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Meskangela: Difference between revisions
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===Prosody=== | ===Prosody=== | ||
Classical Meskangela is a [[w:Pitch-accent language | 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). | 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). | ||