A guide to small consonant inventories

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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by gach »

Nortaneous wrote:Are Taoripi and Toaripi different languages?
They actually seem to be. I searched for "Taoripi" as it's listed in your list and found the same consonant inventory that has [m ~ v] as /m/ and lacks /n/ altogether. Both the UPSID entry and the SIL phonology sheet use the same original source so there seems to have been some error at some point.

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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by Salmoneus »

cromulandt wrote:Hurrian: /p t k ts) f s x m n l j w/.
Presumably, this must be taken with a great deal of salt. Hurrian samples are a) relatively few and b) only written, and written in a syllabary not designed for the language. There may well be distinctions not recorded in the script, or recorded in an unclear way (eg by geminated letters). Indeed, we only guess there was /f/ because different scribes couldn't agree whether to spell some words with <p> or with <w>.
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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by Whimemsz »

Good thread!

A few more can be added:

Cayuga has 11: /t ʦ k kʷ ʔ s h n r j w/
"Common Cree" has 12: /p t ʧ k s ʃ h m n "r" j w/ -- where in various dialects "r" is realized as any of [r], [l], [j], [n], and [ð], and where some dialects have merged /s/ and /ʃ/ and so may have as few as 10 -- e.g. Naskapi has 10: /p t ʧ k s h m n j w/.
Cheyenne has 10: /p t k ʔ s ʃ h m n v/.
Menominee has 11: /p t ʧ k ʔ s h m n j w/.



For Mohawk I think you should treat the affricate(s) as part of the same voicing class as the other obstruents, and also note that [l] and [r] are dialectal variants of the same single phoneme, so really it should be 10 consonants except that some people treat /kʷ/ as phonemic so I'd say go with these 11: /t ʦ k kʷ ʔ s h n r j w/.

Another analysis of Tuscarora gives it 12 consonants, counting /kʷ/ as a separate phoneme. Cherokee would also have 12 consonants under a similar analysis, with the addition of /kʷ/. The same analysis of Onondaga and Seneca gives both the following 10 consonants: /t ʦ k kʷ ʔ s h n j w/.

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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by WeepingElf »

cromulandt wrote:Hurrian: /p t k ts) f s x m n l j w/.
There are some scholars who assume that this is just an artifact of a massively underspecifying writing system, and the language was really more like a Northeast Caucasian language.
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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by cromulant »

You can't underspecify much more massively than reducing a NEC inventory to Polynesian size. Consider that one recanted.

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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by Tropylium »

Very interesting survey here.
Nortaneous wrote:By 'small' I mean 12 or fewer consonants, which isn't completely arbitrary since the smallest consonant inventory in Europe (Finnish) has 13, if you ignore the glottal stop and all the loan phonemes.
Dialects can also lack /d/ and /ŋ/ though, getting the count as low as 11.

I'll also add Ket, which has (at a deep-ish morphophonological level) 12 consonants /b d t k q m n ŋ s ç h ɮ/, and provides our first example of a uvular consonant, a lateral fricative, or a palatal fricative.
Yaali Annar wrote:In case anyone wondered about the frequency of each phonemes listed
Raw counts are not gonna be particularly useful though, since the data is not independent. E.g. everything Polynesian having /p/ but no /b/, or everything Iroquioan not having /p/ don't quite count as 10 independent data points each. Trimming 'em down to a single average, though, also doesn't seem fair…
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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by WeepingElf »

cromulandt wrote:You can't underspecify much more massively than reducing a NEC inventory to Polynesian size. Consider that one recanted.
As I said, some scholars assume such a massive underspecification; others disagree, pointing out how unlikely it is that a language with 40+ consonant phonemes appears to have only 12 just due to limitations of the script.

Yet, for a language which is often suspected to be related to NEC, the smallness of the (apparent) inventory is remarkable.
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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by Whimemsz »

Oh, also, for Cubeo, change /x/ to /h/ and add /ð/ as a phoneme (apparently it's very marginal, normally appearing as an allophone of /j/, but there are a handful of examples of contrast).

