68 3 Phonologynot epenthesis, since it applies even at the beginning of CV-initial stems that
have no need to resyllabify; see §3.4.8 for details.
Finally, there are some CC-final noun stems, mostly accented
monosyllables of the form (C)VCC with nongeminate final cluster, that have
MaPl suffix allomorph -taen (rather than -aen). The result would be a CCC
cluster. If the stem ends in a geminate, it is sometimes degeminated to produce
a pronounceable combination: baeww 'monitor lizard', PI baew-taen. However,
this option is not available for nouns ending in a nongeminate CC cluster.
Informants from the T-ka area occasionally pronounced the triple cluster
without modification, as in lins-taen 'red dyes', but this may have been
"elicition-ese" involving uncommon plural forms. More often, a schwa is
inserted. Example: άητ 'palate', PI aqra-tasn 'palates'. For further examples
involving simple noun stems, see §4.1.2.2. There are also some VCC verbal
nouns that have the same treatment, e.g.idh 'folding', Plldha-tasn (§8.6.1.1).
Some dialects, especially A-grm, have dialectal variants of these stems
with a final V even in the Sg, so the PI is phonologically unproblematic: άητα
'palate', PI άηγα-taen. The R speaker tended to follow T-ka in the Sg forms,
but had several plurals of A-grm type based on stem-variations with final V.
The K-d speaker frequently had the CC-final Sg, but added α instead of a as a
more or less epenthetic V: atayy 'tea', PI atayya-tasn (cf. A-grm PI
i-tayya-taen). So the dialects differ considerably among each other, and even
in T-ka the Schwa-Epenthesis rule is somewhat erratic in its application to
suffixal combinations.
3.2.6 Short-V Harmony
3.2.6.1 Asymmetrical version
Short-V Harmony is a word-internal process, very productive in T-ka and
considerably more restrricted in other dialects. It consists of the shift of the
low short vowel as to high (a). The formulation in (46) is asymmetrical; for a
possible symmetrical version see §3.2.6.2, below.
(46) Short-V Harmony (asymmetrical version, applying only to /ae/)
ae —> 9 before a syllable with a high V {i a u}This applies most consistently in the contexts in (47).(47) a. /-aeC(C)i-/ Shlmpf (including Imprt) verb when resyllabified
as aCaC or when /i/ is realized as a
b. Sg vocalic prefix of noun when reduced from {a- e-} to short
{32 3}
c. Agentive prefix -naes- (in variant -nas-)