Problems in Bantawa Phonology and a Statistically Driven Approach to Vowels
Date
2016
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Producer
Director
Performer
Choreographer
Costume Designer
Music
Videographer
Lighting Designer
Set Designer
Crew Member
Funder
Rehearsal Director
Concert Coordinator
Advisor
Moderator
Panelist
Alternative Title
Department
Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
Type
Thesis (B.A.)
Original Format
Running Time
File Format
Place of Publication
Date Span
Copyright Date
Award
Language
en_US
Note
Table of Contents
Terms of Use
Full copyright to this work is retained by the student author. It may only be used for non-commercial, research, and educational purposes. All other uses are restricted.
Rights Holder
Access Restrictions
Terms of Use
Tripod URL
Identifier
Abstract
This thesis examines several aspects of the phonology of Bantawa, an endangered
and fairly understudied Tibeto-Burman language of N epa!. I provide a brief review
of the major literature on Bantawa to date and discuss two particular phonological
controversies: one concerning the presence of retroflex consonants, and one
concerning the vowel inventory, specifically whether there are six or seven vowel
phonemes. I draw on data I recorded from a native speaker to address each of these
issues. With regard to the latter, I also provide an in-depth acoustic analysis of my
consultant's 477 vowels and consider several types of statistical models to help
address the issue of the number of vowel contrasts. My main conclusions, based on
the data from my consultant, are first, that there is evidence based on minimal pairs
for a contrast between retroflex and alveolar stops, and second, that there is no
clear evidence for a seven-vowel system in Bantawa. With regard to the latter point,
additional avenues of research would still be needed to explore the possibility of
allophonic variation and/or individual speaker differences.