Also. You can add Mi'kmaq, which has 13 phonemes: /p t ʧ k kʷ s x xʷ m n l j w/; Miami-Illinois which has 11: /p t ʧ k s ʃ h m n j w/; Shawnee which has 11: /p t ʧ k ʔ θ ʃ m n j w/; Iñapari which has 10: /p t ʔ s h m n r j w/; Ikpeng which has 12: /p t ʧ k g m n ŋ l r j w/; Arikapú which has 10: /p t ʧ k h m n r j w/; and Djeoromitxí which has 12: /p t ʧ ʤ k h m n r w/ plus /ps bz/.

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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by Radius Solis »

Tropylium wrote:
Yaali Annar wrote:In case anyone wondered about the frequency of each phonemes listed
Raw counts are not gonna be particularly useful though, since the data is not independent. E.g. everything Polynesian having /p/ but no /b/, or everything Iroquioan not having /p/ don't quite count as 10 independent data points each. Trimming 'em down to a single average, though, also doesn't seem fair…
I disagree about the data independence - obviously they aren't independent, but I think it doesn't matter too much, for two reasons. First is that data independence is a larger concern with smaller samples and a smaller concern with larger samples, whereas here we are attempting a sample size of 100% to the extent data is available. And second, given the first, it is also important that the fact that having a minimalist phonology and thus appearing on the list is also not independent. You would generally expect the relatedness of the data to be roughly comparable to the relatedness of languages' having a minimalist phonology. So your objection is substantially mooted (but not completely, I agree).

So, that out of the way, there are definitely some interesting facts that are made more plain by Yaali's list. For instance:

- The general rule that /p/ is the weakest of the plain stops and /g/ the weakest of the voiced stops is clearly confirmed to remain the case in minimal phonologies.

- The general rule that voicing distinctions are easier to maintain toward the front of the mouth and harder toward the back is also confirmed to remain the case.

- Despite Rotokas, at most around a third of minimalist phonologies have systematically contrastive voicing (and looking at Nort's data, less). I do not know the figure for languages in general but I would expect it to be higher than a third.

- Many second-tier consonants (in terms of common-ness) like /f/ and /ŋ/ and /ʧ/ are surprisingly well represented in minimalist languages.

- The glottal stop in particular appears in minimalist languages with much higher frequency than I would expect for languages overall.

- Phonemic /m/ and /n/, because they are nearly universal otherwise, are absent in a surprisingly high proportion of minimalist languages.

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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by Nortaneous »

Whimemsz wrote:Ikpeng which has 12: /p t ʧ k g m n ŋ l r j w/
/g/ as the only voiced stop? How does that work?
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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by ---- »

Maybe a situation like Inuktitut, which only has /g ɢ/ for voiced stops? *b and *d apparently lenited since it has /v/ and /l/. Speaking of Inuktitut, a couple dialects of it are sooo close to fitting the phoneme number requirement. Inuinnaqtun apparently has /p t k q h v l j g ɢ m n ŋ/, which is 13.
Last edited by ---- on Thu Dec 12, 2013 9:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by Whimemsz »

Apparently it's mostly from older intervocalic *k, but in a few words there's still intervocalic [k] from older clusters (e.g. *akuri > *akri > aki, "agouti") so the distinction is now phonemic! Meanwhile older intervocalic *p and *t changed to -w- and -r- so it's part of a broader process. (My info comes from "The Southern Cariban Languages and the Cariban Family" (IJAL 71), by Sergio Meira and Bruna Franchetto.)

