3. Vowels
Although Toisan is a Cantonese dialect, its vowel inventory is considerably smaller. I have included all seven of the monophthongal phonemes in the table below.
Additionally, there are four diphthongs: /ai/, /au/, /oi/, /ui/.
Toisan allows nine of the eleven vowels in open-coda syllables. They are illustrated below following the segment [m].
| (26) | /A/ | [mA44] | mother (“mom”) |
| (27) | /i/ | [mi41] | not yet |
| (28) | /u/ | [mu22] | mother |
| (29) | /e/ | [me˘35] | crooked |
| (30) | /o/ | [mo33] | have not |
| (31) | /ai/ | [mai44] | uncooked rice |
| (32) | /au/ | [ma0u011] | Chinese acre |
| (33) | /oi/ | [mo˘i35] | plum blossom |
I found the diphthong /ui/ after having already recorded in the phonetics lab. The examples illustrating this vowel are included in the supplementary sound track, they are the first examples, numbers (45) and (46).
| (45) | /oi/ | [ko0iš11] | this |
| (46) | /ui/ | [kui33] | he |
Four of these vowels are also found in syllables with filled codas; none of them are diphthongs. The vowel [e] does not seem to be present in syllables with filled codas; the vowel [E] is only present in these syllables. The vowel [u] is also absent; the vowel [√] also only appears in closed syllables. I discuss these vowels’ distrbutions more fully in my section on allophones.
These vowels were also recorded as part of the supplementary material. The vowels are listed below as numbers (47) – (51).
| (47) | /A/ | [At|44] | pressure |
| (48) | /i/ | [jit|44] | one |
| (49) | /√/ | [√k|44] | house |
| (50) | /E/ | [Et|44] | accurate |
| (51) | /o/ | [ot|41] | eliminate |
The vowels do seem to move about a little. For example, in (50) above, the first vowel uttered sounds more like [Œ], while the second sounds more like [E]. I have included a contrast of [E] and [A] between the segments [h_m] to emphasize that I think the phoneme is [E]. The examples are numbers (34) and (35) on the tape.
| (34) | /E/ | [hEm41] | sweet |
| (35) | /A/ | [hAm41] |
salty |