62 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 191 



Vowels are produced at five contrastive tongue positions and 

 may be either voiced or voiceless: 



High front unrounded, i and i. 



Mid to low front, e and e. 



Low central, a and a. 



High central to back unrounded, a and a. 



Mid to high back rounded, u and u. 



Examples of the five voiced vowels in initial syllables are as follows: 



si again sewi my neck 



sa back s^ua middle 



suw^ yesterday 



Voiced and voiceless vowels are in nearly complementary distri- 

 bution. Relevant conditioning factors include the position of the 

 vowel within larger phonological units, the pattern of suprasegmental 

 features, and the nature of contiguous consonants. Word-final 

 vowels, for instance, are normally voiceless if they are short, un- 

 accented, and not preceded by an unglottalized sonorant which is in 

 turn preceded by a long accented or by an unaccented vowel: 



cinA turkey cd-pi fly 



td-mA five giipi forehead 



Compare: 



sma- louse g^s6 white 



d^a-na four gdnami beans 



There are, however, a number of words containing voiced vowels 

 in environments in which voiceless vowels normally occur. It is 

 because of these occurrences that phonemic significance must be 

 ascribed to voicing versus voicelessness in vowels: 



giidi give it to me mina salt 



sbfga woodpecker kAsdi his foot 



Examples of the five voiceless vowels in final and in medial positions 

 are as follows: 



nati prairie dog kducigdi maybe 



supE / ate ziyucEyA he carried it 



'i'uwakA baby yawAsti stick 



kii-ka winter hacaskdwa willow 



yuku away zlkusd^^wi bridge 



Vowels occur singly or in clusters of two. The following vowel 

 sequences have been recorded: 



iu as in sfuni I know him 



ei as in d^feici pinon pine 



eu as in ceu?u / gave it to him 



ai as in sai all 



Ai as in cikAi he lay down 



au as in hau who 



ui as in §uisi bhiejay 



ua occurring in the data only in pdguara salamander 