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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by Nortaneous »

Oh, so it's like Rotokas, where /b/ fricates and /d/ flaps but AFAIK /g/ doesn't do anything.
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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by dhok »

Theta wrote:Maybe a situation like Inuktitut, which only has /g ɢ/ for voiced stops? *b and *d apparently lenited since it has /v/ and /l/. Speaking of Inuktitut, a couple dialects of it are sooo close to fitting the phoneme number requirement. Inuinnaqtun apparently has /p t k q h v l j g ɢ m n ŋ/, which is 13.
Possibly...I used to speak a bit of Inuinnaqtun, and it has a cluster /bl/ that is cognate to some Inuktitut /ll/. You could probably analyze as an allophone of /p/ before /l/, except that in Inuit languages clusters must be of one sort of consonant (stop plus stop, nasal plus nasal; /pl/ doesn't work). I don't know if Inuinnaqtun distinguishes /bl/ and /vl/, though.

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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by ---- »

Weell, I'm just going off of what Wikipedia says (see "apparently"), I really don't know what I'm talking about for sure. I've only studied the Baffin island dialect in detail, specifically what is spoken around Iqaluit.

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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by Whimemsz »

Woo this is fun, looking for this stuff.

ANYWAY some more.

Karitiâna has 11: /p t k s h m n ɲ ŋ r w/. (Although based on the description I would argue for analyzing "/ɲ/" as /j/ since that's one of its realizations and it doesn't pattern with the other nasals.)

Tiriyó has 10: /p t k s h m n r j w/.

Warao has 11: /p t k kʷ s h m n r j w/.

Arabela has 11: /p t k s ʃ h m n r j w/.

Barí has 10: /b t d k s h m r ɾ j/.

Barasana-Eduria has 11: /p b t d c ɟ k g h r w/. (It's not clear what exactly the source's "c" and "j" represent, just that they're some sort of post-alveolar/palatal stops/affricates.)

Southern Barasano has 10: /b t d k g s h r j w/.

Tuyuca has 11: /p b t d k g s h r j w/.


I'm sure there's more but I'm done looking for today.

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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by ---- »

Oh, found another. Central Miyako has /m n p t k ɾ f s ʋ/, which is 9 consonants. Also notable for allowing fricatives, nasals, and /ʋ/ to be syllable nuclei, as well as allowing initial geminates, and overlong consonants can also appear.

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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

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Theta wrote:Oh, found another. Central Miyako has /m n p t k ɾ f s ʋ/, which is 9 consonants. Also notable for allowing fricatives, nasals, and /ʋ/ to be syllable nuclei, as well as allowing initial geminates, and overlong consonants can also appear.
Just looked it up. Wow. Doesn't look at all Asian (or even human)... Chomsky would have a field day
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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by dhok »

Proto-Macro-Chibchan is reconstructed with a nasal-less inventory of /b t d k ʔ ts s h l ɾ w/, eleven consonants.

Proto-Oto-Manguean is reconstructed with just eight: /t k kʷ ʔ s n w j/, but there's a note that another linguist thinks it had /θ ts x xʷ l r m/ too.

Proto-Mixo-Zoquean is reconstructed with eleven consonants, /p t ts k ʔ s h m n w j/.

Siwai also has eleven, with /p t k m n ŋ s h r w j/.

Kwomtari has /p b t k g m n ɸ~β s r ɭ~ɖ/.

Insofar as there seems to be a rule here, it seems to be: of the four most common groupings of consonants (plosives, nasals, fricatives and liquids), either have all four, or add a second plosive series and blur the boundaries between that and either the nasals or the liquids. Also, plosives usually seem to be the most numerous grouping, the fricatives are often impoverished, and the glides seem to be /w j/ before anything else.

Edit: and Jamamadi is reported to have /b t ɟ~j k m n ɸ s h̃ r w/, with /h/ always being nasalized.

Irantxe is reported to have /p t k ʔ m n s h w l~r j/.

Coming in at twelve consonants is Huaorani, which has /p t k b d~ɾ ɟ~j g m n ɲ ŋ w/. It is also reported to have a vowel system of /i e æ a ɵ~o~ɤ/.

