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Article published In:
Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area
Vol. 43:2 (2020) ► pp.226–255

How many vowels are there in Lhasa Tibetan?

| SOAS University of London

Lhasa Tibetan is described in a number of independent research traditions which give different accounts of its phonology. To what extent do these discrepancies reflect real dialectal or idiolectal differences? To what extent do they reflect different analyses of the same system?

In this paper, we examine one aspect of Lhasa Tibetan phonology on which different descriptions show substantial discrepancies: vowels. Different descriptions of Lhasa Tibetan transcribe from 8 to more than 16 vowel qualities, ascribing to them different degrees of phonemicity. A detailed comparison of the transcription systems shows that all reflect the same underlying system of 12 vowel sounds, which agrees with the transcription conventions of the Seattle Tibetanists. The discrepancies among the systems mostly concern four vowels, namely ɔ, ə, ɪ and ʊ. These vowels, which started as allophonic variants of other vowels, later appear in a set of words which cannot be explained as allophony, and hence are unambiguous phonemes in contemporary Lhasa Tibetan.

Keywords: Lhasa Tibetan, phonemicity, transcription convention, vowels
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Overview of vowel correspondence among the sources
  • 3.Features of the Lhasa Tibetan vowel system
    • 3.1Length and nasality
    • 3.2Vowel harmony
      • 3.2.1Vowels
      • 3.2.2General tendencies of vowel harmony
      • 3.2.3Non-harmonic disyllables
      • 3.2.4Conclusion
  • 4.The vowel ɔ
    • 4.1Reality
    • 4.2General pattern of distribution
    • 4.3Phonemic distinction between ɔ and o
      • 4.3.1Nasalised long vowel ɔ̃ɔ̃
      • 4.3.2Short ɔ in numerals
      • 4.3.3  ̄ poo ‘grandfather’ and  ̄ moo ‘grandmother’
    • 4.4Conclusion
  • 5.The vowel ə
    • 5.1Reality and general pattern of distribution
    • 5.2Phonemic distinction between ə and a
      • 5.2.1Contrast between -əp and -ap in disyllabic words
      • 5.2.2̱ kəm ~̱ khəm <gang.bu> ‘pea pod, peas in a pod’
      • 5.2.3Conclusion
  • 6.The vowels ɪ, ʊ
    • 6.1Reality
    • 6.2Phonemic distinctiveness of ɪ and ʊ
      • 6.2.1Vowels ɪ and ʊ of morphological origin
      • 6.2.2-ʊʊ̀ from Old Tibetan <-ab(s)>
      • 6.2.3-ʊʊ from Old Tibetan <-i.ba> and <u.ba>
      • 6.2.4-ʊʊ and -ɪɪ from reanalysis
  • 7.Conclusion: The changs are right
    • 7.1Lhasa Tibetan, central Tibetan, ‘Standard Tibetan’
    • 7.2Phonological rules no longer phonological
    • 7.3An essay in “a philology of descriptions”
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 January 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ltba.19004.gon
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