Draft:Blackfoot Phonology

• Comment: Most of this is already covered in the main article. S0091 (talk) 17:14, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

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Blackfoot Phonology is the system of sounds used in the pronunciation of the Blackfoot language. There is no overall consensus on the number of contrastive sounds (phonemes), but common approaches recognize at least 19 distinct Consonants and 3 or more distinct Vowels. Length is contrastive in Blackfoot for both vowels and consonants. Vowel length refers to the duration of a vowel and not a change in quality. In some dialects, sounds in words, change sometimes depends on the Dialect of an Blackfoot-Speaking Nations.

like Other Algic languages Blackfoot is an Polysynthetic Language due to its large morpheme inventory and word internal complexity. A majority of Blackfoot morphemes have a one–to–one correspondence between form and meaning, a defining feature of agglutinative languages. However, Blackfoot does display some fusional characteristics as there are morphemes that are polysemous. Both noun and verb stems cannot be used bare but must be inflected. Due to its morphological complexity, Blackfoot has a flexible word order.

Phonology

Consonants

Blackfoot has nineteen consonants, of which all but /ʔ/, /x/, /j/ and /w/ form pairs distinguished by length. One of the two affricates /k͡s/ is unusual for being heterorganic.

	Labial		Coronal		Dorsal		Glottal
Nasal	m ⟨m⟩	mː ⟨mm⟩	n ⟨n⟩	nː ⟨nn⟩
Plosive	p ⟨p⟩	pː ⟨pp⟩	t ⟨t⟩	tː ⟨tt⟩	k ⟨k⟩	kː ⟨kk⟩	ʔ ⟨'⟩
Affricate			t͡s ⟨ts⟩	t͡sː ⟨tss⟩	k͡s ⟨ks⟩	k͡sː ⟨kss⟩
Fricative			s ⟨s⟩	sː ⟨ss⟩	x ⟨h⟩		(h) ⟨h⟩
Approximant	w ⟨w⟩				j ⟨y⟩

Vowels

Monophthongs

Blackfoot has a vowel system with three monophthongs, /i o a/.

	Front		Central		Back
High	i ⟨i⟩	iː ⟨ii⟩			o ⟨o⟩	oː ⟨oo⟩
Low			a ⟨a⟩	aː ⟨aa⟩

The short monophthongs exhibit allophonic changes as well. The vowels /a/ and /o/ are raised to [ʌ] and [ʊ] respectively when followed by a long consonant. The vowel /i/ becomes [ɪ] in closed syllables.

Diphthongs

There are three additional diphthongs in Blackfoot. The first diphthong ai is pronounced [ɛ] before a long consonant, [ei] (or [ai], in the dialect of the Blackfoot Reserve) before /i/ or /ʔ/, and elsewhere is pronounced [æ] in the Blood Reserve dialect or [ei] in the Blackfoot Reserve dialect. The second diphthong ao is pronounced [au] before /ʔ/ and [ɔ] elsewhere. The third diphthong oi may be pronounced [y] before a long consonant and as [oi] elsewhere.

Length

Length is contrastive in Blackfoot for both vowels and consonants. Vowel length refers to the duration of a vowel and not a change in quality. The vowel /oo/ is therefore the same sound as /o/ only differing in the length of time over which it is produced.

áakokaawa / ᖳᖾᖿᖷ			'he will rope'
áakookaawa / ᖳᖾᖿᖷ			'she will sponsor a Sundance'

Consonants can also be lengthened with the exception of /ʔ/, /x/, /j/ and /w/.

kiipíppo / ᖽᑯᑲ			'one hundred'
nínna / ᖹᖻ			'my father'
sokáʼpssiwa / ᓴᖿᑯᐧᖷ			'he is good'

Pitch accent

Blackfoot is a pitch accent language and it is a contrastive feature in the language. Every word will have at least one high pitched vowel or diphthong but may have more than one. Note that high pitch here is used relative to the contiguous syllables. Blackfoot utterances experience a gradual drop in pitch therefore if an utterance contains a set of accented vowels the first will be higher in pitch than the second but the second will be higher in pitch than the syllables directly surrounding it. Pitch is illustrated in the Latin-based orthography with an acute accent.

ápssiwa			'it's an arrow'
apssíwa			'it's a fig'
máátaissikópiiwa			's/he's not resting'

Phonological rules

Blackfoot is rich with morpho-phonological changes. Below is a limited sample of phonological rules.

Semi-vowel loss

Glides are deleted after another consonant, except a glottal stop, or word initially but kept in other conditions.

	/w/ loss
poos-wa cat-AN.SG poos-wa cat-AN.SG	→	póósa / ᑲᓭ póósa / ᑲᓭ 'cat'
	/j/ loss
óóhkotok-yi stone-INAN.SG óóhkotok-yi stone-INAN.SG	→	óóhkotoki / ᖲᑊᖾᒪᖽ óóhkotoki / ᖲᑊᖾᒪᖽ 'stone'
	word-initial
w-ókoʼsi 3.SG.POSS-child w-ókoʼsi 3.SG.POSS-child	→	ókoʼsi / ᖲᖾᓱ ókoʼsi / ᖲᖾᓱ 'his/her child'

Accent spread

Accent will spread from an accented vowel to the following vowel across morpheme boundaries.

á-okskaʼsiwa	→	áókskaʼsiwa			's/he runs'
atsikí-istsi	→	atsikíístsi			'shoes'

Vowel devoicing

At the end of a word, non-high pitched vowels are devoiced, regardless of length.

Sources

• Frantz, Donald G. (1999). "The Sounds of Blackfoot". Lethbridge, Alberta, University of Lethbridge. Archived from the original on 2007-05-23. Retrieved 2007-04-11.

Further reading

• Frantz, Donald G.; Russell, Norma (2017). Blackfoot dictionary of stems, roots, and affixes (3rd ed.). Toronto ; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-4875-0084-9. OCLC 966404605.