Mila: Difference between revisions

A grammatical /a/ can be inserted (which will take the word stress). This is shown in the orthography by placing an acute accent above the consonant it precedes. ''I am hungry'' is for example '''ɷ́on'''. As the acute accent is above the '''ɷ''' we must insert /a/ before this sound. This gives us the modified root of aMPC. Starting from this /a/ we then syllabify /ʹam.bic/. ''You are hungry'' translates as '''ɷón''' will insert /a/ before the second syllable giving the modified root of MaPC which syllabifies as /ʹmap.ca/. And finally ''(s)he is hungry'' translates as '''ɷoń''' giving the modified root as MPaC. Again starting from the left we start with /mV/ The vowel will be /u/ because of the following non-coronal sound, but the /p/ will not complete the syllable, but rather forms the onset of the following consonant, giving the syllabification of /muʹbac/.

There are a number of words with irregular pronunciations which are not indicated in the orthography and a learner must just learn them. The word '''onυ''' can mean both ''book'' and ''ghost''. For the meaning ''book'' it is pronounced regularly as [ʹpiɟ.lɐ]. For the meaning of ''ghost'' it is pronounced irregularly as [ʹpuɟ.lɐ]. It is because of such words that /i/ and /u/ are generally accepted as separate phonemes, however the amount of such irregularities are very limited.