Vowels and Tones in Sarcee

Abstract

A taxonomic phonemic analysis of Sarcee, an Athapaskan language of Canada, has recognized two length phonemes which may co-occur with any of four vowelsa, i, u, and o. The phonemic inventory has also included six inflected tones besides three level tones. The present generative analysis recognizes only one underlying vowel length and three level tones as distinctive. Tones are further classified into three functional categories: lexical, paradigmatic, and syntagmatic. The syntagmatic tone, which is parallel to the terrace-level tone of Bantu languages, can be predicted by some general rules. The generative account of this tone, however, presents a case which contradicts an empirical assumption. Also noted is the step-up feature of Sarcee which is comparable to the step-down feature of Xhosa and other Bantu languages.*