Brainard Sherri. The phonology of Karao, the Philippines

The Australian National University, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, 1994. — 266 p. — (Pacific Linguistics: Series B 110).Karao belongs to the Southern Cordilleran subgroup of Northern Philippine (Western Austronesian) languages. It is spoken by approximately 1,300 people who live in villages in the Karao and Ekip 'barangays' (political subdivisions) in the municipality of Bokod in eastern Benguet. Bokod is about fifty-six kilometres east of Baguio, in central Luzon in the Philippines. Karao is most closely related to Ibaloi and Pangasinan.
This study is an analysis of the moraic structure and phonological alternations of Karao. I attempt to show that the mora is the primary organising unit of phonological segments at the word level, and that in the underlying representation there is a single structure consisting of two moras, resulting in a drive towards a preferred closed (CVC) syllable in the surface representation. I argue that the function of phonological alternations is to provide phonetic material for underlying moras thereby allowing the underlying structure to surface. I also attempt to account for phonological alternations characteristic of the language.