This paper is an acoustic study describing the vowel spaces of bilingual Quechua–Spanish speakers in Cochabamba, Bolivia, with a particular focus on the height of mid and high vowels, in order to explore longstanding questions about the nature of Quechua vowel categories. South Bolivian Quechua is generally described as phonemically trivocalic with high-vowel lowering in presence of uvular consonants, but there has been little acoustic study of vowel formant characteristics (Cerrón-Palomino 1987, Laime Ajacopa, Cazazola & Pairumani 2007). The current study quantifies previous impressionistic observations of the vowel system and describes the acoustic properties of the Quechua vowels. Eleven bilingual speakers of South Bolivian Quechua and Spanish were recorded in a Quechua translation task and a Spanish list-reading task. Results of Bayesian models indicate that Quechua high vowels do appear to undergo systematic lowering following uvular consonants, supporting earlier descriptions. The results also demonstrate that lowering is consistent throughout the duration of the vowels, challenging a purely coarticulatory motivation for the observed lowering pattern. The allophonic mid-vowels of Quechua and the phonemic high and mid vowels of Spanish also have formant characteristics that may differ from one another, providing evidence for the hypothesis that these bilingual speakers could potentially command two separate vowel systems with different bases of articulation. These findings are also relevant for questions related to the nature of three-vowel systems, and whether or not they may contain true mid-vowel allophones.

notably different realizations of the vowels). This distinction covers differences in the range of allophonic variation. Incidence: one phoneme rather A diaphoneme is an abstract phonological unit that identifies a correspondence between related sounds of two or more varieties of a language or language cluster. For example, New York may be transcribed phonemically as /nuː ˈjɔrk/ in American English and /njuː ˈjɔːk/ in Received Pronunciation. A diaphonemic transcription such as /njuː ˈjɔrk/ would cover both dialects, as it includes the /j/ absent Phonological: the phonemic inventories and phonotactic restrictions Phonetic: how a given phoneme is realized phonetically (RP and Australian English, for example, have almost the same exact phoneme system but with notably different realizations of the vowels). This distinction covers differences in the range of allophonic variation. Incidence: one phoneme rather than another occurs in a given word or group of words (such as grass, which has the same vowel of farce in RP but not in GA.) Wells expanded on this by splitting up the phonological category into "systemic" differences (those of inventory) and "structural" differences (those of phonotactics). In addition, both Wells and Weinreich mention realizational overlap, wherein the same phone (or a nearly identical one) corresponds to different phonemes, depending on accent. Some examples: [haʊ̯…

A variant pronunciations of a phoneme that occur in specific phonetic contexts and do not change the meaning of a word: #* {{quote-book|en|year=2017|author=Robert Kennedy|title=Phonology: A Coursebook|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9781107046887|page=102 |text=... complementary allophone from the underlying phoneme. In each pair, the unaspirated form has a more general distribution. The aspirated allophone occurs in a very specific set of circumstances: in initial position of a word or stressed }} #* {{quote-book|en|year=2012|author=Irén Heged?s|author2=Alexandra Fodor|title=English Historical Linguistics 2010: Selected Papers from the Sixteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL 16), Pécs, 23-27 August 2010|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing|isbn=9789027248435|page=47 |text=... complementary allophone of /i/, its occurrence being largely restricted to positions before /r, h, hw/. Similarly, the emergence of short 〈aú〉 /ɔ/ was primarily associated with PGmc. /u/ preceding the same three consonants. In Early }}

... different allophones in a range of contexts . For instance , on Whalsay the distinctive [ ë : ~ ] is substituted for realizations ... phonetic effects may be more subtle than for other vowels ( Tait 2000 ) . For certain localities ... The traditional dialect spoken in the Shetland Isles, the northernmost part of Scotland and Britain, is highly distinct. It displays distinct, characteristic features on all linguistic levels and particularly in its sound system, or its phonology. The dialect is one of the lesser- known varieties of English within the Inner Circle. Increasing interest in the lesser- known varieties of English in recent years has brought a realization that there are still blanks on the map, even within the very core of the Inner Circle. Sundkvist’s comprehensive treatise draws upon results from a three- year research project funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, for which a phonological survey of the Shetland dialect was carried out between 2010 and 2012. This book is a useful resource for t