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/u/ fronting and /t/ aspiration in Māori and New Zealand English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2009

Margaret Maclagan ,
Catherine I. Watson ,
Ray Harlow ,
Jeanette King  and
Peter Keegan
Margaret Maclagan
Affiliation:
University of Canterbury
Catherine I. Watson
Affiliation:
University of Auckland
Ray Harlow
Affiliation:
Waikato University
Jeanette King
Affiliation:
University of Canterbury
Peter Keegan
Affiliation:
University of Auckland
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Abstract

This article examines the relationship between the frontness of /u/ and the aspiration of /t/ in both Māori and New Zealand English (NZE). In both languages, these processes can be observed since the earliest recordings dating from the latter part of the nineteenth century. We report analyses of these developments for three groups of male speakers of Māori spanning the twentieth century. We compare the Māori analyses with analyses of related features of the speakers' English and of the English of monolingual contemporaries. The occurrence of these processes in Māori cannot be seen simply as interference from NZE as the Māori-speaking population became increasingly bilingual. We conclude that it was the arrival of English with its contrast between aspirated and unaspirated plosives, rather than direct borrowing, that was the trigger for the fronting of the hitherto stable back Māori /u/ vowel together with increased aspiration of /t/ before both /i/ and /u/.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , July 2009 , pp. 175 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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