Also with twelve is Karajá, with /b d tʃ dʒ k ɗ θ ʃ h l w ɾ/. That's just the inventory for Karajá women- men drop /k/.

Puinave has /p t k m n s h/, with [w j] occuring as allophones of /i u/.

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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by KathTheDragon »

Is it possible to do an analysis of these along the lines of 'If a language has X, it also/normally/sometimes has Y'?

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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by gach »

I'd shy away from including reconstructed proto languages. You can never be quite certain how far from the actual reality the best reconstructions are.

Some more inventories I gathered: Fas with /p t k ʔ m n β f s r w j/ (12 in total), Namia with /p t k m n ɾ l w j/ (9 in total), Ese (Managalasi) with /p t k ʔ tɕ dʑ m n β s h ɾ/ (12 in total), Mussau-Emira with /p t k m n ŋ β s ɣ r l/ (11 in total), Lote with /p t k m n ŋ s x h r l/ (11 in total) and Wuvulu with /p b t ʔ m n f h r l w j/ (12 in total).

I was also checking for Koiari and couldn't find a dental fricative or approximant mentioned anywhere. For Mountain Koiari I can find this (/b t d k g m n ɸ~β ʂ~ʐ~ɾ x~ɣ l/) and this (/b t d k g m n ɸ~β s~z~r x~ɣ l/). So there's some allophony concerning the sibilant but nothing dental happening there.

The lowland namesake of Mountain Koiari, officially listed as Grass Koiari, seems to add a few more consonants into its inventory having something like /b t d k g m n f v s h ɣ r j/ (might be an approximation, for example I don't know if actually its /h/ = [x]). Still no dental continuants here.
KathAveara wrote:Is it possible to do an analysis of these along the lines of 'If a language has X, it also/normally/sometimes has Y'?
Absolutely, you just need to think how to best draw the borders of the contrastive slots for consonant phonemes between the differnt languages. After that you just calculate Pr(Y|X) or in other words the frequency of the languages that have X also having Y for what ever X and Y you want to look at.

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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by gach »

For some reason I had totally overlooked Yimas which has the consonants /p t c~s k m n ɲ ŋ r ʎ w j/ (12 in total). The palatal stop /c/ has [s] as a major allophone.

The closely related Tabriak language lacks the palatal consonants except for /j/ and has a simple sibilant /s/. On the other hand it's apparently analysed as having a set of prenasalised stops /mb nd ŋg/ pushing it above the threshold of this survey. In Yimas any nasal+stop combination is always simply a cluster.

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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by Tropylium »

I've been looking up allophony for these. Many of these have allophony like [m] ~ or [l] ~ [r] which means it'll be a bit misleading to assert that the language "lacks /m/" or "lacks /r/".

Notation: [A~B] means that [A] and are in free variation. [A B] means that [A] and are positional allophones. Same goes for cases of [A] … in the distance. If two of these occur next to each other, I've marked [A B|C] … [D], where one phoneme is /A ~ B/, the other is /C ~ D/.

Code: Select all

::POLYNESIAN::
Hawai'ian   p   m     n           k        ʔ   v           h l        8
Tahitian    p   m t   n                    ʔ f v           h   r      9
Māori       p   m t   n           k   ŋ      f w           h   r      10
Niuean      p   m[t]  n           k   ŋ      f v    [s]    h l        10
Samoan      p   m                 k   ŋ    ʔ f v     s     h l        10
Rarotongan  p   m t   n           k   ŋ    ʔ f v     s     h   r      12
Tongan      p   m t   n           k   ŋ    ʔ f v     s     h l        12
::OTHER OCEANIC::
Roro        p b m t   n           k        ʔ               h   r      9
Mekeo       p   m t   n           k   ŋ    ʔ f       s       l        10
Lote        p   m t   n           k   ŋ              s   x h l r      11
MussauEmira p   m t   n           k ɣ ŋ        β     s       l r      11
Wuvulu      p b m t   n                    ʔ f w           h l r   j  12

