* Both Krauss and Cook describe the dental and alveolar as being essentially identical in articulation, postdental, with the only differentiating factor being their different behaviours in the vowel flattening processes.
*Gafos describes the dental series as apico-laminal denti-alveolar and the alveolar series as lamino-postalveolar.
Vowels
Chilcotin has 6 vowels:
Chilcotin has both tense and lax vowel phonemes. Additionally, tense vowels may become lax from vowel laxing.
Every given Chilcotin vowel has a number of different phonetic realizations from complex phonological processes. For instance, the vowel can be variously pronounced.
Vowel nasalization is a phonological process by which the phoneme is nasalizes the preceding vowel. It occurs when the vowel + sequence is followed by a continuant consonant. Vowel laxing is a process by which tense vowels become lax when followed by a syllable-final : the tense and lax distinction is neutralized.
/ʔɛstɬʼuh/
→
'I'm knitting'
/sɛjæh/
→
'my throat'
Vowel flattening
Chilcotin has a type of retracted tongue root harmony. Generally, "flat" consonants lower vowels in both directions. Assimilation is both progressive and regressive. Chilcotin consonants can be grouped into three categories: neutral, sharp, and flat.
Flat consonants trigger vowel flattening.
Sharp consonants block vowel flattening.
Neutral consonants do not affect vowel flattening in any way.
The flat consonants can be further divided into two types:
a '-series, and
a '-series.
The '-series is stronger than the '-series by affecting vowels farther away. This table shows both unaffected vowels and flattened vowels:
unaffected vowel
flattened vowel
i
ᵊi or e
ɪ
ᵊɪ
u
o
ʊ
ɔ
ɛ
ə
æ
a
The vowel surfaces as if after a flatconsonant and as before a flat consonant:
/sˤit/
→
'kinɡfisher'
/nisˤtsˤun/
→
'owl'
The progressive and regressive flattening processes are described below.
Progressive flattening
In the progressive flattening, the '-series consonants affect only the immediately following vowel:
/ʁitʰi/
→
'I slept'
/qʰænɪç/
→
'spoon'
Like the '-series, the stronger '-series consonants affects the immediately following vowel. However, it affects the vowel in the following syllable as well if the first flattened vowel is a lax vowel. If the first flattened is tense, the vowel of the following syllable is not flattened.
/sˤɛɬ.tʰin/
→
'he's comatose'
/sˤi.tʰin/
→
'I'm sleeping'
Thus, the neutral consonants aretransparen in the flattening process. In the first word 'he's comatose', flattens the of the first syllable to and the of the second syllable to. In the word 'I'm sleeping', flattens to. Since, however, the vowel of the first syllable is, which is a tense vowel, the cannot flatten the of the second syllable. The sharp consonants, however, block the progressive flattening caused by the '-series:
/tizˤ.kʼɛn/
→
'it's burning'
/sˤɛ.kɛn/
→
'it's dry'
Regressive flattening
In regressive harmony, the '-series flattens the preceding vowel.
/ʔælæχ/
→
'I made it'
/junɛqʰæt/
→
'he's slappinɡ him'
The regressive harmony of the '-series, however, is much stronger than the progressive harmony. The consonants flatten all preceding vowels in a word:
/kunizˤ/
→
'it is lonɡ'
/kʷɛtɛkuljúzˤ/
→
'he is rich'
/nækʷɛnitsˤɛ́sˤ/
→
'fire's gone out'
Both progressive and regressive flattening processes occur in Chilcotin words:
