Last Updated: 2020-06-26
COMPROMISED: conflation among /e/, /ɘ/, and /ɯ/
Background
Language Family: Austronesian / Malayo-Polynesian / Western Malayo-Polynesian / Sundic / Sumatra / Batak / Northern
- Batak Karo is spoken in the Aceh and North Sumatra provinces of Indonesia.
Phonology
Consonants
- Woollams (1996) argues for /t̪/ rather than /t/ (p. 15).
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Place of Articulation
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Manner of Articulation
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Labial
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Alveolar
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Alveopalatal
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Palatal
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Velar
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Glottal
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Stops
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p b
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t d
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k ɡ
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Affricates
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tɕ dʑ
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Fricatives
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s
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h
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Nasals
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m
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n
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ŋ
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Trill
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r
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Approximants
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w
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l
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j
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Note: For phonemes that share a cell, those on the left are voiceless and those on the right are voiced.
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Vowels
- Woollams (1996) specifies a high central vowel /ɨ/, but represents it as the high back unrounded vowel /ɯ/ (pp. 18-19). In his 2004 book, he also specifies it as back rather than central (Woollams 2004, 536). I have chosen to use /ɯ/, as it is more consistent with the literature.
- Woollams (1996) also specifies /ə/ as a phoneme (pp. 19, 22). Schwa, however, doesn’t seem to be appropriate in this case as it doesn’t represent a truly reduced vowel (i.e. it sometimes appears in stressed syllables). I have chosen to use /ɘ/ instead.
- Adjacent vowels are interpreted as sequences rather than complex nuclei (Woollams 1996, 27).
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Front
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Central
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Back
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High
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i
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ɯ u
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Mid
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e
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ɘ
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o
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Low
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a
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Note: The high back vowel on the left is unrounded and the one on the right is rounded.
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Alphabet
- Although Woollams (2004) specifies one-to-one correspondences between the graphemes ⟨é⟩, ⟨e⟩, and ⟨ë⟩ and the respective phonemes /e/, /ɘ/, and /ɯ/ (p. 536), he also states that all three phonemes are represented by ⟨e⟩ (Woollams 1996, 23). Therefore, the language is compromised.
- Although the Crúbadán corpus does not include the graphemes ⟨é⟩ and ⟨ë⟩, I have included rules for them in the rule set. I have decided to transcribe ⟨e⟩ to /ɘ/ as the default rule, given that /ɘ/ seems to be the most frequently occurring phoneme of the three (based on the phonemic representations in Woollams 1996).
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Grapheme
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Phoneme
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Comment
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a
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/a/
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b
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/b/
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c
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/tɕ/
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d
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/d/
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e
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/e/; /ɯ/; /ɘ/
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/ɘ/: default in the rules
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g
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/ɡ/
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h
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/h/
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i
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/i/
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j
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/dʑ/
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k
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/k/
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l
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/l/
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m
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/m/
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n
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/n/
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o
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/o/
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p
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/p/
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r
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/r/
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s
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/s/
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t
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/t/
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u
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/u/
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w
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/w/
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y
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/j/
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Digraph
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ng
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/ŋ/
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Lenition Rules
- /h/ is normally elided word-initially (Woollams 1996, 30).
- /k/ is realized as voiceless glottal stop word-finally and preceding consonants (Woollams 1996, 16).
Misc. Rules
- Vowels are often elided in fast speech (Woollams 1996, 30).
- Voiceless stops tend to be unreleased word-finally (Woollams 1996, 16).
- /h/ is sometimes realized as /x/ syllable-finally (Woollams 2004, 536).
- Syllable-initially, /r/ may be realized as a flap (ibid.).
- Consonant gemination occurs with voiceless stops (including /tɕ/), nasals, /s/ and /r/ (Woollams 1996, 26).
- [j] and [w] epenthesis may occur intervocalically (Woollams 1996, 29).
References
Woollams, Geoff. 1996. A Grammar of Karo Batak, Sumatra. Pacific Linguistics.
———. 2004. “The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar.” In, edited by Alexander Adelaar and Nikolaus P. Himmelmann, 534–61. Taylor & Francis Ltd.