::IROQUIOAN::
Onondaga         [t d]n       ʤ  [k g]     ʔ   w     s     h       j  9
Cayuga           [t d]n ʦ         k     kʷ ʔ   w     s     h   r   j  11
Cherokee        m t   n ʦ         k        ʔ   ɰ     s     h l     j  11   
Mohawk           [t d]n       ʤ  [k g]  kʷ ʔ   w     s     h[l r]  j  11
Oneida            t   n ʦ         k     kʷ ʔ   w     s     h l     j  11
Seneca           [t d]n     ʣ ʤ  [k g]     ʔ   w     s ʃ   h       j  11
Tuscarora         t   n   ʧ       k        ʔ   w θ   s     h   r   j  11
::CADDOAN::
Pawnee      p     t     ʦ         k        ʔ   w     s     h   r      9
Wichita           t  [n]ʦ         k     kʷ ʔ   w     s     h  [ɾ]  j  10
::ALGONQUIAN::
Cheyenne    p   m[t]  n[ʦ]        k        ʔ   v     s[ʃ x]h          10
Menominee   p   m t   n   ʧ       k        ʔ   w    [s ʃ]  h       j  11
Arapaho    [p b]  t   n   ʧ       k        ʔ   w θ   s   x h       j  12

::NASAL-ALLOPHONY AMAZONIAN::
Pirahã      p[b m]t  [n]          k[g]     ʔ         s     h          8
Cubeo       p[b m]t[d n]  ʧ       k            w         x     r   j  10
Xavante     p[b m]t[d n|ʦ~ʧ|ʣ~ʤ ɲ]         ʔ   w    [s]    h   r  [j] 10
Barasana    p[b m]t[d n] [ʧ] [ʤ]  k[g ŋ]       w    [s]    h   r  [j] 10-11
Tuyuca      p[b m]t[d n]     [ʤ ɲ]k[g ŋ]       w     s     h   r  [j] 11
Karajá       [b m]ɗ[d n]  ʧ   ʤ   k            w θ     ʃ   h l ɾ      12
::OTHER AMAZONIAN::
Puinave     p   m t   n           k           (w)    s     h      (j) 7-9
Barí          b m t d             k                  s     h  ɾ r  j  10
Iquito      p   m t   n           k            w     s     h   r   j  10
Tiriyó      p   m t   n           k            β    [s~ʃ]  h [ɾ~ɽ] j  10
Arabela     p   m t   n           k            w     s ʃ   h   r   j  11
Jamamadí      b m t   n      [ɟ]  k       (ʔ)ɸ w     s     h̃[l~r] [j] 11-12
Huaorani    p b m t[d]n      [ɟ]ɲ k g ŋ        w              [ɾ] [j] 12
Ikpeng      p   m t   n   ʧ       k g ŋ        w             l r   j  12

::PAPUAN MISC::
Iau          [b m]t[d n]          k          f       s                6
Rotokas     p b   t d             k g                                 6
I'saka     [p|b m]t[d n]          k         [ɸ]w     s             j  8     
Nasioi      p b m t d n           k        ʔ                          8
Taoripi     p   m t               k          f       s     h l        8
Abau        p   m[t d]n           k            w     s     h[l r]  j  9
AitaRotokas p b m t d n           k g ŋ                               9
Gadsup      p   m t d n           k        ʔ   β                   j  9
Namia       p   m t   n           k            w             l ɾ   j  9
Ekari       p b m t d n           k            w             gʟ    j  10
Sentani     p   m t   n           k          f w           h l     j  10
Koiari        b m t d n           k g        f     ð       h   r      11
Kwomtari    p b m t[ɖ]n           k g       [ɸ β]    s      [ɭ]r      11
Tigak       p b m t   n           k g ŋ              s       l r      11
Awa         p b m t   n           k g      ʔ   w     s         r   j  12
Ese         p   m t   n   ʧ   ʤ   k        ʔ   β     s     h   r      12
Fas         p   m t   n           k        ʔ f w     s         r   j  12
Tifal      [p b]m t[d]n          [k ɣ]ŋ      f w     s       l[ɾ]  j  12
Yimas       p   m t   n  [c]    ɲ k   ŋ        w    [s]      ʎ r   j  12

