jeff_l
(Jeff_L)
#1
3.3 Accent 81
3.3 Accent
3.3.1 Word accent (Default Accentuation)
In my normal transcriptions of word-forms, a phonetic accent may be indicated
by any of the following diacritics, where "v" is the vowel: v, v, or v.
I use ν (acute accent) in four situations, all restricted to word-penult or
-final. First, the accent may be lexically specified, as with many noun stems:
ae-habs 'man'. Second, the accent may be due to an ablaut accent formative
(χ), as in certain stems of verbs (Resit, LoImpfP), but also in some ablaut
plurals of nouns: i-ksd 'he has eaten' (Resit), i-j<111 'he goes' (LoImpfP),
t-i-raddar 'betrayals' (PI of t-a-rdar-t). Third, a marked accent occurs on the
surface stem-final V, in the focal T-ka dialect, when Stem-Final i/A-Deletion
(29) results in an unstable stem-final CC cluster like /jl/ that requires
resyllabification (§3.2.4): Imprt ajal 'go!' (from /aejli/ with no lexical or
ablaut accent). Several other dialects have ajal with no shift of accent. Fourth,
when loss of a penultimate V makes a default-accented antepenult the surface
penult, I use v. This applies to cases of penult Syncope, which does not usually
apply in T-ka but does occur in some other dialects, e.g. (K dialect) LoImpfP
t-ihz-aen 'they-Ma approach' corresponding to unsyncopated T-ka t-lhaz-aen.
As it happens, the accent in t-ihz-asn is on the syllable that already has an
ablaut accent, so perhaps Syncope merely brings out a marked accent that
would otherwise be submerged by Default Accentuation. Loss of penultimate
V also occurs when a stem-final V is contracted with a suffix-initial V. I use ν
in nominal morphology where a V-final stem undergoes VV-Contraction (39)
with MaPl -aen or (rarely) FePl -en. An example is PI i-waer-αη 'baby camels'
with VV-Contraction from /i-waera-asn/, cf. Sg ά-waera. Note that the accent
in i-waer-αη is not lexical (or grammatical). I use ν (see below) in partially
comparable verb forms.
I use ν (grave accent) when the surface accent is compatible with Default
Accentuation (61). On words of three or more syllables, a default accent must
be on the antepenult, and is not affected by anything to its left. If the word has
fewer than three syllables, default accent occurs on the first syllable, but this
accent is not stable. In particular, if the word occurs in a phrase with another
stem or particle to its left, we get a phrasal accent on the final syllable of the
preceding element.
It may happen that the default accent occurs on a syllable that already has
a lexical or grammatical accent; in this event the accent can be thought of as
doubly determined, but I use the ν accent here. An example, already cited
above, is (T-ka) LoImpfP t-ihaz-aen 'they-Ma approach', compare unsuffixed
3MaSg i-t-ihaz 'he approaches'. In other words, the ν accent is used only
when the surface accent of the word is farther right than the position predicted
by Default Accentuation, or (in the case of a word of fewer than three
syllables) the first-syllable accent cannot be overridden by phrasal accent.
