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Meskangela: Difference between revisions
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===Prosody=== | ===Prosody=== | ||
Classical Meskangela is a [[w:Pitch-accent language||pitch-accent]] language. Its prosodic system is characterized by free accent. In lexical words, only one syllable can be tonically prominent. A heavy syllable – that is, a syllable containing a long vowel, diphthong, or a sonorant coda – may have one of two tones, level tone (unmarked) or rising tone (marked). Light syllables (syllables with short vowels) can only be marked (having hugh tone) or unmarked (having low tone, which is considered neutral). Stress is fixed on the root syllable, but words having more than three syllable receive a secondary stress. Such words follow a [[w:Trochee|trochaic]] pattern, for example: སིནྣཾནངཾཏཾ ''sinnanëŋata'' [sin.ˈna.nə.ˌŋa.ta] “I have been reading it”. | |||
The pitch accent remained contrastive in most dialects of Meskangela, as it was in the Classical language: ཅྱེལཾན ''cyelan'' [ˈt͡ɕe.lan] “to spread” ཅྱཱེལཾན ''cyélan'' [ˈt͡ɕe˥.lan] “to scold”, which also contrasts with ཅྱཻལ ''cyēl'' [t͡ɕeːl] “front”. The Southern dialects lost the pitch accent completely: both words became ཅེལེ ''cele'' [ˈt͡ʃe.lə] (however, the former is not used without a fused prefix གཆེལེ ''gchele'' [ˈt͡ʃʰe.lə] “to spread” which was an intransitive verb “to spread out”, but became ambitransitive – a characteristic feature of the Southern dialects). | |||
===Syllable structure=== | ===Syllable structure=== | ||
The typical Proto-Meskangela root syllable consisted of the following structural elements: an onset consisting of a root initial consonant '''C<sub>i</sub>''', optionally followed by a liquid '''L''' or semivowel glide '''G''' (either "j" or "w"); and a vocalic nucleus consisting minimally of a simple vowel '''V''', followed by a final consonant '''C<sub>f</sub>'''. The semivowels could also occur postvocalically, forming falling diphthongs in "-w" and "-j", thus belonging to the inventory of '''C<sub>f</sub>'''. Unlike word roots, prefixes and suffixes followed a different pattern, consisting of a single consonant followed by a vowel '''PV<sub>p</sub>''' or '''SV<sub>s</sub>''' (in case of prefixes and suffixes respectively). Only root vowels could carry vowel length (:) and tone ('''t'''), the latter being a consonantal feature at the Proto-Meskangela stage. There was no contrast between zero-initial *VC and glottal-initial *ʔVC, in such cases the second variant is reconstructed with '''C<sub>i</sub>''' being an obligatory element. of the root syllable. Two non-syllabic suffixes are reconstructible for Proto-Meskangela, *-s and *-n. When added they could have resulted in a forbidden postvocalic sequence of two consonants ( e.g. -C<sub>f</sub>s or C<sub>f</sub>n). For these specific instances the suffixes are instead reconstructed as '''ə<sub>s</sub>S''' with "ə" being a short semi-syllabic element that disappeared in Classical Meskangela and later dialects. In other cases, where a single final consonant suffix is expected, a "hollow" consonant is reconstructed (which in some cases gives rise to tone H<sub>t</sub>, or disappear without a trace H<sub>0</sub>), as in *rjaH<sub>0</sub>ən “to laugh”. In Classical Meskangela the suffix became phonetically identical the C<sub>f</sub>, becoming a part of the root ( e.g. ''gësata'' ← ''*gVsaH<sub>0</sub>t-ʔa'' “he/she kills”. Thus a potential fully inflected word consists of the following elements: | The typical Proto-Meskangela root syllable consisted of the following structural elements: an onset consisting of a root initial consonant '''C<sub>i</sub>''', optionally followed by a liquid '''L''' or semivowel glide '''G''' (either "j" or "w"); and a vocalic nucleus consisting minimally of a simple vowel '''V''', followed by a final consonant '''C<sub>f</sub>'''. The semivowels could also occur postvocalically, forming falling diphthongs in "-w" and "-j", thus belonging to the inventory of '''C<sub>f</sub>'''. Unlike word roots, prefixes and suffixes followed a different pattern, consisting of a single consonant followed by a vowel '''PV<sub>p</sub>''' or '''SV<sub>s</sub>''' (in case of prefixes and suffixes respectively). Only root vowels could carry vowel length (:) and tone ('''t'''), the latter being a consonantal feature at the Proto-Meskangela stage. There was no contrast between zero-initial *VC and glottal-initial *ʔVC, in such cases the second variant is reconstructed with '''C<sub>i</sub>''' being an obligatory element. of the root syllable. Two non-syllabic suffixes are reconstructible for Proto-Meskangela, *-s and *-n. When added they could have resulted in a forbidden postvocalic sequence of two consonants ( e.g. -C<sub>f</sub>s or C<sub>f</sub>n). For these specific instances the suffixes are instead reconstructed as '''ə<sub>s</sub>S''' with "ə" being a short semi-syllabic element that disappeared in Classical Meskangela and later dialects. In other cases, where a single final consonant suffix is expected, a "hollow" consonant is reconstructed (which in some cases gives rise to tone H<sub>t</sub>, or disappear without a trace H<sub>0</sub>), as in *rjaH<sub>0</sub>ən “to laugh”. In Classical Meskangela the suffix became phonetically identical the C<sub>f</sub>, becoming a part of the root ( e.g. ''gësata'' ← ''*gVsaH<sub>0</sub>t-ʔa'' “he/she kills”. Thus a potential fully inflected word consists of the following elements: | ||