::OTHER::
Miyako     [p b]m[t d|n]         [k g|ŋ]     f v    [s ɕ|x]    ɾ      9
Keuw        p b   t d             k g          w     s       l     j  10
Maxakali    p[b m]t[d n]          k[g ŋ]   ʔ           ʃ   h       j  10
Palauan    [p b]m t d[n]         [k g]ŋ    ʔ  [w|θ ð]s       l r  [j] 10
Ainu        p   m t     ʦ         k            w     s     h   r   j  11
Irantxe     p   m t   n           k        ʔ   w    [s ʃ]  h[l~r]  j  11
Maranao     p   m t               k   ŋ    ʔ   w             l r   j  11
Warao       p   m t   n           k     kʷ     w     s     h   r   j  11
Bandjalang  p   m t       c     ɲ k   ŋ        w             l r   j  12
Comanche    p   m t     ʦ         k     kʷ ʔ   w     s     h       j  12
Ket        [p b]m t d n          [k g]ŋ  [q ɢ]       s[ç]  h ɮ    [ʝ] 12
Meänkieli   p   m t   n           k   ŋ        ʋ     s     h l r   j  12
(Added Iquito and Meänkieli; left out Karitiâna since WP also report /j/ and /ʔ/.)

Nasal/voiced stop phonemes seem to be quite common; Pawnee and Rotokas are the only examples to truly lack nasality in here. Possibly Keuw, but I can't seem to find what this one even is. Phonation variation is less common, mainly found in Iroquioan; for stops also Miyako, Tifal, Ket and Palauan; Kwomtari has /p/ ≠ /b/ etc. but [ɸ] = [β].

There are several examples of [ɟ] ~ [j] allophony in the Amazonas (Xavante, Tuyuca, Jamamadí, Huaorani, Barasana) and a couple of these also have [tʃ] ~ [s] (Xavante, Barasana). Any other [±continuant] allophony is very rare though. There's one example each of [p] ~ [ɸ] (I'saka), [d] ~ [ɾ] (Tifal), [ɖ] ~ [ɭ] (Kwomtari), [t] ~ [s] (Niuean) [c] ~ [s] (Yimas) and [k] ~ [ɣ] (Tifal again). Also I don't know how Ket works exactly but the surface inventory includes [β ɣ ʁ] coming from somewhere so I'm assuming that's an example of more widespread spirantization.

Other observations: consonants in the palatal/postalveolar stop/affricate/nasal region seem to be almost entirely limited to Iroquioan and Amazonian languages. Menominee and Arapaho have /tʃ/; Yimas and Bandjalang have /c ɲ/; Ese has /tʃ dʒ/.
—It's also interesting how voiced/voiceless contrasts are fairly common but plain/aspirated contrasts are not found at all, especially when /h/ is really common regardless.

I'm tempted to attempt some sort of a cluster analysis next (inventories placed at a distance from each other by the number of differences; something like /m/ versus /m~b/ or /r/ versus /ɾ/ might count for less) but I'd have to look for suitable software first.
Last edited by Tropylium on Wed Dec 25, 2013 1:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Pole, the
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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by Pole, the »

Nortaneous wrote:^ You've never heard of Lau because it's not actually a langu--dammit yes it is. But it has over twice as many consonants as Iau -- /b t d k g kʷ gʷ f s m mʷ n ŋ l r/. Sans-serif fonts make certaln ianguages dlfficuit.

Iau source: http://sealang.net/archives/nusa/pdf/nu ... p29-42.pdf
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Re: A guide to small consonant inventories

Post by Aili Meilani »

RESOLVED WORKSFORME

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