grammar sketch

Grammatical Sketch of Botolan Sambal by Evan Antworth
Grammar Sketch Analysis

Botolan Sambal is an indigenous language of the Philippines spoken by 30 000 people in Botolan, Zambales.

I learned that phonemes are significant phones (makabuluhang tunog). It can be defined by searching for minimal pairs.

The consonant phonemes given in the book

There are no affricates and dental phonemes.

No minimal pair was given in the grammar sketch so I tried to find some.
/bá.naʔ/ ‘because’ /pá.naʔ/ ‘arrow’
Syllable Structure I learned that syllables are made up of nuclei, which are always syllabic, onsets that precede the nucleus and codas that follow the nucleus. In Botolan Sambal, the nucleus is always vocalic and the onset and coda are always consonantal. Words that start with vowels are preceded by glottal stops /ʔ/.
The syllable structure of native words are VC, CV, and CVC.
CCV can only occur in the word initial or word final of a borrowed word.
/tra.ba.hu/ /pla.ka/ /nirs/
There can be clusters of two consonants across syllable boundaries. /tam.bay/

The vowel phonemes

Front
Central
Back
High
i i u
Low

a

I’ve read that all vowels are syllabic,the sounds that act as nuclei and sonorant, the sounds that are singable because they can stand alone.
There are six diphthongs: /aj/, /ij/, /uj/, /iw/, /aw/, /iw/

[o] and [u] are allophones
/da.mu.ag/ and /da.mo.wag/ both mean ‘carabao’.
/pu.sóʔ/ and /pu.súʔ/ both mean ‘heart’.

[i] and [e] are allophones
/ba.ba.i/ and /ba.ba.e/

Based from the sample words in the book, no two vowels can be placed on the same syllable. The vowel clusters occur across syllable boundaries. /ta.ib/ /ba.iʔ/

Ephenthesis
Epenthesis occurs when a phone is added in a group of segments.
The vowel clusters that occur across syllable boundaries are often ephenthesized. The vowels /i/ or /u/ are often written with the glide /w/ or /j/.
The word /ba.ba.i/ is ephenthesized by adding the glide /j/ before /i/ /ba.ba.i/  /ba.ba.ji/
The word /du.i.an/ is ephenthesized by adding /w/ and /j/ to the vowels /u/ and /i/. /du.i.an/  /do.wi.yan/

Word Stress
Stress is phonemic based from the following minimal pairs:
/hí.ku/ ‘elbow ’ /hi.kú/ ‘I’
/pú.suʔ/ ‘banana’ /pu.súʔ/ ‘heart’
I observed that when a suffix is added to the base word, the stress is passed one syllable to the right.
/gámit/ + /_in/  /gamítin/

Vowel Length
Vowel length is also phonemic. Short and long vowels contrast.
Given the following minimal length pair,
/ma.nu.rúʔ/ ‘to teach’ /ma;nu.rúʔ/ ‘teacher’
/maŋituʔ/ ‘to point’ /ma:ŋituʔ/ ‘one who points’
I can say that long vowels occur between nasals.

Vowel Deletion
Some vowels are deleted when followed by a suffix.
/_an/ + /lubút/  /lubtán/
/ma_…_an/ + /bitíl/  /mabitlán/
I observed that the deleted vowel is the nucleus of the stressed syllable.

The glottal stop equivalent in the written form is a dash –
/pa.naʔ.on/ pana-on ‘time’

Metathesis
Metathesis occurs when segments interchange places. /pahbulin/  /pabhulin/ /mahláy/  /malháy/
Based from the examples, I can say that voiceless, glottal, fricative /h/ should be syllable initial. It probably occurred because the consonant cluster across syllable boundary is composed of /h/, an aspirated sound [+SG] followed by a voiced sound. The reason why that consonant cluster was formed is because of the vowel deletion due to affix addition.

Overall, the Grammatical Sketch of Botolan Sambal by Evan Antworth has been very helpful. It provided ample data on the phonology of Botolan sambal. It presented the phonemic chart of the language. I just think that it would be better if the phonetic chart of the language were given along with the allophones. The minimal pairs given are very few. No rule about allophonic distribution was discussed. The vocabulary words are very limited and some are not transcribed. Some transcriptions are not that clear. Accidental and specific gaps were totally not mentioned. Since I am not a native speaker, I am not really sure if the given information are all correct and it was hard for me to identify minimal pairs to provide supporting details.