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Unlike high vowels and *a, *aː, the other non-high vowels do not have a length contrast in PSWT. Moreover, the length distinction is also absent in OK writing system (Table 2) and in the Sukhothai writing system (Table 3). Although there is no graphemic variation as high vowels, the patterns of correspondence between non-high proto-phonemes and Sukhothai graphemes are not as straightforward. Their correspondences and analyses are summarized in this section. See Maspong (2016a) and Maspong (2016b) for more details on length distinction of non-high monophthongs. 4.2.1 Upper mid vowels

The upper mid vowels are represented by two types of graphemes: those showing a length contrast and those not showing a length contrast. The graphemes in the first group are the graphemes representing (o), namely <--> and <o>. They are graphically distinguished and correspond to different proto-vowels, as in Table 6.

Table 6:Correspondence of graphemes representing (o) with PSWT and OK

Correspondence with proto-short vowel

Correspondence with proto-long vowel

Grapheme Proto-phoneme Grapheme Proto-phoneme PSWT OK PSWT OK

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Figure 3: Type frequency of correspondences of graphemes representing (o) with PSWT and OK

Table 6 and Figure 3 shows that the grapheme <--> corresponds with short vowels *o in PSWT and /ɔ/ in OK, while <o> corresponds with the long vowel /oː/ in OK. As <--> only correspond to short proto-vowels, it is plausible that the grapheme represents a short vowel. I analyze it to be short /o/ and PSWT *o and OK /ɔ/ are realized as a same vowel in the Sukhothai language.

The case of <o> is more complicated, as it only corresponds to an OK vowel. There are two possible analyses. Firstly, the foreign vowel /oː/ was imported together with OK loanwords into Sukhothai vowel system and gave rise to vowel length distinction. The alternative analysis is that it retains spelling from OK, but it is pronounced as /o/ or /ɔː/, which are PSWT vowels, and the Sukhothai language does not have length distinction for /o/ and /oː/. If the latter analysis is true, there should be spelling variation between <o> and other graphemes representing /o/ or /ɔː/. The variation however cannot be found. Therefore, it is more plausible that <--> represents a short vowel and <o> a long vowel and vowel length is contrastive.

The graphemes representing (e) and (ɤ) behave differently from those representing (o), as they do not show length distinction. They correspond to short vowels in PSWT and long vowels in OK. The pattern of correspondence is summarized in Table 7 and Figure 4.

Table 7: Correspondence of (e) and (ɤ) graphemes with PSWT and OK

Grapheme Proto-short vowel Proto-long vowel PSWT OK PSWT OK

<e> *e - - /eː/

<ö> *ɤ - - /ɤː/

Figure 4: Type frequency of correspondences of graphemes representing (e) and (ɤ) with PSWT and OK

We cannot conclude if length is contrastive or not only from the correspondence pattern of upper mid vowels graphemes and proto-phonemes. The distribution of graphemes in different syllable structures is, therefore, needed. In PSWT and Tai languages in which vowel length is phonemic, length is not distinctive in open syllables. To be more specific, only long vowels occur in open syllables (Pittayaporn 2009).

Unlike PSWT phonemes, upper mid vowel graphemes are found in open syllables. If the constraint holds in Sukhothai, it can be concluded that there are long [eː] and [ɤː]. They are all in loanwords, as PSWT does not have long *eː and *ɤː. The question is whether they are phonemic or not. One group of

explanations suggests that vowel length is not contrastive. It can be either that (i) the vowel graphemes might represent only long vowels and short native vowels are merged with long vowels, or (ii) vowel length is predictable with short vowels in closed syllables and long vowels in open syllables. The alternative explanation is that vowel length is contrastive, and each grapheme represents both short and long vowels. The short vowels are in native words and long vowels are in loanwords.

I analyze the Sukhothai language to have length contrast for upper mid vowels following the general trend of Southwestern Tai languages, e.g. Thai and some dialects of Lue. They reflect short vowels for native words with short nuclei and long counterparts are from different sources, which conforms to the situation in Sukhothai. This analysis is more elegant in that the vowel system preserves symmetry of length distinction for vowels with the same height, as /o, oː/ are contrastive for length.

4.2.2 Lower mid vowels

The graphemes representing lower mid vowels do not show vowel length contrast. They are different from <e> and <ö>, as they correspond to only long vowels in PSWT and OK, as shown in Table 9 and Figure 5.

Table 8: Correspondence of lower mid vowel graphemes with PSWT and OK

Grapheme Proto-short vowel Proto-long vowel PSWT OK PSWT OK

<è> - - *ɛː /ɛː/

<ạ> - -

*ɔː

Figure 5: Type frequency of correspondences of graphemes representing (ɛ) and (ɔ) with PSWT and OK

Since they do not correspond to short vowels, it is more plausible that there is no short lower mid vowel in the Sukhothai language and vowel length is not contrastive for lower mid vowels. However, the distribution of the graphs in Sukhothai inscriptions suggests the existence of short vowel forms.

The graphemes <è> and <ạ> co-occur with <ḥ> in two and five words respectively. The <ḥ> coda is only found in non-native words with graphs representing short vowels. Previous studies used this distribution as an evidence supporting length distinction of lower mid vowel (cf. Danvivathana 1981; Jansomwong 1987). However, their alternations are predictable. Therefore, I analyze the short vowels to be allophonic and lower mid vowels are not contrastive for length.