Morning 2
Light Ejective Release: In this interview segment, for the first time that she says the word, our table of transcriptions gives Lolly credit for pronouncing the first consonant of this word as an ejective, but it is very lightly ejective. What little ejective release there is to the first consonant in that pronunciation of the word could be mistaken as light aspiration.
The Sound Change of Ejectives Becoming Voiced: What we hear in this interview segment, in the interview segment “Moon”, in the interview segment “He knew it”, and in a number of other interview segments, has to do with the fact that there was a sound change in progress in Coos Bay Milluk whereby ejective consonants were becoming voiced stop consonants. What we hear of the Milluk language from Lolly Metcalf includes the starting point of the sound change, the end point of the sound change, and transitional pronunciations along the way which show up as variation, as the sound change was working it way through the language’s vocabulary.
Instant Phonetic Englishization: k!eh_hlee’_miss, for Lolly’s Coos Bay Milluk version of the word, beginning with a velar consonant, and q!eh_hlee’_miss for Annie’s version of the word beginning with a uvular consonant.
A Heavy Pronunciation of an Ejective: The second time that Lolly says the word in this interview segment the first consonant of this word qualifies as being what we call a ‘heavy pronunciation’ of what is otherwise an ejective. However, rather than being a heavily voiced consonant, like some of Lolly’s other heavy pronunciations of what are otherwise ejectives, it sounds a lot like it is voiceless un-aspirated. Nontheless, we transcribe it as the voiced stop consonant [ g ].