Hawaiian phonology

Hawaiian has one of the smallest consonant inventories (those of Rotokas or Pirahã may be smaller, depending on the analysis) and one of the smallest phoneme inventories. : and are reported to be in free variation, although reports of could be a misinterpretation of unaspirated by English speakers. There is basic free variation of and . However, since Hawaiian has no other stops besides and , any plosive that is neither labial nor glottal can function as a . Nevertheless, the main allophones noted by the missionaries in the 1820s, and by linguists, are and . There is very little testimony of intermediate sounds between and having been used in speech. Elbert & Pukui point out some instances of a allophone. Schütz conjectured that a t-dialect existed in the northwestern islands, and a k-dialect in the southeastern islands. As of the 1820s, the variant was becoming dominant on Oahu. There is some evidence for instances of free variation between and . There is also free variation between (lateral), (tap), and (approximant). Elbert & Pukui pointed out some instances of and as allophones. Schütz conjectured that is prevalent in the northwestern islands and is prevalent in the southeastern islands. There is free variation of and . conjectured that there is conditioned variation of and , but their use of "usually" makes their theory an admission of free variation. Schütz conjectured that there was neither nor , but rather "something between the two". This is most likely , a labiodental approximant (see also Schütz's (1994:113) quotes from letter of Artemas Bishop). Carter ('variety of shark'). Some loanwords have been adapted to Hawaiian's consonant system, while others have motivated changes to Hawaiian's phonology and a division in its lexicon between native, core words and peripheral, foreign ones. For example, when adapting English loanwords, every single non-labial and non-glottal occlusive in English could be mapped to Hawaiian . That said, other, less phonologically adapted loanwords show a number of consonants not native to Hawaiian phonology. Glottal stop In Hawaiian, a phonemic glottal stop historically derives from an earlier consonant. A number of words have variant pronunciations between glottal (that is, both and ) and non-glottal consonants; it is conjectured that the forms with a non-glottal consonant are older and that this phenomenon is part of a process of consonant deletion. Word-medial glottal stops may be realized as creaky voice. This can still be seen in the historical development of the dual personal pronouns. This is exhibited in the suffixes for dual and plural number, which come from lua ('two') and kolu ('three') respectively. : The of in the first and third person forms has been deleted, resulting in the modern forms māua, kāua, and lāua. The presence of the glottal stop marks the absence of a "phonetically fuller" consonant. The second person form, olua, contains a glottal stop, implying that the used to be there and still exists in place of in the intermediate forms, , , and . A Hawaiian glottal stop thus represents the maximal phonetic reduction of other consonants in centuries past. Elbert & Pukui showed instances of , and , such as mukumuku ⁓ muumuu ('cut'), and pūliki ⁓ pūiki ('embrace'). Carter (1996:373–374) showed examples of all seven of the (other) Hawaiian consonants alternating synchronically with glottal stop: : == Vowels ==

