@article{blust2000low,
  check = {blust:2000:low},
  xn-author = {blust, robert a.},
  xn-pub = {Oceanic Linguistics},
  source = {jstor},
  ISSN = {0029-8115},
  abstract = {A number of the languages of northern Sarawak have fronted earlier *a under theoretically challenging conditions. In general, *a has been fronted following a voiced obstruent, subject to various qualifications that are noted in individual languages. This type of change bears a superficial resemblance to vowel raising following breathy voiced consonants in many of the Mon-Khmer languages of mainland Southeast Asia. However, caution should be observed in comparing the two situations because: (1) the evidence strongly suggests that although both fronting and raising are involved, raising is an incidental by-product of vowel fronting in the languages of northern Sarawak, (2) breathy voice is a prosody that spreads rightward until interrupted by certain consonants; in words of the form *CaCaC, however, fronting may skip the first low vowel and target the more distant one, (3) none of the languages in question has ever been reported as having breathy consonants. Finally, although all but one of the nine languages used to illustrate this phenomenon are members of a linguistic subgroup, "Berawan-Lower Baram," differences of detail in the conditioning of vowel fronting suggest that the change was not present in their immediate common ancestor, but was acquired independently in some or all of the languages, a conclusion supported by the discovery of similar changes outside northern Sarawak.},
  author = {Blust, Robert},
  copyright = {Copyright 2000 University of Hawai'i Press},
  journal = {Oceanic Linguistics},
  jstor_articletype = {Full Length Article},
  jstor_date = {200012},
  jstor_formatteddate = {Dec., 2000},
  month = {dec},
  number = {2},
  pages = {285--319},
  publisher = {University of Hawai'i Press},
  title = {Low-Vowel Fronting in Northern Sarawak},
  url = {http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0029-8115%28200012%2939%3A2%3C285%3ALFINS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1},
  volume = {39},
  year = {2000},
}