Vowels

The short monophthongs

Varieties in Africa-Asia either retain the 6-vowel system for short monophthongs or transform it into a 5-vowel system. The latter is exemplified by almost all African L2 varieties (except educated varieties of NigE). A 6-vowel system for short vowels is found among all the L1 varieties (WSAfE, StHE, CFE, InSAfE, LibSE), the Asian varieties (IndE, PakE, SgE and MalE; PhlE mesolect) and (with several structural changes) in southern NigE. The 5-vowel short monophthong system is in fact the core vowel system in its entirety for African varieties (except NigE), since (a) schwa is marginal in these varieties and (b) length distinction between vowels is not a general feature. There are two subtypes of the 5-vowel system for short vowels, depending on particular mergers:

Type 1, with merger of TRAP and STRUT is found in BlSAfE, EAfrE, GhE, GhP. Type 2 with merger of LOT and STRUT is found in CamE, Kamtok and NigP.

In WSAfE and CFE though there is a 6-way distinction amongst the short monophthongs, there is a chain shift amongst the front vowels, with each vowel moving one step higher and /ɪ/ becoming centralized . I now turn to the specific characteristics of each lexical set in Africa-Asia varieties. In SgE the DRESS and TRAP classes appear to have merged (to [ε]) (Brown 1988: 134) or in Wee’s formulation there may well be a crossover effect in terms of vowel height, with [ε] for TRAP and [æ] for DRESS. Further research is needed to confirm this crossover of a whole class rather than of individual and isolated words as sometimes happens in other varieties.