98 3 Phonology
is the appearance of a final-syllable accent on the first component of a
word-pair. The most consistent examples are masculine numeral + noun
combinations, where the numeral typically has an audible final-syllable accent
even when the following noun has initial-syllable accent (so the usual
alternating-syllable pattern of secondary accents should not apply).
(77) maeraw medd-aen
ten men-MaPl
'ten men'
The masculine numerals from '2' to '10' all show this accentual pattern
when preceding the modified noun. However, the dialects differ as to whether
the independent (including phrase-final) form of the same numeral has the
same final-syllable accent as in maeraw (A-grm) or is unaccented as in maeraw
(Im K-d T-ka T-md).
One way to handle the accent in maeraw in (77) is to compare the
masculine and feminine prenominal numeral forms: Fe maeraw-aet, Ma
maeraw. Elsewhere, -aet is a FeSg participial suffix, and the MaSg counterpart
is -aen. The accent of maeraw in maeraw medd-aen would be phonologically
regular if we recognized a virtual -aen, as in /maeraw-aen medd-aen/, with late
deletion of -aen. This analysis is too abstract for a synchronic analysis, but is
suggestive historically.
In addition to (masculine) numeral + noun combinations of the type (77), I
also hear a less systematic secondary final-syllable accent on other two-word
combinations. In (75), for example, I hear a slight accent on the final syllable
of ae-halss, although a noun + participle combination does not normally
function as an intonational phrase.
Frankly, a full analysis of accentual patterning beyond word-level will
require a more detailed study than I have been able to carry out to date,
preferably using instrumental data as well as impressionistic transcriptions,
and ideally covering more than one dialect.
3.4 Ablaut
Prototypically, ablaut (as I use the term here) is a set of processes by which
one noun or verb stem (either fully spelled out, or perhaps in the case of verbs
with underspecified vowels) is transformed into another stem. In the case of
nouns, ablaut can be used to derive a plural from a singular. For verbs, there is
a much richer set of ablaut processes relating the various MAN (mood-aspect-
negation) stems of a verb. There are also several ablaut nominalizations based
on verbs.
Ablaut consists of internal changes, unlike (pure) affixation, but there are
some nominal and verbal stem patterns that involve both affixation and ablaut
in tandem. Much of the fine-grained analysis will be done in the relevant
