    • 5.1Speech sample and data collection
    • 5.2Interviews
    • 5.3The variable and coding
    • 5.4Linguistic factors
      • 5.4.1Preceding sound segment
      • 5.4.2Grammatical class
      • 5.4.3Syllable stress
    • 5.5Social factors
      • 5.5.1Age and gender
      • 5.5.2Denominational affiliation
      • 5.5.3Style
  • 6.Results
  • 7.Discussion
    • 7.1Resyllabification and dissimilation
    • 7.2Effects of lack of stress and function words
    • 7.3Rotuman women and the standard
    • 7.4Change in progress towards retention
    • 7.5Further questions on denominational variation
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 December 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.19016.fim
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