Depending on how one analyzes the inventory of Hawaiian vowel phonemes, it has either 5 or 25 phonemes. The minimum figure of 5 is reached by counting only , , , , and as phonemes. Diphthongs and long vowels are analyzed as being sequences of two vowels. For example, the written form is phonemically , and the written form is phonemically . The maximum figure of 25 is reached by counting separately the 5 short vowels, the 5 long vowels, the 9 short diphthongs, and the 6 long diphthongs. A reason given to support this analysis is that the diphthongs "act as unit phonemes in regard to stress". The example can be analyzed as a four-phoneme CVCV sequence alternating with a three-phoneme CVV sequence, where the CVV form is derived from the CVCV form through loss of the second consonant. In other words, loses the , resulting in . Kolu is a root form, while -kou is found in the plural personal pronouns (indicating three or more referents) mākou, kākou, oukou, and lākou. • Short is phonetically when stressed and when unstressed. One might argue for free variation of and for stressed short . However, according to , citing Kinney (1956) and , tape-recorded evidence indicates but not . Even so, the pronunciations and exhibited above show that there are at least some forms where is realized as . Diphthongs The following tables show Hawaiian's system of diphthongs, all of which are falling. : As with its constituent vowels, diphthongs with short and are subject to the same free variation described above. In rapid speech, and can become and respectively. : ==Phonotactics== Hawaiian syllables may contain one consonant in the onset, or there is no onset. Syllables with no onset contrast with syllables beginning with the glottal stop: ('front') contrasts with ('to dodge'). Codas and consonant clusters are prohibited in the phonotactics of Hawaiian words of Austronesian origin. However, the borrowed word Kristo is pronounced . The structure of the Hawaiian syllable can be represented as being (C)V(V), where the C represents an optional initial consonant, the first V represents a vowel which may be long or short, and the optional second V represents the second element of a valid long or short diphthong. • CV syllables. Every theoretically possible CV syllable occurs, with the single exception of wū. The syllable wu occurs only in borrowed words. There are only two such words, with wu, in the Pukui-Elbert dictionary: (or ) ('Vulgate'), and (or 'vulture'), the very last Hawaiian headwords listed in the dictionary. Elbert & Pukui have pointed out that "Certain combinations of sounds are absent or rare." For example, no content word has the form , and the form , is also not common. They also noted that monovocalic content words are always long. == Stress ==

Word stress is predictable in Hawaiian for words with three or fewer moras (that is, three or fewer vowels, with diphthongs and long vowels counting as two vowels). In such cases, stress is always on the second to last mora. Longer words will also follow this pattern, but may in addition have a second stressed syllable which is not predictable. In Hawaiian, a stressed syllable is louder in volume, longer in duration, and higher in pitch. • CVCV, VCV, with both vowels short: áhi, káhi • CVCVCV, CVVCV, VCVCV, VVCV—that is, as in (1) but preceded by a short syllable: uáhi, alóha, huáli, kakáhi • CVV, VV, with either a long vowel or diphthong: ái, wái, ā (= áa), nā (náa) • CVCVV, VCVV, CVVV, VVV—that is, same as (3) but preceded by a short syllable: uái, uhái, kuái, wawái, iā (= iáa), inā (ináa), huā (huáa), nanā (nanáa) For other Hawaiian words longer than three moras, stress is not predictable (but cf. ). However, every word can be analyzed as consisting of a sequence of these stress units: • ʻéle.makúle ('old man'), stressed as CVCV plus CVCVCV • makúa.híne ('mother'), stressed as CVCVV plus CVCV Etymology is not a reliable guide to stress. For example, the following proper names are both composed of three words, of 1, 2, and 2 moras, but their stress patterns differ: • Ka-imu-kī, pronounced kái.mukíi • Ka-ʻahu-manu, pronounced kaʻáhu.mánu ==Phonological processes== Phonological processes at work in Hawaiian include palatalization of consonants, deletion of consonants, raising and diphthongization of vowels, deletion of unstressed syllables, and compensatory lengthening of vowels. Elbert & Pukui cited Kinney (1956) regarding "natural fast speech" (vowel raising, deletion of unstressed syllables), and regarding Niihau dialect (free variation of and , deletion of consonants, allophone of , vowel raising). Kinney (1956) studied tape recordings of 13 or 14 native speakers of Hawaiian. She noted assimilatory raising of vowels in vowel sequences. For example, was very frequently pronounced , was often , and was often . She cited specific words, such as (directional adverb) as , (plural morpheme) as , and ('horse') as . The pronunciation of the island name Maui, Maui, , was , with the quality of compared to that of u in English cut. She observed deletion of unstressed syllables, such as ('God') pronounced , and ('go') pronounced . She also documented pronunciations of ('gotten') as , and ('pig') as . found that a Niihauan wrote and interchangeably, and freely varied the pronunciation of both and as or . She found ('no') pronounced , showing vowel raising of to . She documented ('staying') pronounced , showing deletion of the glottal consonants and . The vowel quality of stressed short was noted as . More recent observations suggest that and have since fallen into a largely complementary distribution in colloquial Niihau speech, with generally found in a syllable before . Thus Niihau has as opposed to or 'one'. == References ==