Shirt
Listening to Swadesh: Before Swadesh got Lolly Metcalf to say the Milluk word meaning ‘shirt’, Swadesh had asked for ‘headband’, asking if it is something like what Swadesh pronounces as [ hɑˑˈdɑˑwɑs ]. Swadesh pronounces the word again as [ hɑˑdɑˑˈwɑs ]. Swadesh could only have gotten that pronunciation of the word from Lolly in the earlier part of the interview before the tape recorded had been turned on. Swadesh pronounces the consonant that we hear from Lolly as the ejective [ tʼ ] in her third time saying the word, as as voiced stop [ d ]. It is only Swadesh who we hear pronouncing the ejective with what we call a ‘heavy pronunciation’ of what is otherwise an ejective. As we say to the left, what Lolly does the first and second times that she say the word is to pronounce the same consonant as a voiceless un-aspirated stop consonant [ t ].
A Sound Change in Progress: In what we say for the interview segment “He Knew It”, we describe voiceless un-aspirated stop consonants as transitional in the sound change in progress in Coos Bay Milluk whereby ejectives were becoming voiced stops. In what we say for the interview segment “Morning 2”, we say that 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. In the case of the Milluk word meaning ‘shirt’, Lolly has the beginning point of the sound change in this interview segment and the transitional phase as variation, but it is only Swadesh who has the end point of the sound change. That pronunciation, however, is something that he must have gotten from Lolly, before the tape recorder was turned on.
Instant Phonetic Englishization: hah’_t!ah_wahs, for Lolly’s version of the word, but
hah_t!ah_wahs, for Annie’s.
In our table of transcriptions, Lolly Metcalf’s first pronunciation of the word is [ ha·ʔta·was ]², where the [ t ] is specifically voiceless un-aspirated. Then she says the word again as [ ha·ʔta·was ]², where the [ t ] is also specifically voiceless un-aspirated. However, the third time that she says the word, she pronounces it with a rather robust ejective, as [ ha·ʔtʼa·was ]². That is how Jacobs heard Annie Miner Peterson pronounce that consonant. It also happens that the third time that Lolly says the word, she has both a glottal stop before the consonant in question and she pronounces the consonant in question as an ejective. See the interview segment “Salt” where the same thing happens, except that we cannot hear whether Lolly is saying the affricate consonant in that Milluk word as an ejective or not. That, however, may be because in that word it would be the ejective [ tsʼ ] where the fricative release of the affricate makes it hard to hear whether it is an ejective or not, unless the ejective is pronounced very robustly, which is something that Lolly did not do with that word.