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Bɤtɔh] ‘rock’, [kuruh] ‘teacher’, [apah] Syllable structure and phonotactic constraints 27 ‘what’, and so on, particularly when occurring before a significant pause. This is, however, unrelated to Indonesian words with a final /h/. Pawitra (2009) includes many examples in his dictionary. As touched on in section 2, schwa can occur only in closed syllables, and this includes the higher counterpart [ɨ]; as shown in section 4, the restriction of [] and [ɨ] to closed syllables can induce gemination.

Stevens (1994) attributes this optionality to the fact that the form aki can be more closely bound to the root as a suffix, resulting in [abɤlɤɤki] (in this case), or more loosely bound, almost as an independent word, resulting in [abɤlɤaki]. Phonological processes 41 Note that in the form [ablaki] ‘tell about’, [] is inserted not between two identical surface vowels but between two vowels of one of the alternating pairs, [ɤ] and [a]. This provides additional evidence that in underlying representation the paired vowels are identical.

In [ɛki] ‘tall’, the non-high [ɛ] follows the voiceless unaspirated stop [], but the high vowel [i] follows the voiceless aspirated stop. This is also illustrated by [tittɛl] ‘shake’, in which [i] follows the voiceless aspirated dental stop and [ɛ] follows the voiceless unaspirated dental stop. The rest of the data conform to this regularity. The pattern is illustrated for the other three pairs in (22-24). (22) ɔ ~ u  ɔ p pɔkɔl ‘hit’  tɔḍus ‘embarrassed’ ṭ ṭɔ ‘only’ c cɔɔ ‘look for’ k kɔcɛ’cat’ m mɔsɛm ‘season’ n nɔna ‘young girl’ ɲ ɲɔɲɔr inflammable’   ɔḍɤ ‘young’ l lɔnca ‘jump’ r rɔma ‘house’ s sɔrat ‘letter’ #___ ɔpi ‘screwdriver’ (23) a ~   a p pacɔl ‘hoe’ t ana ‘hand’ ṭ ṭarat ‘scream’ c canḍi ‘temple’ k kapɤr ‘news’ m mand.