Minhast: Difference between revisions
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The phoneme /f/ is a minor phoneme in non-Stone Speaker dialects and never occurs word-initially. Its occurrence is most noticeable in the nominalizer ''=naft'', although in some dialects, particularly the Lower Minhast dialects, /h/ has started replacing this dialect. In the Gull Speaker dialect, it is /x/ that has replaced /f/ in most of its lexicon, including in the nominalizer ''=naft'', now realized as ''=naxt''. The Stone Speaker dialect, however, has preserved /f/, allowing it even in word-inital position; moreover, it occurs in high frequency, perhaps as a result of influence from a substratum language. | The phoneme /f/ is a minor phoneme in non-Stone Speaker dialects and never occurs word-initially. Its occurrence is most noticeable in the nominalizer ''=naft'', although in some dialects, particularly the Lower Minhast dialects, /h/ has started replacing this dialect. In the Gull Speaker dialect, it is /x/ that has replaced /f/ in most of its lexicon, including in the nominalizer ''=naft'', now realized as ''=naxt''. The Stone Speaker dialect, however, has preserved /f/, allowing it even in word-inital position; moreover, it occurs in high frequency, perhaps as a result of influence from a substratum language. | ||
The phone /ħ/ is a minor phoneme in the Upper Minhast dialects, occurring most often in the Horse Speaker dialect. | The phone /ħ/ is a minor phoneme in the Upper Minhast dialects, occurring most often in the Horse Speaker dialect, although it too occurs in the Salmonic dialects, albeit in smaller frequencies. In the Horse Speaker dialect, /ħ/ preceded by a vowel causes the vowel to lengthen, whereas no such lengthening occurs in the few Salmonic words the phoneme exists. Otherwise, the phone is treated by the other dialects as an allophone of [h], and occurs frequently under predictable phonotactic rules, such as when /h/ geminates, e.g. ''saħħat'' "sharp-edged object", or certain sequences resulting from morphological alternations, as in ''-hyi-'' where the /ħ/ surfaces and geminates, and also triggers the glide /j/ to change to /i:/, e.g. ''wandiraħħīlabu'' ("She began to cry, and still is"), '''not''' ''wandiraħyilabu'. | ||
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