10 BUEEAU OF AMEEICAlSr ETHNOLOGY [bull. 40 



Vowels (§§ 3-11) ^ 



§ 3. General Memarks 



The simple vowels appear, quantitatively considered, in two 

 forms, short and long, or, to adopt a not inappropriate term, pseudo- 

 diphthongal. By this is meant that a long vowel normally con- 

 sists of the corresponding short vowel, though generally of greater 

 quantity, plus a slight parasitic rearticulation of the same vowel 

 (indicated by a small superior letter) , the whole giving the effect of a 

 diphthong without material change of vowel-quality in the course 

 of production. The term pseudo-diphthong is the more justified 

 in that the long vowel has the same absolute quantity, and experi- 

 ences the same accentual and syllabic treatment, as the true diph- 

 thong, consisting of short vowel + i, u, I, m, or n. If the short 

 vowel be given a unitary quantitative value of 1, the long vowel 

 (pseudo-diphthong) and ordinary diphthong will have an approxi- 

 mate value of 2 ; while the long diphthong, consisting of long vowel 

 + i, u, I, m, or n, will be assigned a value of 3. The liquid Q) and 

 the nasals (m and n) are best considered as forming, parallel to the 

 semi-vowels y (i) and w (u), diphthongs with preceding vowels, 

 inasmuch as the combinations thus entered on are treated, similarly 

 to i- and u- diphthongs, as phonetic units for the purposes of pitch- 

 accent and grammatic processes. As a preliminary examj^le serving 

 to justify this treatment, it may be noted that the verb-stem lilw-, 

 hilu- JUMP becomes hilau- with inorganic a under exactly the same 

 phonetic conditions as those which make of the stem Jclemn- make 

 Jc.'eman-. We thus have, for instance: 



JiZwa'^s jumper; hila^u¥ he jumped 

 Iclemna'^s msikeT; Ti!ema'''nY he made it 



From this and numberless other examples it follows that au and an, 

 similarly ai, al, and am, belong, from a strictly Takelma point of 

 view, to the same series of phonetic elements; similarly for e, i, o, 

 and il diphthongs. 



§ 4, System of Votvels 



The three quantitative stages outlined above are presented for 

 the various vowels and diphthong-forming elements in the following 

 table : 



U 3-4 



